Trains.com

Subscriber & Member Login

Login, or register today to interact in our online community, comment on articles, receive our newsletter, manage your account online and more!

When to use the bell

2810 views
11 replies
1 rating 2 rating 3 rating 4 rating 5 rating
  • Member since
    April 2012
  • From: Huron, SD
  • 1,016 posts
Posted by Bayfield Transfer Railway on Friday, January 29, 2021 3:32 PM

I don't know which yard in Milwaukee my friend was at, we were too young to think about such things.  But he mentioned that they were not the only switcher, and that there were a lot of trains moving through/by as well.

 

Disclaimer:  This post may contain humor, sarcasm, and/or flatulence.

Michael Mornard

Bringing the North Woods to South Dakota!

  • Member since
    October 2008
  • From: Canada
  • 1,820 posts
Posted by cv_acr on Friday, January 29, 2021 10:14 AM

dehusman

Or you could just ring it when required:

MoPac UCOR 1968 :

Rule 30:  Ringing Bell - Except where the momentary stop and start, forward or backward, are a continuous switching movement, the engine bell must be rung when the engine is about to move, and while approaching and passing public crossings at grade, stations, and through tunnels.

Minimally - Yes

About to move - Yes (unless  its switching, then not required)

Passing standing trains - Not required.

Shoving cars - Not required

Approaching station - Yes

Crossing public road - Yes

Crossing parking lot, private road, driveway apron - Not required

Whatever the heck you are talking about with the F3's - Not required

5 track yard - Not required while switching.

In my Canadian 1962 UCOR rule 30 is followed by rule 32:

"The unnecessary use of the whistle or the bell is prohibited. They will be used only as prescribed by rule or law, or to prevent accident."

Rule 30's text in the Canadian book varies a little as follows:

"The engine bell must be rung when the engine is about to move; while moving about stations; while passing a train standing on an adjacent track; and 1/4 of a mile from every public crossing at grade (except within the limits of such towns or cities as may be prescribed in special instructions) until the crossing is occupied by engine or freight cars."

re: continuously ringing bells... if you're operating in a busy area with a lot of traffic or people moving around on the ground the bell may be justified as a warning device to industry workers on the ground. If you're switching a yard or the back side of an industry, not needed.

  • Member since
    October 2016
  • 80 posts
Posted by doublereefed on Thursday, January 28, 2021 8:29 PM
NHTX, Dave - yes thank you for that info and comment. Good to know that fwd and rev aren't blown every time a loco moves in a switching move. Serenity now! :)
  • Member since
    September 2003
  • From: Omaha, NE
  • 10,621 posts
Posted by dehusman on Thursday, January 28, 2021 6:30 PM

Some engineers ring the bell more than others.  If you want to ring the bell the entire time you are running trains on your layout, have at it.  Its your sanity.  All I can do is quote the rules and tell you what my experience was. 

The rules on bell ringing are not that far apart over a hundred plus years.

P&R 1894 rules:

69.  The engine-bell must be rung before starting a train, and when running through tunnels and streets of towns or cities.
70.  The engine-bell must be rung for a quarter of a mile before reaching every road crossing at grade, and until it is passed; and the whistle must be sounded at all whistling-posts.
GCOR 2011:
Rule 5.8.1  Ringing Engine Bell
Ring the engine bell under any of the following conditions"
- Before moving, except when making momentary stop and start switching movements.
- As a warning signal anytime it is necessary.
- When approaching  men or equipment near the track.
- Approaching  public crossings at grade with the engine in front start signal at the crossing sign.  If no sign, or if movement begins between sign and crossing, start signal soon enough  before crossing to provide warning.  Continue ringing the bell until the crossing is occupied.

Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com

  • Member since
    February 2015
  • 869 posts
Posted by NHTX on Thursday, January 28, 2021 6:02 PM

"Was forward (oo) and (ooo) blown every single time on switching moves?"

      Absolutely not.  A review of six prototype railroad rule books from a 1937 New York Central to a 1985/1986 General Code of Operating Rules confirmed there is no requirement for two or three horn blasts every time a locomotive moves.  It does not mean "I'm about to move forward or backward, east or west", or any other direction.

     The three shorts (ooo)  indicates when a train is standing, back up.  The 1985/1986 GCOR  defines three shorts  or, Rule 15f, as "Acknowledgment of Rule 8 (d), which is the hand signal for train and engine movements to back up".  It is also the answer to Rule 16(c), the communicating whistle signal when a passenger train is standing, to back up or, when running, Rule 16(d), stop at the next station.

     The advent of sound in model locomotives has fostered a false requirement that every time a locomotive moves in either direction, the horn must sound either two or, three short blasts, depending on direction.  Imagine a large yard with three or four switchers working, blowing their horns each time they began to move!  Sheer bedlam would result in action by the local authorities in the form of a cease and desist order to eliminate the noise pollution.  The "authorities" could be city hall, the county court or-your significant other.

 

 

[/quote]e

  • Member since
    October 2016
  • 80 posts
Posted by doublereefed on Thursday, January 28, 2021 4:10 PM

Dave and Bayfield... interesting to go read that entire link. Rule book is relative it seems. Combined with the comment that the bell never stopped ringing...

  • Member since
    April 2012
  • From: Huron, SD
  • 1,016 posts
Posted by Bayfield Transfer Railway on Thursday, January 28, 2021 3:31 PM

I agree with Dave, check your rulebook.

A friend of mine in high school spent a day at work. with his uncle who was a Milwaukee Road engineer in a yard in Milwaukee.  He said the bell rang non stop and drove him crazy.  For what it's worth.  This would have been about 1972.

