Today, I saw a BNSF switch crew *dragging* a small cut of cars through town. I was pacing them on foot, so the speed was maybe 2mph tops. It took forever to drag 6-8 cars about 2 blocks. The reason for the slowness seemed to be the last couple of cars. One was emitting a kind of screeching/singing sound,like metal on metal would make. After getting the cars into the yard, the last few were isolated on siding by themselves. I presume one or more of these cars was "bad ordered* by the crew that was looking them over pretty closely.
What happens now to these cars?
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Depends on what is wrong with them.
Bearings bad means the car has to be lifted some…bad brake shoes are a ten minute fix where its at…bad brake beam cam be fixed in place…
If you can get near them, look for a bad order card somewhere about eye level.
Most likely there is a mechanical crew that will come out and fix them in place, or determine if they need to be limped to a rip track or major repair facility.
Ed
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Murphy Siding wrote: Today, I saw a BNSF switch crew *dragging* a small cut of cars through town. I was pacing them on foot, so the speed was maybe 2mph tops. It took forever to drag 6-8 cars about 2 blocks. The reason for the slowness seemed to be the last couple of cars. One was emitting a kind of screeching/singing sound,like metal on metal would make. After getting the cars into the yard, the last few were isolated on siding by themselves. I presume one or more of these cars was "bad ordered* by the crew that was looking them over pretty closely. What happens now to these cars?
They sit by themselves until they can learn to behave themselves.
"No soup for you!" - Yev Kassem (from Seinfeld)
edblysard wrote: Depends on what is wrong with them. Bearings bad means the car has to be lifted some…bad brake shoes are a ten minute fix where its at…bad brake beam cam be fixed in place… If you can get near them, look for a bad order card somewhere about eye level. Most likely there is a mechanical crew that will come out and fix them in place, or determine if they need to be limped to a rip track or major repair facility. Ed
Do the railroads have mechanical crews that just travel around to fix bad order cars where they sit?
If the cars are bad order and cant be moved most locations with carmen,
do have road crews that will come and repair the cars or make them safe to travel
to a location where they can be fixed.
To me it sounds like the road crew left the hand brakes on and just dragged the cars.
Seen this many times. If they pull them to far they will skid the wheels.
Ed to replace a brake beam the car needs to jacked up and the wheel removed, you
maybe able to sneek it out but its a very tight fit.Should be done on a rip track so you can adjust the brakes as needed for piston travel.
railcar wrote: If the cars are bad order and cant be moved most locations with carmen, do have road crews that will come and repair the cars or make them safe to travel to a location where they can be fixed. To me it sounds like the road crew left the hand brakes on and just dragged the cars. Seen this many times. If they pull them to far they will skid the wheels. Ed to replace a brake beam the car needs to jacked up and the wheel removed, you maybe able to sneek it out but its a very tight fit.Should be done on a rip track so you can adjust the brakes as needed for piston travel.
By skidding the wheels, are you saying it will ruin them, and require replacing them? Is a rip track something special? Or, is it just an out of the way siding to work on cars?
Murphy Siding wrote: railcar wrote: If the cars are bad order and cant be moved most locations with carmen, do have road crews that will come and repair the cars or make them safe to travel to a location where they can be fixed. To me it sounds like the road crew left the hand brakes on and just dragged the cars. Seen this many times. If they pull them to far they will skid the wheels. Ed to replace a brake beam the car needs to jacked up and the wheel removed, you maybe able to sneek it out but its a very tight fit.Should be done on a rip track so you can adjust the brakes as needed for piston travel. By skidding the wheels, are you saying it will ruin them, and require replacing them? Is a rip track something special? Or, is it just an out of the way siding to work on cars?
Skidding the wheels will create flat spots on them. The brakes will also heat up, which causes them to smell horrible (as long as they are hot) and cracks them. I carman once show some brakes to me that this had happed to.
RIP stands for repair in place. My guess is that they have equipment and parts in the vacinity of the RIP track, the local train yard does. That RIP track is also by the mechanical department office.
Why drag brakes on a small cut of cars?
I could see it if it was a big yard cut, say 40 cars or so, you drag the brakes on the end up to you...but on a small cut, 10 or so, why risk geting fired dragging flat spots on the wheels?
