Lousy engineer?

[Mookie]

Now that I told Jim I don't have much time to spend here, here I am again. My puter is unavailable for work, but is available for fun. Smart puter!

Watched several times these last few weeks. Watched the different ways trains are stopped and started. And they have been stopping a lot lately, right in front of me.

Some trains ease to a stop and never make a sound. They start up the same way. But......other trains will come into the throat of the yard at what looks to be a fairly good pace and suddenly - they do practically stop on a dime and the noise is horrible....Start up isn't any better. I can't imagine anyone that works for the railroad thinks this acceptable use of the equipment. So far nothing has broken that I know of, but just seems to be hard on body parts (knuckles and ears!)

Is this possibly a new engineer or just possibly a bad one. Someone who doesn't really care - just get it from point A to point B and if you make a lot of noise, so what?

So talk to me about attitude or is it attitude? Is it incompetence or a natural phenom?

Mookie

[Anonymous]

Mook-

It could be a lot of things. For example, even though an 130 car loaded unit coal train is huge and heavy , if properly handled it can move uniformly almost gracefully. The coal hoppers are alike and weight almost the same amount so when the brakes are applied the amount of slack action in the train is relatively small. Thus, there is usually less noise. Also, the coal loads tend to muffle the noise.

Compare that to a mixed freight train of the same 130 cars. There are 20 loads of grain at the head end followed by 50 empties followed by 15 loaded propane tanks (that slosh like the devil) and 10 loaded centerbeams of lumber and five more empties. Many of these cars are of different lengths, weights and brake valve types. Apply the brakes on this train and there'll be all sorts of slack banging around for a few minutes (yes, minutes, not seconds) by the time you get 'em stopped.

Also, as you mention the engineer could be having a bad day or he could be trying to get the train stopped at a certain spot and need to give them a bit more of an application faster to get the train stopped. On stopping I always go to full service to make sure not only that the train stops, but that it stays put and then we can start tieing handbrakes (me on the locos and the conductor on cars where required by the rules). If it's a step on step off with the new crew it isn't as much of an issue, but I always do what is necessary to keep it safe...

LC

[dehusman]

Being quiet is not really something an engineer is concerned with. The slack and noise a train makes when stopping is a function of its speed, what type of train it is, what type of move is being made, what type of cars it has, how they are loaded, what type of brake shoes are being used and how the train is being handled.

A train of empty covered hoppers with a little slack can be heard miles away. A loaded DP coal train can be pretty quiet.

Dave H.

[Mookie]

Well, as an explanation - the noisy one was an mt coal train - all aluminum cars - and he literally did stop on a dime. They were moving right along and all of a sudden, they were stopped. The loaded coal trains came out of the yard and slowed to a stop and nary a whisper.

An SW10 pulling a long line of freight cars to be shoved back and humped - pulled them out of the yard, stopped and then shoved them back into the yard - w/o so much as a twitch.

So maybe it was the empties that were the problem. It just seems to be something that may be a tad hard on the cars.

Mook

[csxns]

Mookie i see this on the NS and sometimes CSX .

[CShaveRR]

Sis, remember that train that sounded off repeatedly when we were at the crossing? Empty coal gons again...nothing to deaden the noise, and a nice hollow box to serve as an amplifier. Also, the further away you are from the locomotives, the harsher the slack action will appear (and sound). That's why the unions, who fought so hard to prevent elimination of cabooses, were pretty quiet after it actually happened...those things were a big cause of injuries, and slack action was the main culprit!

[Mookie]

Yeah, I remember at this was just about that noisy. But....can a careful engineer keep even an empty coal train from sounding like a war battle? I guess I am looking for are there engineers who can finesse a train when stopping it and others that just never quite get the hang of it?

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Mookie

Yeah, I remember at this was just about that noisy. But....can a careful engineer keep even an empty coal train from sounding like a war battle? I guess I am looking for are there engineers who can finesse a train when stopping it and others that just never quite get the hang of it?

There are some great and not so great Engineers out there. Whether even the greatest can stop some trains without noise, well I doubt it, but maybe. I was always taught that the measure of a great engineer was the ability to stop a train without spilling any soup in the diner. I know of a couple guys like that, but not many. Many more like to bang the cars around a bit. Some will tell you if you don't "get 'em rolling you'll never make a joint" or something similar. Also, a lot of the newer electronic, computer assisted air brake garbage (KNORR and the like) on the newer locos are a real pain when switching tending to give more braking power than the older control stands...thus more noise...

LC

[jeffhergert]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Mookie

Yeah, I remember at this was just about that noisy. But....can a careful engineer keep even an empty coal train from sounding like a war battle? I guess I am looking for are there engineers who can finesse a train when stopping it and others that just never quite get the hang of it?

