Eastern Railroad Discussion > B&O Willard Yard was a Rider Hump in Steam Days?

The other thread on hump yards got me to thinking about this.

Some years ago I spoke with a railroadiana collector in Garrett, Indiana that had retired from the railroad. He said he hated railroading (!!) and one of the worst jobs he had was riding cars over the hump in Willard, Ohio during the late steam era.

I was surprised to find out that such a major yard would still be a rider hump yard that late.

Did other roads have rider humps that late?

wabash2800 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The other thread on hump yards got me to thinking
> about this.
>
> Some years ago I spoke with a railroadiana
> collector in Garrett, Indiana that had retired
> from the railroad. He said he hated railroading
> (!!) and one of the worst jobs he had was riding
> cars over the hump in Willard, Ohio during the
> late steam era.
>
> I was surprised to find out that such a major yard
> would still be a rider hump yard that late.
>
> Did other roads have rider humps that late?

If I'm not mistaken, the Pennsylvania had rider humps at certain yards right up until the Penn Central merger. The so-called Standard Railroad of the World was, by its end, far from innovative in that and other regards....

Morrisville, PA was a rider hump right up to M-day. There were others as well.

In my four years as a PRR. Brakemen (1960 - 64) I worked the humps at Waverly, Newark, NJ., and Greenville, Bayonne, NJ. yards as a "car dropper" as we were called by the yardmaster. A lousy job at best, you rode the car down tieing on the hand brake to prevent smashing into a cut of cars, and walked back to the hump shack, and waited for the next car, or cut. There were at least 12 of us to a trick. One time we had four loaded coal hoppers, in which you got two riders on. This cut had stem winder brake wheels, old stuff, we couldn't get them to apply, they got away from us, we jumped off at 12 mph. I sprained my ankle. They smashed into a cut of box cars damaging the draft gear. Ah, the PRR.

Ed K. cp Laurel Run

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Hump yards don't have to be retarder-free "rider humps" for people to get the "opportunity" to ride freight cars down the hill in the line of duty. C&NW's Proviso Yard had been a retarder yard for well over forty years when I hired out, yet I got plenty of rides down into the hole, to tie brakes down on clear tracks. Normally, one of the three skate men on duty each shift would catch rolling cars to tie brakes on them, but if he was otherwise occupied, the hump still needed to keep moving. So we put up with the squealing retarders and the likelihood of cars being put in on top of us to get the tracks tied down properly.