Set out cars from a unit train.

[Murphy Siding]

     We got 2 cars of lumber in yesterday. Usually they arrive on the local, just behind the engines. Things might have been a little hectic on BNSF as the cars showed up an extra day late, at the head end of a loaded ethanol unit train. I presume that the crew has to tie down some brakes on cars once they break the train? On flat ground, with a mile long loaded train, how many brakes would normally have to be set?

[BaltACD]

Murphy Siding

     We got 2 cars of lumber in yesterday. Usually they arrive on the local, just behind the engines. Things might have been a little hectic on BNSF as the cars showed up an extra day late, at the head end of a loaded ethanol unit train. I presume that the crew has to tie down some brakes on cars once they break the train? On flat ground, with a mile long loaded train, how many brakes would normally have to be set?

As many as the TTSI for the territory require.

[SD70Dude]

It depends.  I have no idea how BNSF's operating rules and American regulations work, so I'll tell you what we would do on CN in Canada.  

Our current rules require that handbrakes be applied anytime equipment is left unattended on the main track, the minimum number of handbrakes being determined by the tonnage/grade chart in Rule 112.  CN defines "unattended" to mean anytime an employee is not within arm's length of the cars, so handbrakes would be required in your example.  

Before the Lac-Megantic disaster and all the resulting rule changes we were allowed to leave cars unattended without handbrakes as long as there were more than 10 cars, they were left in emergency or full service and vented from a full charge, and were left on a grade of 0.7% or less.  Under that rule no handbrakes would be required in your example.

In reality, if you leave a train of properly maintained cars in emergency from a full charge in weather that is not bitterly cold, the air brakes will hold it for days, maybe weeks or months.  Applying handbrakes in your example is just a formality to comply with the rule, it is not actually necessary to keep the train from moving.

[Paul Milenkovic]

SD70Dude

It depends.  I have no idea how BNSF's operating rules and American regulations work, so I'll tell you what we would do on CN in Canada.  

Our current rules require that handbrakes be applied anytime equipment is left unattended on the main track, the minimum number of handbrakes being determined by the tonnage/grade chart in Rule 112.  CN defines "unattended" to mean anytime an employee is not within arm's length of the cars, so handbrakes would be required in your example.  

Before the Lac-Megantic disaster and all the resulting rule changes we were allowed to leave cars unattended without handbrakes as long as there were more than 10 cars, they were left in emergency or full service and vented from a full charge, and were left on a grade of 0.7% or less.  Under that rule no handbrakes would be required in your example.

In reality, if you leave a train of properly maintained cars in emergency from a full charge in weather that is not bitterly cold, the air brakes will hold it for days, maybe weeks or months.  Applying handbrakes in your example is just a formality to comply with the rule, it is not actually necessary to keep the train from moving.

 

 

Bear with me people, this is not off  topic.

Over at the Professional Pilots' Rumor Network (pprune.org), there was a discussion of a twin-engine "heavy" cargo jet (a Boeing "triple 7") that came near falling-out-of-the-sky by approaching a stall condition, that the crew countered by taking it out of autopilot and descending to pick up speed.  They were plenty high enough that they were not at risk of crashing, but they could have crashed if the situation had gotten out-of-hand.  They had air traffic control nagging them, "(name of airline), are you able to climb?" as a way of saying, what's with you guys that you are descending instead of climbing to your assigned altitude, but air traffic control could have kind of figured that they were in some minor trouble by having slowed down too much and they were descending to recover some speed to save themselves.

There was the usual back-and-forth from the pilot know-it-alls about what the crew should-have-done, much like the railroad people in this place, and the biggest, baddest, Boeing 777 know-it-all-of-them-all commented on his You Tube "channel", posted as one of the comments.

Just like videos posted of railroad "incidents", there is this guy who posts the radio transmissions and flight-path reconstructions of aviation "incidents" -- someone making an emergency landing after losing power on and engine and so on.  In listening to the those You Tube videos, I had no idea what a "high-speed climb" meant.  Did it mean that one of the "heavies" (used to be the 4-engine 747, but the 2-engine 777 and Airbus A350 are almost as big) has such power engines that the crew can show off by climbing really quickly?

I just found out that it means something very different.  In congested airspace, such as surrounding JFK International in this incident, planes are restricted to "250 knots", a tad faster than 250 MPH in this nautical reckoning used in air traffic control.  It turns out that a "heavy" that is heavily laden with fuel for a trans-Pacific crossing or other long-distance flight can barely stay in the sky at 250 knots.  