Yes.

[Anonymous]

Mabe It's just the Railroad Ingeneral.....hehehe.
[bow]BNSF[bow]

[BaltACD]

There are engineers and there are ENGINEERS. Like in any other form of human endeavor some individuals are much better at performing specific tasks than others.

Some engineers are sooth and efficient, gettig their 170 car trains over the road at track speed with next to no mechanical problems....Others have trouble moving 10 cars without braking knuckles, yanking out drawbars and other train handling problems. Some eventually learn to become good engineers....some never do!

[csxengineer98]

alot has to do with how the engineers is bringing his train to a stop...strech braking with the air...will keep the slack out on the cars..and bring it do a nice uniform stop... the same thing when you starting out... all the slack is streched so when the engins start pulling... no slack action..now if you stop bunched up..such as useing DB to slow down... the slack will come in and as it comes in..you will hear slaming sounds...and once you stop.... and then start agin...the engins will pull the slack out..and you get more banging noises.... but the one way to get alot of noise and one hell of a push on the engin is to start to stop streched..and at the last few seconds ....put some engin brake on...you are changing the slack around in...and as your head end slows down..or even stops...the rest of the trian behind you comes in..and kicks you in your ***... your coffiee ends up all over the windsheild...your paper work its the floor...and the conductor reaches for the air hose hammer to beat you over the head with...becouse you woke him up by smashing him agins the door....or desk...depending if your on a wide body loco or not...
csx engineer

[Mookie]

QUOTE: Originally posted by csxengineer98

alot has to do with how the engineers is bringing his train to a stop...strech braking with the air...will keep the slack out on the cars..and bring it do a nice uniform stop... the same thing when you starting out... all the slack is streched so when the engins start pulling... no slack action..now if you stop bunched up..such as useing DB to slow down... the slack will come in and as it comes in..you will hear slaming sounds...and once you stop.... and then start agin...the engins will pull the slack out..and you get more banging noises.... but the one way to get alot of noise and one hell of a push on the engin is to start to stop streched..and at the last few seconds ....put some engin brake on...you are changing the slack around in...and as your head end slows down..or even stops...the rest of the trian behind you comes in..and kicks you in your ***... your coffiee ends up all over the windsheild...your paper work its the floor...and the conductor reaches for the air hose hammer to beat you over the head with...becouse you woke him up by smashing him agins the door....or desk...depending if your on a wide body loco or not...
csx engineer

The visual on this has me laughing!

Mook

[wabash1]

mookie

As csx engineer said it has to do with braking and if you are stretch braking the slack still comes out at some point usually before the cut reached you. ( or train) yes you can be very easy with a train and make very little noise but not everything is cut and dry. there is times, even great and easy engineers will be rough with a train. but remeber one thing we are not working with eggs here and sometimes we must just get the job done and go home. slam bang. and for the guys who say some engineers never made noise or always was smooth. I want to be on that engine when he kicks cars for switching.

[Mookie]

OK - I am convinced. I will just brace myself when they make all that noise and until a coal car actually starts moving in another direction than it should, I will grit my teeth and try to think train control and not damage. I think.

Mookie

[Anonymous]

There are engine runners as opposed to engineers. Most are runners!

[jeaton]

CSX and other engineers can correct me but I believe there are circumstances when it may be necessary to use slack to get a train moving, for example starting a long heavy train out of a hole.

Jay

[csxengineer98]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Mookie

QUOTE: Originally posted by csxengineer98

alot has to do with how the engineers is bringing his train to a stop...strech braking with the air...will keep the slack out on the cars..and bring it do a nice uniform stop... the same thing when you starting out... all the slack is streched so when the engins start pulling... no slack action..now if you stop bunched up..such as useing DB to slow down... the slack will come in and as it comes in..you will hear slaming sounds...and once you stop.... and then start agin...the engins will pull the slack out..and you get more banging noises.... but the one way to get alot of noise and one hell of a push on the engin is to start to stop streched..and at the last few seconds ....put some engin brake on...you are changing the slack around in...and as your head end slows down..or even stops...the rest of the trian behind you comes in..and kicks you in your ***... your coffiee ends up all over the windsheild...your paper work its the floor...and the conductor reaches for the air hose hammer to beat you over the head with...becouse you woke him up by smashing him agins the door....or desk...depending if your on a wide body loco or not...
csx engineer

The visual on this has me laughing!