Disclaimer:  This post may contain humor, sarcasm, and/or flatulence.

Michael Mornard

Bringing the North Woods to South Dakota!

  • Member since
    September 2003
  • From: Omaha, NE
  • 10,621 posts
Posted by dehusman on Thursday, January 28, 2021 3:28 PM

Or you could just ring it when required:

MoPac UCOR 1968 :

Rule 30:  Ringing Bell - Except where the momentary stop and start, forward or backward, are a continuous switching movement, the engine bell must be rung when the engine is about to move, and while approaching and passing public crossings at grade, stations, and through tunnels.

Minimally - Yes

About to move - Yes (unless  its switching, then not required)

Passing standing trains - Not required.

Shoving cars - Not required

Approaching station - Yes

Crossing public road - Yes

Crossing parking lot, private road, driveway apron - Not required

Whatever the heck you are talking about with the F3's - Not required

5 track yard - Not required while switching.

 

Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com

  • Member since
    October 2016
  • 80 posts
Posted by doublereefed on Thursday, January 28, 2021 3:08 PM

JaBear, thank you for the link to that thread. Great stuff! OF COURSE I'm not the first person to ask this question, should have used the search feature first.

 
That said, after reading the thread, here is how I think I will use the bell on my switching layout:
 
  1. Minimally. (A little bell gets old fast.)
 
  1. Whenever a standing locomotive (a locomotive that is not currently involved in a move) is heading off in either direction.
 
  1. When passing other standing trains (such as at the run around)
 
  1. When backing/shoving cars into a siding or stub where the train is traveling backwards, car first. (Probably keep it ringing while switching my typically two stub track and/or or 3 car industries.
  2. Approaching station.
 
  1. Operating on apron/street/parking lot where the tracks are embedded in the road surface.
 
  1. The entire time that badass F3 ABBA lash up shows up in my little terminal as it pulls the interchange cars into the local yard. On my fictitious road, the Midway Navigation Company which started as a regional steamship ferry and haulage service, the interchange with the SP was 5 miles down the canyon. The region boomed and to serve these industries the steamship company built a railroad to serve the region, and ran a line down the canyon to an interchange with SP. (Which the SP fought massively but lost, they having wanted to run their own line to the region.) Pre WWII the shortline would go get those cars at the interchange, usually with a big Connie. The railroad wasn't managed well, was eventually sold into a co-op of the industries it served. As WWII started, the nation needed the products (lumber, wheat, food packing) of the region and the output of the industries was greatly increased. The railroad was in no shape to handle this great increase efficiently, if at all, and the SP got their revenge when they were able to get the USRA to put MNC under SP management for the duration of the War. We now see MNC in the boom decade after WWII, still poorly capitalized, steam engines on their last legs, early diesel switchers leased in from the SP. And to get back to my original point, whatever is hauling the mainline freight now cuts off the MNC cars for interchange and then hauls them the 5 miles to the MNC yard, a practice left over from when SP ran everything and owing to the fact that the existing MNC road worthy steam locoomotives... aren't. Hence, frequently, a nice big F3 ABBA consist rolls into the yard with the interchange train in tow while demanding the attention of even the most jaded locals. The consist then cuts off, hits the diesel servicing facility (built by the SP during WWII), then rolls back out of town with as much noise as possible. When the regional cars are ready to be pulled back to the interchange, those big road engines come back and pick it up. I worked really really hard to figure out some way for an F3 ABBA set to show up on a 14' switching layout, didn't I?
 
  1. Not sure how I will use it in my 5 track yard. There's a lot of switching going on there that meets one of the above criteria. I may just use it for the first moves and then turn it off, even though in practice it might have been left on.
  • Member since
    September 2003
  • 21,669 posts
Posted by Overmod on Thursday, January 28, 2021 1:54 PM

As I recall there were some experiments in the '60s with the 'aural equivalent' of flashing beacons or strobes to let switch men know where locomotives were moving when invisible from the ground in yards.  As I recall they rapidly became 'noise pollution' -- and the dangerous points are the silent ends of shoves, for which there is little 'technological' solution.  Bells, as noted, are either to call attention to a locomotive that is about to move, or warn that it is moving.  In the days before Federal assertion of most railroad safety, there was a railroad in Mississippi which, as part of a court sentence, was required to sound bells within particular city limits -- they rigged a trip to the wheels that rang the bell continuously whenever the engine was in motion.  I'm glad I didn't live there then...

The whistle signals are intended as warnings which way the train is about to move.  I witnessed a delightful performance by a railroad Gradall (which as I recall was black with a PRR keystone on the cab) sounding a continuous string of little stops, forwards, and reverses on the little truck horn as the rig moved while digging.  It had never occurred to me before that whistle signals applied to off-track equipment...

  • Member since
    August 2011
  • From: A Comfy Cave, New Zealand
  • 6,250 posts
Posted by "JaBear" on Thursday, January 28, 2021 1:24 PM

"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."

  • Member since
    October 2016
  • 80 posts
When to use the bell
Posted by doublereefed on Thursday, January 28, 2021 12:58 PM

I have a switching layout, a few questions:

Was forward (oo) and reverse (ooo) blown every single time on switching moves?

When is the bell used in practice? I can't imagine they rang the bell the whole time they were switching in a yard? 

 

Subscriber & Member Login

Login, or register today to interact in our online community, comment on articles, receive our newsletter, manage your account online and more!

Users Online

There are no community member online

Search the Community

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Model Railroader Newsletter See all
Sign up for our FREE e-newsletter and get model railroad news in your inbox!