So when one of these planes requests a "high speed climb", or is authorized by air traffic control for a "high speed climb", that means that the aircrew is given permission to break the 250 knot speed limit so their weighted-down plane can get enough lift from the wings to climb to the altitude directed by air traffic control.  The engines are powerful enough with modern models, yes, but the wings aren't big enough when these planes are at the full load the engines can propel without getting permission to break the local speed limit.

Know-it-all-777-qualified-You-Tube-blogger commented that "these guys should have asked for the high-speed climb before they retracted their take-off flap setting on being 'handed over' from the Tower to Departure Control."

Leaving out the should-a, could-a, you mean to tell me that there are planes departing congested airports that are so weighted down with their payload and fuel that they routinely need to request permission to break the local speed limit near an airport that they can climb to their assigned departure altitude without stalling the plane and crashing?

You mean to tell me that the air brakes cannot be counted on to hold a train carrying flammable or any kind of cargo for all it matters, and that there are rules for crew setting a minimum number of hand brakes (this is the 21st century, and railroad crew have to walk out along the tracks and crank on handbrake wheels), and that the safety authorities, after a horrific accident, still haven't come up with safer procedures than what led to this accident?

It seems that just as with the 20th century transportation technology, the 19th century transportation technology hasn't yet been quite figured out.  Yeah, yeah, it is the pilot-in-command's responsibility, it is the locomotive engineer or the train conductor's responsibility, but it seems we are at the knife edge of a lapse in concentration of one or perhaps two people from disaster?

[MMLDelete]

SD70Dude, why are ten or more cars coupled together considered less likely to roll away than a smaller cut?

[Overmod]

Paul Milenkovic

Leaving out the should-a, could-a, you mean to tell me that there are planes departing congested airports that are so weighted down with their payload and fuel that they routinely need to request permission to break the local speed limit near an airport that they can climb to their assigned departure altitude without stalling the plane and crashing?

I wouldn't say 'routinely' but remember, flying is engineering, not magic.  If you get behind the curve you do NOT hesitate getting the flying energy and authority you need.

And let me introduce you to the concept of mandatory noise abatement turns...

You mean to tell me that the air brakes cannot be counted on to hold a train carrying flammable or any kind of cargo for all it matters, and that there are rules for crew setting a minimum number of hand brakes (this is the 21st century, and railroad crew have to walk out along the tracks and crank on handbrake wheels), and that the safety authorities, after a horrific accident, still haven't come up with safer procedures than what led to this accident?

If you study the development (and a couple of frankly expedient details within it) of the currently-evolved AB brake, you will understand the finer appalling inherent details in a few respects.  In order to optimize 'general' operation with just one pipe between cars, a number of decisions have been made over the years that compromise both train-handling and overall safety.  Some of these -- one very notable one recently involving saving the batteries -- apply to commercial ECP systems too.

One might argue that relying on obsolescent, corroded, ungaugeable handbrakes as a critical part of safety procedures is dangerously shortsighted -- Euclid certainly and repeatedly does.  And so do I.  The first problem is that replacing just the 'parking brake' functions with power or even 'application metadata' wireless connection is an enormous expense, in an area where mid-Victorian shortsightedness about 'value for money of braking' is still likely in bean-counters' assumptions.  The second problem is that any technical improvement has to become pervasive to do much guaranteed good ... and coming to rely on magic solutions that sometimes invisibly fail is a BAD idea eventually.

You will never get a nonrobotic one-man crew to even approximate a proper handbrake securement set on a heavy PSR-style consist, let alone on a poorly-maintained ballast shoulder at zero-dark-thirty in bad weather.  Yet that is where much of the industry is trending, even as they kvetch about ECP and conveniently forget to check or grease handbrake gear on stored cars.  There isn't money for enough inspectors to regularly 92-day or whatever inspect every handbrake on every interchange car for correct operation, certainly not going forward into the massive shortfall that this pandemic has put into recovery.  You could mandate it, but in a world that ignores SPAFs how far would you expect a handbrake mandate to be respected?

[Murphy Siding]

 

 

[/quote]

SD70Dude

It depends.  I have no idea how BNSF's operating rules and American regulations work, so I'll tell you what we would do on CN in Canada.  