Mook

i have some first hand experince with the slack running in...lol..when i was trainning to be an engineer...i was stopping useing the streckbrake meothod for a helper to attach to the rear end..well..as we where slowing down...i was doing fine.... but when we got to about 3 or 4 mph..i started putting on the engin brakes.... about 10 seconds later... 9000 tons of train slamed into our head end... we where in a wide body loco...and the engineer that was my instructor was standing up..with his hands on the controll desk..and the conductors desk... when the train ran in... he was throw almost into the windshield...and stuff flew all over the cab........
he looked at me..and said "what the F*&K did you do!!!!....you where messing with that engin brake wernt you" ...i said yes...and he said..dont do it agin....from that day on...i never ever did that move agin.... i learned the hard way...but i learned.... lol
csx engineer

[csxengineer98]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jeaton

CSX and other engineers can correct me but I believe there are circumstances when it may be necessary to use slack to get a train moving, for example starting a long heavy train out of a hole.

Jay

yea..sometimes you ahve to take slack to get a train moving.... if you got a heavy train and the power sucks... you sometimes have to back up..bunch all the slack up... once the HTD tells you the EOT is moving..you stop..and start pulling in the other direction.... the theroy behind it is.... insted of trying to start the train all at once...your getting the train rolling 1 car at a time... and mometom takes over.... sometimes it might take 1 or 2 times of taking slack to get the train all moving..... but i know a story of an engineer that had to take slack countless times to get over a hill....took him about 2 hours to go 2 tenths of a mile to get the train started over the hill.... but the only way he could do it was to keep taking slack...ther was no place to double the hill...or a helper avaliable

csx engineer

[Anonymous]

Before the UP SP merger I worked at Rail Bearing Service in North Little Rock. Everyday an SP train came into the UP yard leaving and picking up cars. The engineer was an older looking, white haired man. He most always had the same one of two engines with the lead loco an older GE (needing some touch up on the paint). Even if I could not see his train I alway knew when he came by our shop. He made enough noise to wake the dead, and he did it EVERYDAY. Many times he would wait for a signal right behind our shop and when he stopped/started you would think WWIII also just started. [}:)] [}:)] [}:)]

[Anonymous]

First of all, there are good and bad engineers, but I think that until you try it out for yourself, you should should not comment on the subject. And no, microsoft train simulator does not count.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by rgemd

First of all, there are good and bad engineers, but I think that until you try it out for yourself, you should should not comment on the subject. And no, microsoft train simulator does not count.

Been doing it for years, what's your point??

LC

[Anonymous]

My point was that no matter how good of an engineer anyone is or was, sometimes s*** happens, and that only another engineer would know that now matter how careful a train handler you are you are going to knock em around once in a while.

[csxengineer98]

QUOTE: Originally posted by rgemd

First of all, there are good and bad engineers, but I think that until you try it out for yourself, you should should not comment on the subject. And no, microsoft train simulator does not count.

first of all...there are good engineers and bad engineers.....this is ture...but even a good engineer has a bad day......
second...all trains ARE NOT created equal..so what you do with one train..may not work..or be wise with another train......
3rd...evey engineer has his/her own style of doing things.... the rules tell us what we can do... and what not to do... but how you imply the train handeling technecs is all up to the engineer...what i do..may not be what limitedclear would do on his train...and visa versa...we all have our own way of running... and as you work on your own......you develop your own way doing things to handel your train.... that is why the rail roads want to put you with differnt engineers while your training... so you learn all difffert ways of doing things....and be able to put together your styel after your promoted.....
csx engineer

[Mookie]

Well, now that I created a monster let me take it a little further. Granted there are good and bad in every job, but I would think that if equipment is being abused unnecessarily, someone a little higher up would say/do something. Maybe railroads are different.

And.....heard many years ago, when the signals were changed by hand, you would sometimes come upon a signal that would go red and not give you a lot of time to get stopped. Has this changed with the modern signalization and does this alleviate the problem of having to "stop" suddenly (at a low speed of course). I am at the middle to rear of a train and it suddenly runs together and stops. Could it possibly be due to signal change all of a sudden?

Mook

[wabash1]

Mookie

The sudden signal change can affect train handling. but from what i gather in post you have made is that you are in yard limits and things change ( and not all railroads treat the rules the same) I will steer clear of the signals because if it changes you must adjust your train accordingly. but in what you say about the noise metal against metal will make noise as i said before this is not egg shells we are working with. the jars from coupling movers and switching at low speeds is no more demanding than the forces apply to them at track speed . a move i do which would sound terrible to a railfan watch me yard a train is something i learned from a few ole head engineers when i was conductor and have used over the many years of engineering. i may be pulling my train thru the yard and during the count down to a stop i might apply 1st service around 10 cars to go. as they are slowing down i might be running around 7-9 mph at 5 cars and ill get a notch on the throttle and draw a little more air ( a total of 10 pounds is enough) as they slow i might be doing 3-5 mph at one car to go when i get the half a car i knock the throttle off and apply the engine brake. all slack runs in and we stop. no slack runs out due to the train line drawed down. WHY you might be asking. i have yet for a conductor to ask for slack to make a cut. I dont have to shove 2-3 cars back of slack to make a cut stop the move then start again pulling .all i do is take off when the conductor tells me to. and one other thing i have noticed and it sounds horrible is the slack action when someone takes off with ge units. Meaning a GE unit wont load much in notch 1 and to me is a waste of time i go straight to notch 2. alot of our guys do this. and it does rattle a few things when they take off. but we have not torn anything up yet....

