Railroaders' Nostalgia > Hand signals - 9-24-2010

1) BNSF pull CN-IC Yard
2) Easy
3) That'll do. arms dropping

Bob Jordan



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/21/13 18:54 by robj.

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Nice. Man I miss the easy sign. We don't use it where I work now and I used to use it all the time in my former RR life. I think it's a valuable sign but some RRs don't see it that way.

Shoving to the CN

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Hand signals are slowing going away or at least becoming trashy and hard to read. I saw a crew member give a signal a week ago with both hands out to his side, two fingers rapidly touching his thumbs. ?? Looked more like he had something nasty and was trying to get rid of it. I don't know if he had been picking his nose or not. Apparently the engineer knew of this 'signal' however.

Back in my days as a switchman on the Rock Island, that's all we used was Hand signals. We even had hand signals for track numbers. On moves with a lot of cars , the pinpuller would be on top of the first high car passing signals. Used fusees at night for long moves. Rode on top of moving equipment, got on and off moving equipment and never thought anything about it. Ah the good old days!

trainman44 Wrote:
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> Back in my days as a switchman on the Rock Island,
> that's all we used was Hand signals. We even had
> hand signals for track numbers. On moves with a
> lot of cars , the pinpuller would be on top of the
> first high car passing signals. Used fusees at
> night for long moves. Rode on top of moving
> equipment, got on and off moving equipment and
> never thought anything about it. Ah the good old
> days!


You bet!!!!

V

SLOCONDR

Where I work, we still use lots of hand signals, and get on and off moving equipment!

6ET Wrote:
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> Where I work, we still use lots of hand signals,
> and get on and off moving equipment!


And there is no reason NOT to.

V

SLOCONDR

SLOCONDR Wrote:
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> 6ET Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Where I work, we still use lots of hand
> signals,
> > and get on and off moving equipment!
>
>
> And there is no reason NOT to.
>
> V
>
> SLOCONDR

Agreed! When we go into the BNSF yard, we have to follow BNSF rules and stop before getting on and off equipment, it just doesn't feel right...

Posted from iPhone

I once received a back up signal which included a raised middle finger.

Upon asking the switchman about it he said, I was telling you to "back up a**hole" ! It was all in good nature though.

We used hand signals in order to work without being harassed by management. If you use the radio, everyone knows exactly what you are doing. Listening in they know if you stop 50 feet before shoving to a hook, whether you are getting on/off moving equipment, they can figure out everything you are doing. I didn't like being babysat or eavesdropped on so hand signals allowed us to work quickly and without being bothered.

Of course, when the TM gets on you or your crew about something, go to back to the radio and follow every rule to the letter. About 30-50% of your regular work would get done.

Dave

SLOCONDR Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> 6ET Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Where I work, we still use lots of hand
> signals,
> > and get on and off moving equipment!
>
>
> And there is no reason NOT to.
>
> V
>
> SLOCONDR

I LOVE the backup with the middle finger...THAT is going in my playbook!
I don't know if it's a good thing or not, but my rule book still says "Hand signals must be used unless they cannot be seen, and then the radio may be used to control the movement."
WE have a lot of newer wanna be radio personalities where I work--including a few that feel the need to use the radio on light engines backing up. I even had one get on the long hood platform, right down the end of my walkway, and proceed to give me a movement via the radio. I said "get up here in the cab." on the air. He got all huffy with me, saying that it was a shove movement. I told him no it was not a shove, it was "Reverse" to me, and if I couldn't see out my window on a single light engine, I probably shouldn't be the engineer anymore. Some people.
I cannot stress enough the value of a conductor that knows how to give good handsignals. Old heads taught me by yelling at me (a lot) but that was the culture, and I think I learned them a lot faster.

Some of the more interesting hand signals i learned were:
-Rubbing Belly=go to beans
-fists held out ahead of you and turned as if you were breaking a stick in half=breaktime
-pretending you were holding an old vertical telephone handset and making a "Cranking" motion with the other hand=Call the Dispatcher
-while going in for a cut lever (pin as I call it) using the other hand and making a motion like throwing a ball over a net=Gimme a KICK!
-pumping your arm up and down the number of carlengths to a stop-usually used for the 2-1 range before you gave the "Easy" sign.
we had hand signs for all the numbered tracks, of course. Fun part was remembering if I was working in a PRR yard, or NYC yard...and also if your conductor was a PRR or NYC guy. I have worked NYC handsigns in PRR yards, and vice versa. one time I got an E-L guy...I had to stop and walk over to ask him what the hell he was dancing for!
All of this was done with radios hanging on our belts, of course...but like almost everyone else here has said about the old heads, they had this job down to an art form. and they didn't need that radio--unless the engineer fell asleep reading the paper again!

Interestingly, the people that go through engineer training, then get set back to being conductors because they can't work as engineers give WAY better hand signals than regular conductors. Probably because they've been on the other side of the cab.

train1275 Wrote:
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> I once received a back up signal which included a
> raised middle finger.
>
> Upon asking the switchman about it he said, I was
> telling you to "back up a**hole" ! It was all in
> good nature though.


I've got that one middle finger hand signal myself a few times, what I do is step out on the running board pucker my lips like I'm kissing somebody and point to my butt. It says in the rule book any signal is legal as long as all the crew members understand what it means, the understanding was clear.
I work with a great butch of people, we are professional and safe and have fun.

trainman44 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Back in my days as a switchman on the Rock Island,
> that's all we used was Hand signals. We even had
> hand signals for track numbers. On moves with a
> lot of cars , the pinpuller would be on top of the
> first high car passing signals. Used fusees at
> night for long moves. Rode on top of moving
> equipment, got on and off moving equipment and
> never thought anything about it. Ah the good old
> days!

I remember many days of railroading like that. Shoving 40-50 cars and not a radio in sight!