Our current rules require that handbrakes be applied anytime equipment is left unattended on the main track, the minimum number of handbrakes being determined by the tonnage/grade chart in Rule 112.  CN defines "unattended" to mean anytime an employee is not within arm's length of the cars, so handbrakes would be required in your example.  

Before the Lac-Megantic disaster and all the resulting rule changes we were allowed to leave cars unattended without handbrakes as long as there were more than 10 cars, they were left in emergency or full service and vented from a full charge, and were left on a grade of 0.7% or less.  Under that rule no handbrakes would be required in your example.

In reality, if you leave a train of properly maintained cars in emergency from a full charge in weather that is not bitterly cold, the air brakes will hold it for days, maybe weeks or months.  Applying handbrakes in your example is just a formality to comply with the rule, it is not actually necessary to keep the train from moving.

 

Thanks . That makes sense. Regarding your "unattended" rule, are they talking about a human being within arm's length or a locomotive? If it's just a crew member standing there and the train starts leaving, what can be done other than maybe setting one brake?

[Murphy Siding]

Overmod- SPAFs?

[Overmod]

Murphy Siding

Overmod- SPAFs?

Read the account of the wreck where the two CSX buffoons lined an Amtrak train into standing locomotives.

The Government established a mandatory switch-permission form that had to be filled out every time -- to prevent mainline switches from being thrown without warning in the path of fast trains.  All sorts of dreadful penalties if you didn't fill it out or handle it correctly or whatever.  The buffoons faked it.  People died.

[MMLDelete]

Switch Position (A=what?) Form.

"Acknowledgment?"

[adkrr64]

Switch Position Awareness Form 

These came about as a result of an FRA emergency order after the Graniteville accident where a NS crew left a mainline switch lined for the siding, where some loaded cars of chlorine were located. It was an attempt to implement a sort of checklist, to remind crews to leave switches in the correct position.

[SD70Dude]

Lithonia Operator

SD70Dude, why are ten or more cars coupled together considered less likely to roll away than a smaller cut?

Probability.

Any car could leak off at any time, but the majority of cars will hold their air brake application for at least several hours.  

You only need one working air brake or handbrake to hold 10 cars on a gentle grade, and the probability of all 10 leaking off within a short period of time is very low.  

As the number of cars decreases, the probability of all of them leaking off increases.  The number of 10 was probably picked because anything more than that requires two handbrakes according to our rules, 9 cars or less can legally be left with only one handbrake.

[SD70Dude]

Murphy Siding

Thanks . That makes sense. Regarding your "unattended" rule, are they talking about a human being within arm's length or a locomotive? If it's just a crew member standing there and the train starts leaving, what can be done other than maybe setting one brake?

You put on as many handbrakes as you can, and if that doesn't stop it I guess you broadcast a warning on the radio.

[MMLDelete]

SD70Dude

 

 

Murphy Siding

Thanks . That makes sense. Regarding your "unattended" rule, are they talking about a human being within arm's length or a locomotive? If it's just a crew member standing there and the train starts leaving, what can be done other than maybe setting one brake?

 

 

 

You put on as many handbrakes as you can, and if that doesn't stop it I guess you broadcast a warning on the radio.

 

Regarding a rolling train/cut:

On an engine consist, one can tie on as many brakes as there are are units, plus maybe the leading car.

But if the crewman was standing mid train, he'd never have a shot at more than one brake, right, at each gap? Or would it be two? (Aren't cars designed so that all the brake wheels  always wind up on the same side and end?)

It seems like if the cut were accelerating, it might not be possible to safely access more than one gap before having to throw in the towel. So, one brake.

With the exception of flat cars, there's no going gap-to-gap ON the cars anymore, right?

 

[Overmod]

Lithonia Operator

It seems like if the cut were accelerating, it might not be possible to safely access more than one gap before having to throw in the towel. So, one brake.

I would gently suggest that if the choice were between death and crossing gaps and trying to go over the coal, some safety rules might be honored more in the breach than the observance.  Not that it might make any difference once the train had enough momentum to outgas any applied composition shoes faster than they could be applied -- if emergency air won't stop a train on the ex-B&O grades at above 22mph, what earthly chance does a man have, brakestick or not?

Isn't it amusing that walkways over cars and safe access up to them are forbidden to trainmen, but mandatory for loading and unloading?