[Anonymous]

Absolutely, just gotta keep 'em on the rails. As long as I'm not beating up my conductor riding the shove, I have no problem with a little thumping, banging and screeching. That's freight railroading.

LC

QUOTE: Originally posted by rgemd

My point was that no matter how good of an engineer anyone is or was, sometimes s*** happens, and that only another engineer would know that now matter how careful a train handler you are you are going to knock em around once in a while.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Mookie

Well, now that I created a monster let me take it a little further. Granted there are good and bad in every job, but I would think that if equipment is being abused unnecessarily, someone a little higher up would say/do something. Maybe railroads are different.

And.....heard many years ago, when the signals were changed by hand, you would sometimes come upon a signal that would go red and not give you a lot of time to get stopped. Has this changed with the modern signalization and does this alleviate the problem of having to "stop" suddenly (at a low speed of course). I am at the middle to rear of a train and it suddenly runs together and stops. Could it possibly be due to signal change all of a sudden?

Mook

Mook-

Signals are a whole different kettle of fish. What you are describing sounds like a typical stop by a mixed freight train. When I (or csxengineer98 or any other engineer) applies the train (air) brake, air is released from the brake pipe at the locomotive. That means the brakes in each car begin to apply at the head end and move towards the rear of the train. That means the head cars slow down faster than those behind them and those rear cars push into the cars in front of them causing the banging noise you are hearing. This is sometimes known as the slack running in.

Since you asked about signals I will tell you a favorite story of mine. When I was a pup (Engineer Trainee) on my qualifying promotion ride I went out on a long distance local (turn job) with my engineer and the Division Road Foreman with me in the lead unit and my conductor in the rear unit. We only had about 25 cars. I'll limit this story to only the signal part of the trip. As you can imagine, there was a LOT more. It was raining that night...

We had just come down off the hill (25mph) and passed the distant signal, showing an approach medium aspect (amber over green), allowing us to approach the next signal at medium speed (30mph). We came through town and our train was pushing us a bit but we held speed fine. We swung across the river bridge, the speed limit rises to 40mph on the far end, and I began looking for the home signal at the interlocking as I started winding on the dynamics. The DRFE gave me a stern look and said "What the hell are you slowing down for? Speed's 40 here". I knew we had prior problems with this home signal "flipping" on us and I was not giving up my promotion by sliding us by a red board. The signal was less than a mile from us now. I said "Just a second, sir", and watched as the two headed signal flipped through all three aspects, clear, approach and stop signal twice ending at the fail safe stop signal. Needless to say, by the end of the first flip I had the dynamics to notch 8 and full service on the air. We came to a stop about 30 feet on the right side of the signal. After a sigh of relief and a quick bathroom break all around, the DS talked us by the signal and we were on our way again. The DRFE said very little else to me for the remaining three hours of the trip. He did thank me for a great ride at the end when he signed my temporary Engineer's card.

Oh, and if the cars banged together much, I didn't really notice...

LC

[Mookie]

LC and Wabash - thanx guys - I think I have a pretty good handle on this now. I remember something about getting a red signal thrown right in front of you and having to hustle to get the train stopped, but not the details. He never got past a red board, but did some pretty fast manuevering to get it shut down.

You are right - I am watching trains come into the yard and often wonder if they stop for a crew change or because of a signal within the yard. And - Wabash brought up a good point - I will have to watch the head end and see if they are Dash 9's or EMD's.

I really don't have a preference either way, because I don't have to work with them, but they really do sound and react differently - and I can tell it from the right seat on Millie.

So far all the noisy ones have been coming into the yard and seem to have the headend stopping somewhere in the yard itself and we are left to watch the tail.

Someday I will get to watch the other end!

Mookie

[BaltACD]

Back in the day of Cabooses on trains, Conductors and Flagmen could certanily tell who were the GOOD and the BAD engineers were....If you could keep your teeth in you mouth and your postier on the the seat cushions, then you were riding behind a good engineer. With a bad engineer you got knocked all over the cab with every feature of the route that would cause a change in slack in the train.

The old time conductors had long lists of who they prefered to work with and those they didn't want to work with....SELF PRESERVATION!