Eastern Railroad Discussion > Question about dual purpose car movers

I'm noticing a lot of industries using the rubber tired little switchers that can run both on rails and roads to move cars around on their property. Do these switchers use the cars' air brakes or their own brakes to stop? The reason I ask is this evening I witnessed a cut of 4 covered hoppers push one of these switchers completely though a chained gate (destroyed the gate) and out onto the siding when the operator was unable to get them stopped.

Posted from Android



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/01/15 19:41 by Gumcoach.

The one I have seen at the salt mine in Kanopolis KS (we call these Monkey-Ward Switchers) has air hoses and brake valve to operate train air and handles around 7 loads at a time.  Maybe the incident you witnessed, the operator didn't have the air cut in.
Brian Stevens

They have an air hose and can use air braked, moat places don't cut the air in though and bleed the cars off cause they are easier to move and require less work to do so, if those cars are loaded though, those dingys won't stop those cars for sh*t

Posted from Android

SlipperyWhenWet Wrote:
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> They have an air hose and can use air braked, moat
> places don't cut the air in though and bleed the
> cars off cause they are easier to move and require
> less work to do so, if those cars are loaded
> though, those dingys won't stop those cars for
> sh*t
>
> Posted from Android

my observation also altho some do use the air ...

I talked to the CSX crew who was came to push the cars back into the plant and was told it was "inexperienced operator error" with a smile and a laugh. I was going to snap some pictures of the aftermath but didn't want to cause the poor guy any more problems or stress.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/02/15 05:56 by Gumcoach.

This is why industry tracks should have derails installed, preferably a double switch point derail.

kevink Wrote:
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> This is why industry tracks should have derails
> installed, preferably a double switch point
> derail.

Which also leads to another point. There is a busy street that crosses the siding less than a 100 feet from where it ended up stopping. The crossing lights never activated. I think they are on a manual switch. Worst case scenario he doesn't get the thing stopped and he hits a car. The liability in such a case would be huge I would think.

This month's Trains mag had a write-up on one of these.
The coupler could raise (an inch or two) to "borrow" as much as 46k lbs from the connected rail car. This could be done with a car on both sides ( if in between two railcars) to gain 92k lbs additional weight for traction.
It has air compressor and could use railcar brakes, if connected..
Pretty neat little things.

Posted from Android



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/02/15 15:47 by steve_misky.

Trackmobiles are very versatile and effective. I know of one auto shredding plant that moves fairly heavy cuts of scrap with those things. In order to stop the cut, the operator dumps the air every time. I suppose the operator mentioned above will take time to cut the air in from now on.