And skidding wheels dont screech much...all the ones I have heard sound like frying bacon, a sizzling sound.(seriously)
Murphy, dragging locked up wheels makes flat spots, along with building up spall, or melted metal built up on the edge of the flat spot, part of the thumping sound you sometimes hear coming from a trains wheels.
Bigger than two inches, or two or more within two inches of each other makes the wheel set condemnable...and if the trainmaster is in a bad mood, gets you fired.
So you try not to drag a locked up brake if you can.
Yes, most class 1s have mobile repair units that go out and do some of the minor repairs, brakes, small stuff like that.
All of them have a big moblie repair truck(s).
Major repairs, if the car is movable, are best done at yard shops; most yards have a RIP facility for light duty repair and a car shop, to do the big stuff.
Say you corner a car, or find one that has been whacked pretty good…the car body isn’t leaking, but the side or end ladder is pretty busted up…or the brakes have lost a shoe or two.
As long as the car can move safely, you stick it on the end of the train and take it with you to the next yard, or assigned RIP track and drop it there.
What if you find a burned out bearing…you do what it sounds like these guy did…limp it off the main to the nearest siding, and leave it for the mechanical department…who will come out and fix it there.
They may make temporary repairs, or fix it completly, depends on the problem.
If you are close to a yard, and you can limp it to the yard rip…that’s even better.
Even my little class 3 has a mobile unit that runs around replacing brake shoes, grab irons, and does simple welding repairs.
We also have two big repair trucks, with cranes and such, which work the MOW and mobile rip jobs.
If you think about it, they have to have some form of mobile repair…say you have a burned out bearing in the middle of Arizona…and it is 200 miles either way to the nearest yard shop…what do you do, abandon the car forever in the middle of the desert?
Of course not, you leave it in the first siding you can, and the mechanical department will come out and repair it.
They may have a simple pick up truck, or, like my railroad, a few heavy duty repair trucks, able to haul around the jacks and such needed to do heavy repairs.
Pretty much any employee that notices a problem can bad order the car.
Most of the time it is the car dept. who finds the bad order when inspecting inbound trains, followed by the crew who work the trains.
I bad order at least one car a day, everything from safety appliances to bent cut levers to really bad flat spots.
Had one today where a crew kicked against a flat cat with the long, cushion drawbar...it was flopped over to the side, so the car they kicked against it bypassed the coupling, and the long drawbar tore the angelcock and train line hose off..
I could have left it for the carmen to find, but why waste the time when I can cut it out right then and there.
Murphy Siding wrote: Who has the authority to bad order a car? The crew operating it?
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
edblysard wrote: Why drag brakes on a small cut of cars? I could see it if it was a big yard cut, say 40 cars or so, you drag the brakes on the end up to you...but on a small cut, 10 or so, why risk geting fired dragging flat spots on the wheels? And skidding wheels dont screech much...all the ones I have heard sound like frying bacon, a sizzling sound.(seriously) Murphy, dragging locked up wheels makes flat spots, along with building up spall, or melted metal built up on the edge of the flat spot, part of the thumping sound you sometimes hear coming from a trains wheels. Bigger than two inches, or two or more within two inches of each other makes the wheel set condemnable...and if the trainmaster is in a bad mood, gets you fired. So you try not to drag a locked up brake if you can.
The one time I had the unfortunate occasion to be around cars that were being moved with the hand brakes set, and thus small it, was at an industry. It was about three cars if I remember. I guess the guy moving them just did not care, after all nothing would probably happen to him.
That brings up a question. If the local crew observes that there are flat spots on the wheels of cars that they pickup that requires the wheels to be changed, will the railroad bill the industry for the repairs?
Cant speak for other railroads, but we do.
If the car has condemnable flat spots when we go to pull it, we bad order the car right there on the spot, in the industry, and call our trainmaster to make the decision whether to move the car or not.
Actually, he can’t make us move it if we think it is too bad, and calling him in lets him make the decision “official” to the plant managers.
Worst one I have found was where they used a piece of chain as a wheel chock, then drug the car around with the chain still under the car, brakes applied.
Ended up welding one of the chain links to the wheel.
If the wheels are so bad the car can not be moved to a siding, the mobile repair truck, at our convenience, comes out and fixes the car.