Of course the case you're making is analogous to that crew that had walked the train and was just getting back by the locomotives when the train started to move.  I don't know if you can compel a crew to stay aboard an accelerating cut of cars once "they have failed to assure securement" by checking a suitable number of brakes were applied.  (You may be reasonably sure that will be the railroad's position, although who shares the resulting 'discipline' may be less well anticipated.)  

Just how heroic a crew would be in that circumstance is an interesting Euclidean argument.  I however doubt there is a meaningfully predictive answer to it.

[Euclid]

Lithonia Operator

 

 

Regarding a rolling train/cut:

On an engine consist, one can tie on as many brakes as there are are units, plus maybe the leading car.

But if the crewman was standing mid train, he'd never have a shot at more than one brake, right, at each gap? Or would it be two? (Aren't cars designed so that all the brake wheels  always wind up on the same side and end?)

It seems like if the cut were accelerating, it might not be possible to safely access more than one gap before having to throw in the towel. So, one brake.

With the exception of flat cars, there's no going gap-to-gap ON the cars anymore, right?

 

 

Running car to car and setting hand brakes to stop a runnaway is somewhat possible, but lack of running boards and the long cushion gaps will prevent crossing between cars (unless you are a very good jumper and willing to risk death).  A person can cross between covered hoppers because they do have running boards on top that extend into the gaps as the phased out running boards used to have. 

[Murphy Siding]

Euclid

 

 

Lithonia Operator

 

 

Regarding a rolling train/cut:

On an engine consist, one can tie on as many brakes as there are are units, plus maybe the leading car.

But if the crewman was standing mid train, he'd never have a shot at more than one brake, right, at each gap? Or would it be two? (Aren't cars designed so that all the brake wheels  always wind up on the same side and end?)

It seems like if the cut were accelerating, it might not be possible to safely access more than one gap before having to throw in the towel. So, one brake.

With the exception of flat cars, there's no going gap-to-gap ON the cars anymore, right?

 

 

 

 

 

Running car to car and setting hand brakes to stop a runnaway is somewhat possible, but lack of running boards and the long cushion gaps will prevent crossing between cars (unless you are a very good jumper and willing to risk death).  A person can cross between covered hoppers because they do have running boards on top that extend into the gaps as the phased out running boards used to have. 

 

I suppose "technically" that's possible. I think I've seen Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton do it, but in reality it's probably not going to happen.

[blue streak 1]

I would suggest that in this stated problem that another solution is possible but RRs would balk.   On trains that are going to have mainline set outs have a third crewman ( brakeman ?) .  Loco would make a minimun service brake application.  Brakeman would cut the train and install an air hose ( probably could be passengeer train back up hose )  to the standing train.  Brakeman could stand outside the train path and if cars started moving could apply the brakes up to and including emergency. 

That way normally the brakeman would remove back up hose after coupling locos back then connect regular hoses. If train picked up cars conductor would have connected additioonal cars and hoses. Then locos would have to pump brake line back up.  That would save a lot crew time and train time especially on single track sections.  Might save a recrew on extended duty time trains and other trains if blocked. 

[Euclid]

Murphy Siding

 

Euclid

 

 

Lithonia Operator

 

 

Regarding a rolling train/cut:

On an engine consist, one can tie on as many brakes as there are are units, plus maybe the leading car.

But if the crewman was standing mid train, he'd never have a shot at more than one brake, right, at each gap? Or would it be two? (Aren't cars designed so that all the brake wheels  always wind up on the same side and end?)

It seems like if the cut were accelerating, it might not be possible to safely access more than one gap before having to throw in the towel. So, one brake.

With the exception of flat cars, there's no going gap-to-gap ON the cars anymore, right?

 

 

 

 

 

Running car to car and setting hand brakes to stop a runnaway is somewhat possible, but lack of running boards and the long cushion gaps will prevent crossing between cars (unless you are a very good jumper and willing to risk death).  A person can cross between covered hoppers because they do have running boards on top that extend into the gaps as the phased out running boards used to have. 

 

 

 

 

I suppose "technically" that's possible. I think I've seen Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton do it, but in reality it's probably not going to happen.

 

 

I don't think it would happen either.  I doubt that it would comply with the rules in this day without running boards.  And if there is any significant grade, it is going to take a lot of handbrake effort to have any chance of catching up with the building runnaway speed. 

