Nostalgia & History > A quick hump

Ever see the apex of a hump?   Lancaster Yard Ft Worth in 1950    T&P NW-2  # 1018 pushes caboose 2403 after the gondola in front has cut loose and started to gain speed.  Behind all this is the yard office.  The small shed in front of the gondola was for the journal oiler to sit while he sprayed oil into the journals which had already had their heads opened by car knockers.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/23/15 20:39 by tomstp.

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 The caboose looks exactly like a Lionel "SP" type caboose.
ALLEN

I'll tell you what is not fun.  Standing there and pulling pins listening to the hump director on a loud speaker telling you how many to skip before pulling the next one.  Actually you don't stand there, you trot back and forth so to pull the pin before there is tension on the knuckles and hold it up until separation begins.  I spent one college summer on the switchman's extra board at CNW's Proviso Yard.  Fortunately I was called to pull pins on the hump only a few times.

1. Here are a couple of hump engines that summer of 1966 at Proviso.  Note the hump signals to tell the engineer what to do.

2. Here is the East Hump at UP's Bailey Yard at North Platte, NE in 2011.

I think we should have saved this until hump day!

Marty Bernard



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/15 00:14 by MartyBernard.

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Good stuff Guys, Thanks!!!

Ah the hump! Where every freight car that is boldly stencilled "Do Not Hump" goes over the hump. lol

ahhhh The Hump !!! what every railroad that has one or more despises because of expense and freight car dwell time ...

Should not be humped?  Yes, they had one of those too, full of whiskey.   Well at least it was full before it went down the hump at about 15 mph and collided with  a string of cars.  They said that place smelled of whiskey for over a week.

It doesn't sound like working the hump would be any fun, but pity the poor journal oiler squirting oil all day...how boring would that be? 

Here (thanks to Google Earth) is what a shot of the hump taken from roughly the same location as the original photo looks like today.  The hump is now part of UP's Davidson Yard, west of downtown, and the Hulen Street bridge (upper) and Chisholm Trail Parkway bridge (lower) cross over the yard at this location.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/15 13:17 by czephyr17.

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