This adds a lot pressure to the industry crews, as now not only do their bosses have to pay for the repair, not so cheap, but the plant is shut down, until such time as our guys feel like coming out and fixing the car.
That is expensive to them.
In the yards, if we make the flat spot, it is our responsibility to repair the car.
Flat spots on inbound transfers are common, and we do a lot of wheel sets, it is all AAR billable.
When we drag a big switch cut out, the way it is supposed to work is the delivering crew should tie hand brakes on the south end where their locomotive was…but some times they shove into the receiving yard, so the brakes end up on the north end, 120 cars away from where we are.
You drag a locked hand brake 120 cars worth you will have big flat spots!
Most of the time, our carmen, when inspecting the inbound, will knock the north brakes off, and apply one or two on our end, before releasing the track, but sometimes they forget…and sometimes, the inbound has a hand brake or two through out the train, missed by the sending roads car department.
By the time we, the switch crew find them it is pretty much a done deal on the wheel being bad.
The ideal hand brake is one that doesn’t lock the wheel, but applies sufficient braking pressure to hold the car or cut still.
Like your automobile, you don’t want the brakes locked, but just hard enough to slow the movement, or hold it still.
But, this often means the crew has to tie several “right” handbrakes, so they give in to the easy way, and tie one or two “super brakes” that lock the wheel.
Sometimes, tighter is not better.
Funding who to "blame" on inbounds is almost impossible...if UP delivers cars, and some of them have flat spots, we(PTRA) fix the car and bill UP...workes the other way too, if we send them cars, and they find flat spots, they fix the cars and bill us...ends up making it to each roads benifit to not creat flat spots, or to send out cars with flats spots, as you will end up paying the receiving road to repair them, and it is cheaper if you fix it yourself.
BaltACD wrote:The crews operating trains make the initial determination on line of road if the car is repairable with the tools and equipment that is on the engine or if the defects observed will require the car to be set off.
What type of tools and equipment are usually carried in the locomotive to repair cars? What type of problems can a typical road crew(all 2 of them) fix out on the line?
Murphy,
Wish I had taken a shot of the rip tracks empty…week ends our car repair department is off, except for the mobile unit.
I would have taken a shot this morning, to compare the difference.
As of this morning, there were 26 cars in the rip, spotted up by the night crews.
Yesterday, there was one lone UP hopper, waiting on parts.
If you think about the sheer number of cars running around the system, and realize that a certain percentage will have some mechanical problem, ranging from small, like a need for brake shoes, to a gasket on the manway dome of a tank, to a major repair, like a brake beam or a bearing, then the numbers are not all that surprising.
Bad bearing as getting rarer, the hotbox detectors are showing up in a lot more places, and the bearings themselves are built pretty tough and pretty precise.
And, at work this morning, as we dragged a cut out, I realized there might be a different answer to your original question.
When a brake is tied correctly, you can move the car, the wheels will turn, but they will screech and squeal like mad, and make a very high pitched, sharp noise that does sound like metal on metal.
Could be the crew was just too lazy to knock the brakes off, and were killing time as they headed home.
I am so used to hearing that sound it never registered with me that it might be normal brake squeal you were hearing.
It is loud, very, very loud, enough so that it can drown out all other noise, and make conversation with someone right next to you impossible, even if you shout at each other.
Murphy Siding wrote: BaltACD wrote:The crews operating trains make the initial determination on line of road if the car is repairable with the tools and equipment that is on the engine or if the defects observed will require the car to be set off. What type of tools and equipment are usually carried in the locomotive to repair cars? What type of problems can a typical road crew(all 2 of them) fix out on the line?
In addition most roads also carry two spare knuckles (1 typeE, 1 typeF), a couple of air hoses, and a knuckle pin. CP for example also has a "Train' chain or cable and a roll of wire. Most unit train coal roads will also have an extra long brake pipe hose and/or a dummy hose, which is a very short brake pipe hose with a gladhand on each end.
The chain or cable has two uses to a train crew. It can be used to pull a car with a drawbar out of the dutch end to a set out track or when attached to a coupler knuckle pin can be used to straigthen out a bypassed drawbar so you can couple up to it. A third use is sometimes the chain can be used to straighten out the bars on a run thru switch, especially if your crew did it. Then you report it as hard to throw.
Ok,
Now your giving away trade secrets....
