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One of the hump yards in Chicago used to use skates to stop cars or slow them down before coupling I beleive. It is very labor intensive and dangerous. It is still used extensively in Europe where they employ a switchmen to throw skates on the bowl tracks, each guy covers 5 or 6 tracks in a busy hump. These guys throw the skates down right in front of an on coming car 2 or 3 car lengths before a joint ! Some judgement required. ((While these switchmen are coupling with chains between buffers and stopping cars with skates the TGV glides by at a smooth 180 in the back ground on the main !)) <br />The skates have better "braking power" on two axle cars because you got half the weight of the car on. <br />I once saw of a freight in Europe that was stopped some 20km out of town because someone had forgot to remove a skate wich was now red hot under a wheel ! It could have caused a derailment.
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