On the other hand, nobody wants to explain why their train ran away.  So they might gamble on trying to wind up handbrakes.  Then if they can't stop it, it will evenutally reach a speed too dangerous to try to jump off.  Then they will gamble staying on and hoping they don't get killed when it derails. 

There was a wreck like that at Lanse, Michigan in the 1950s.  The crew stayed with it and rode down a grade of about 7 miles.  Everntually, the entire train piled up, including the diesel on the head end and the 2-8-0 on the hind end.  They tried to save the train, but they could have just stepped off and let it go once they realized it was running away.   

[jeffhergert]

Overmod

 

 

Murphy Siding

Overmod- SPAFs?

 

 

Read the account of the wreck where the two CSX buffoons lined an Amtrak train into standing locomotives.

 

The Government established a mandatory switch-permission form that had to be filled out every time -- to prevent mainline switches from being thrown without warning in the path of fast trains.  All sorts of dreadful penalties if you didn't fill it out or handle it correctly or whatever.  The buffoons faked it.  People died.

 

No, it doesn't have to be filled out every time.  It isn't required in signalled territory.  (I'm going by what we require which is at least equal to what the EO requires.  Other railroads, CSX included, may require more.)  That probably contributed to what got those "buffoons" in trouble. 

The territory they were in was normally signalled territory.  The signal suspension makes it unsignalled or "dark" territory.  Because of the suspension it would then be required, but has does happen people who normally work where some rules don't usually come into play become hazy when they for some reason those rules are required.

Jeff   

[tree68]

Overmod

Read the account of the wreck where the two CSX buffoons lined an Amtrak train into standing locomotives.

The SPAF predates the CSX/Amtrak incident by several years.

 

[jeffhergert]

blue streak 1

I would suggest that in this stated problem that another solution is possible but RRs would balk.   On trains that are going to have mainline set outs have a third crewman ( brakeman ?) .  Loco would make a minimun service brake application.  Brakeman would cut the train and install an air hose ( probably could be passengeer train back up hose )  to the standing train.  Brakeman could stand outside the train path and if cars started moving could apply the brakes up to and including emergency. 

That way normally the brakeman would remove back up hose after coupling locos back then connect regular hoses. If train picked up cars conductor would have connected additioonal cars and hoses. Then locos would have to pump brake line back up.  That would save a lot crew time and train time especially on single track sections.  Might save a recrew on extended duty time trains and other trains if blocked. 

 

When leaving standing cars while making a set out, the standing portion is left already in emergency with the angle cock open.  (Some DP engines may have the capability that when in set out mode, the air can be "bottled" AFTER setting a sufficient number of hand brakes on the standing portion and making a 20 psi reduction before cutting away.  The DP engine is supposed to dump the air if it detects movement or unaccounted brake pressure rise.) There is no air left for the attendee to dump on the standing portion.  

When making set outs/pick ups at locations where either a utility brakeman is assigned or the outbound crew can assist, someone will "baby sit" the standing portion while the work is being done.  Some places there is no possible way for someone to apply hand brakes on a heavy train to stop it if it actually starts rolling away.  

I've attended the standing portion before in such a place.  The outbound crew had to do last minute power work.  I told the outbound conductor that I would watch the train while they did their work, my conductor working with them.  I also told him that if the train actually would start to move there was no way I was going to try to get on and stop it.  I wouldn't be able to set enough hand brakes to stop it and I wasn't going to ride it to it's doom.

Jeff

[BaltACD]

tree68

 

Overmod

Read the account of the wreck where the two CSX buffoons lined an Amtrak train into standing locomotives. 

The SPAF predates the CSX/Amtrak incident by several years.

The SPAF was a FRA response to the failures of buffoons at Graniteville, SC on the NS - such failures are not worthy of being buffoons - it is f'n deadly business..

[dpeltier]

Murphy Siding

 

SD70Dude

It depends.  I have no idea how BNSF's operating rules and American regulations work, so I'll tell you what we would do on CN in Canada.  

Our current rules require that handbrakes be applied anytime equipment is left unattended on the main track, the minimum number of handbrakes being determined by the tonnage/grade chart in Rule 112.  CN defines "unattended" to mean anytime an employee is not within arm's length of the cars, so handbrakes would be required in your example. 

 

 

Thanks . That makes sense. Regarding your "unattended" rule, are they talking about a human being within arm's length or a locomotive? If it's just a crew member standing there and the train starts leaving, what can be done other than maybe setting one brake?