Heard that screching many a time, the crew must have left the handbrake on, or were pulling it with the airbrakes on. This is bad on the wheels, it will cause flat spots on the them, have you ever heard a set of cars "walking" (thumping on the tracks) in a moving train? This is caused by flat spots. But a flat spot has to 2 inches across,or several spots around the wheel to condemn it. A bad brakebeam is caused by letting the brakeshoes wear out wearing pass the shoe into the beam, or a derailment.
These can be corrected in the Riptrack or on the "line of road" if they have the correct equipment, sometimes "scab" shops will fix them on the line of road as well.
A bad order car or locomotive is a broken car or locomotive. You don't want these on the railroad and the only place for these cars is the shop.
geomodelrailroaderA bad order car or locomotive is a broken car or locomotive. You don't want these on the railroad and the only place for these cars is the shop.
You must not have read much of the preceding thread. How do you propose to get that broken car or locomotive to the shop to work on it? This thread largely discusses 'repair-in-place' issues, specifically including those where the car will be worked on further in a shop, but has to be repaired (or in some cases, kludged) enough to get it there. There is no GHA in full-scale railroading.
Also, before today this thread had gone over 12 years without a post.
But since we're here now, it is true that no one wants B/O cars out on the railroad, but that's where they happen. And then you have to deal with them out there. Kinda hard to move a hot box, square wheel, locked axle or pulled drawbar over the railroad just to get it to a shop, which may be hundreds of miles away.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
Bad order is not just used for cars, can also cover employees. Dad had a very bad cold one time and chief of staff at Frisco Hospital put a "bad order" on Dad for returning to work in 1960's.He could stay at home on antibiotics but could not go back until Dr.Hollo saw him again and gave the ok. Dad had pneumonia in 1932 and spent 4 months at Frisco Hospital, March-July, as this was before antibiotics. He did recover but the hospital had his records and why the "bad order" .
Rick the RailroaderHeard that screching many a time,
Even more interesting, this "Rick the Railroader" member has not made a new post since 2007, yet his forum account has not been "bad ordered" to the big -annonymous- 'usurper of all accounts inactive' that most others eventually have to deal with?
In the 1970's ConRail (or PRR) and then Amtrak had a issues with locomotives on the Keystone Line near Lancaster, PA. Pretty sure the PRR one was an E44 with a frozen bearing, the Amtrak was a GG1, can't remember what.
Anyway, both limped to the siding at Leaman Place, which is the village of Paradise, which is the eastern end of the Strasburg RR (tourist line with an extremely well-equipped shop). SRR came out, towed them to its shop, and replaced the damaged part. They both had a little article in Trains:
- PDN.
The issue with the GG1 was dramatic: a bad roller bearing on an engine truck that was reportedly 'glowing orange' when it came to a stop.
There may still be people at Strasburg who remember the details of the recovery and repair; I suspect it would be a fascinating 'tale in detail'.
Just as a note: PRR was long gone by the time of the E44 'incident' ... and in fact so was successor PC; the story itself specifically references "Conrail". (I like and support your maintenance of the spelling in your post.)
Paul_D_North_Jr In the 1970's ConRail (or PRR) and then Amtrak had a issues with locomotives on the Keystone Line near Lancaster, PA. Pretty sure the PRR one was an E44 with a frozen bearing, the Amtrak was a GG1, can't remember what. Anyway, both limped to the siding at Leaman Place, which is the village of Paradise, which is the eastern end of the Strasburg RR (tourist line with an extremely well-equipped shop). SRR came out, towed them to its shop, and replaced the damaged part. They both had a little article in Trains: A GG1 at Cherry Hill? Strasburg replaces a wheel set for Amtrak by Schneider, Fred W., III from Trains January 1975 p. 12 AMTK GG1 PC shortline SRC 4-4-0 + E44 Strasburg replaces a wheelset for Conrail by Schneider, Fred W., III from Trains March 1978 p. 53 cr e44 electric preservation SRC steam - PDN.
1970 to 76, would have been the Penn Central.
BLS531970 to 76, would have been the Penn Central.
But the GG1 itself was either owned or leased by Amtrak, as noted. (I am not set up to check the engine number and cross-reference whether owned or leased; someone 'in the know' can find out.)
The E44 was past 1976.
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