 

 

 

My guess is the logic behind requiring handbrakes on "unattended" cars has nothing to do with the attending crew member stopping cars if they start to run away. The idea would be that having someone there - who is responsible for tying down the handbrakes if he has to leave for some reason - helps ensure that the cars don't get forgotten about and left there long enough for the air brakes to bleed off.

Dan

 

[CMStPnP]

Paul Milenkovic

You mean to tell me that the air brakes cannot be counted on to hold a train carrying flammable or any kind of cargo for all it matters, and that there are rules for crew setting a minimum number of hand brakes (this is the 21st century, and railroad crew have to walk out along the tracks and crank on handbrake wheels), and that the safety authorities, after a horrific accident, still haven't come up with safer procedures than what led to this accident? It seems that just as with the 20th century transportation technology, the 19th century transportation technology hasn't yet been quite figured out.  Yeah, yeah, it is the pilot-in-command's responsibility, it is the locomotive engineer or the train conductor's responsibility, but it seems we are at the knife edge of a lapse in concentration of one or perhaps two people from disaster?

I think your misunderstanding.   With no air at all the brakes in the uncoupled train are set to full on.    I believe in order to dump a large amount of air from the coupled train and air reservoirs in each car you need the locomotives attached because one open air koch on one car is not going to empty the air in the lines very fast which could result in a runaway train..............hence the set the manual hand brakes rule.

Dumping all the air in the train (emergency) and then recharging takes for fricken ever based on my long ago trackside observation when I was a kid.   So I can see why that is not regular procedure for switching.

Thats my interpretation based on all on this matter discussed, I could be wrong in my interpretation too.

[CMStPnP]

Overmod

 

 

Paul Milenkovic

Leaving out the should-a, could-a, you mean to tell me that there are planes departing congested airports that are so weighted down with their payload and fuel that they routinely need to request permission to break the local speed limit near an airport that they can climb to their assigned departure altitude without stalling the plane and crashing?

 

 

I wouldn't say 'routinely' but remember, flying is engineering, not magic.  If you get behind the curve you do NOT hesitate getting the flying energy and authority you need.

 

And let me introduce you to the concept of mandatory noise abatement turns...

 

 

You mean to tell me that the air brakes cannot be counted on to hold a train carrying flammable or any kind of cargo for all it matters, and that there are rules for crew setting a minimum number of hand brakes (this is the 21st century, and railroad crew have to walk out along the tracks and crank on handbrake wheels), and that the safety authorities, after a horrific accident, still haven't come up with safer procedures than what led to this accident?

 

 

If you study the development (and a couple of frankly expedient details within it) of the currently-evolved AB brake, you will understand the finer appalling inherent details in a few respects.  In order to optimize 'general' operation with just one pipe between cars, a number of decisions have been made over the years that compromise both train-handling and overall safety.  Some of these -- one very notable one recently involving saving the batteries -- apply to commercial ECP systems too.

 

One might argue that relying on obsolescent, corroded, ungaugeable handbrakes as a critical part of safety procedures is dangerously shortsighted -- Euclid certainly and repeatedly does.  And so do I.  The first problem is that replacing just the 'parking brake' functions with power or even 'application metadata' wireless connection is an enormous expense, in an area where mid-Victorian shortsightedness about 'value for money of braking' is still likely in bean-counters' assumptions.  The second problem is that any technical improvement has to become pervasive to do much guaranteed good ... and coming to rely on magic solutions that sometimes invisibly fail is a BAD idea eventually.

You will never get a nonrobotic one-man crew to even approximate a proper handbrake securement set on a heavy PSR-style consist, let alone on a poorly-maintained ballast shoulder at zero-dark-thirty in bad weather.  Yet that is where much of the industry is trending, even as they kvetch about ECP and conveniently forget to check or grease handbrake gear on stored cars.  There isn't money for enough inspectors to regularly 92-day or whatever inspect every handbrake on every interchange car for correct operation, certainly not going forward into the massive shortfall that this pandemic has put into recovery.  You could mandate it, but in a world that ignores SPAFs how far would you expect a handbrake mandate to be respected?

No idea what you were trying to explain to Paul but you lost me.    I think he was asking more about why the air brakes are not set to full on if there is no air in the lines?   Why is the handbrake necessary?

[SD70Dude]

Forget all this silliness about electric handbrakes, additional crew members, and playing Denzel Washington as the train rolls away.  

If you do it properly and use common sense handbrakes are not needed in most situations where a large number of cars are left vented or in emergency.  We still do this in yards every day (perfectly legal under the current Rule 112), and yet we don't have an epidemic of cars rolling away and being saved by the derail. 

The cars don't know whether they are in a yard or on the main track when you leave them in emergency.  

All the incidents that led to the recent rule changes involved violations of the rules as they existed at the time.  The solution to people breaking rules is.... ....more rules?

[dpeltier]

SD70Dude

All the incidents that led to the recent rule changes involved violations of the rules as they existed at the time.  The solution to people breaking rules is.... ....more rules?

 

About 15 years ago, several MoW workers was killed in a hyrail vehicle on MBTA-operated tracks in the greater Boston area. The dispatcher had accidentally cleared up the MoW authority and lined a train right into them.

MBCR, the company that was running the commuter rail under contract at the time, had a rule requiring MoW to place shunts on the track while working, to ensure that the block would show occupied and prevent trains from entering the signal block at greater than restricted speed. This was required as a redundant backup in addition to the track authority and dispatcher block. I won't say that this shunting requirement was unique to MBCR because I don't know that for sure, but it certainly was far from universal in the industry. (More commonly rulebooks PROHIBITED anyone except the signal department from placing shunts on the tracks.)

Anyhow, the NTSB investigated the incident. They noted that the MoW group had not placed a shunt as required by the rules, which they identified as a contributing cause of the accident. One of their official recommendations was that FRA should require all railroads to implement a shunting requirement such as the one that MBCR had in place.

To put it another way: based on the failure of the MBCR rules to prevent the accident, they recommended that the entire industry should adopt the MBCR rules.

Fortunately, while they FRA did eventually make a rule in response to this recommendation, it is far more flexible and allows for different kinds of risk mitigation measures that are actually workable and don't get routinely ignored the way the MBCR rule did.

Dan

 

 

 

[MMLDelete]

jeffhergert

 

 

blue streak 1

I would suggest that in this stated problem that another solution is possible but RRs would balk.   On trains that are going to have mainline set outs have a third crewman ( brakeman ?) .  Loco would make a minimun service brake application.  Brakeman would cut the train and install an air hose ( probably could be passengeer train back up hose )  to the standing train.  Brakeman could stand outside the train path and if cars started moving could apply the brakes up to and including emergency. 

That way normally the brakeman would remove back up hose after coupling locos back then connect regular hoses. If train picked up cars conductor would have connected additioonal cars and hoses. Then locos would have to pump brake line back up.  That would save a lot crew time and train time especially on single track sections.  Might save a recrew on extended duty time trains and other trains if blocked. 

 

 

 

 

When leaving standing cars while making a set out, the standing portion is left already in emergency with the angle cock open.  (Some DP engines may have the capability that when in set out mode, the air can be "bottled" AFTER setting a sufficient number of hand brakes on the standing portion and making a 20 psi reduction before cutting away.  The DP engine is supposed to dump the air if it detects movement or unaccounted brake pressure rise.) There is no air left for the attendee to dump on the standing portion.  

When making set outs/pick ups at locations where either a utility brakeman is assigned or the outbound crew can assist, someone will "baby sit" the standing portion while the work is being done.  Some places there is no possible way for someone to apply hand brakes on a heavy train to stop it if it actually starts rolling away.  

I've attended the standing portion before in such a place.  The outbound crew had to do last minute power work.  I told the outbound conductor that I would watch the train while they did their work, my conductor working with them.  I also told him that if the train actually would start to move there was no way I was going to try to get on and stop it.  I wouldn't be able to set enough hand brakes to stop it and I wasn't going to ride it to it's doom.

Jeff

 

Jeff, I'm foggy on what exactly the purpose was for your watching the train. Is the idea that if the cut moved, you would radio the other crew, and they could try to chase down the runaway with the engines? Since it's unsafe for you to attempt to stop the train, what's the point of being there?

[SD70Dude]

Lithonia Operator

Jeff, I'm foggy on what exactly the purpose was for your watching the train. Is the idea that if the cut moved, you would radio the other crew, and they could try to chase down the runaway with the engines? Since it's unsafe for you to attempt to stop the train, what's the point of being there?

Because the rule says that if he stands there they don't have to apply handbrakes.  

And if a trainmaster shows up and sees a crew member standing beside the train he cannot accuse them of violating the securement rules.