My interest is mid 80s so I'm looking at a local with cuts of cars for various sidings, spurs and even the far end of the trip and beyond. It's still "caboose on the back" working.
Several set-outs and pick-ups have already been made at straight forward sidings and short spurs. The RR is doing pretty well (for a change) so there's 40 or so cars in the consist.
The train arrives at a long spur for which it has two cuts to set out way down the spur before bringing back a single cut of cars.
My question is this:-
What are the scenarios for dealing with both parts of what is going on...
1. Most of the train needs to be left behind (maybe the track is poor on the spur)
2. The loco(s) and cuts of cars need to work the spur.
I know that the left-behind part of the train might occupy the Main (with permission) or be put in a siding. It may even be left in the start of the spur.
BUT... what goes on about crew for working the switch moves along the spur?
Would both parts of the train need a caboose... or?
Do they ride the loco(s)?
Is the caboose taken along the spur? (In which case what is done about looking after the train left behind - especially if it is left on the Main)?
Would there ever be two cabooses - allowing for the crew to be split... maybe conductor staying wth the train while brakemen go along for the switch moves?
I guess that there's several ways of doing it. My era is specifically the 1980s and (as usual) I'm somewhere west of Chicago...
Any ideas, memories, Rules, whatever from anywhere would be interesting...
TIA
Dave,Heres the way we would handle that on the PRR/PC and later on the C&O under Chessie/CSX.
We would leave the cars we didn't need in a passing siding.We would not leave cars sitting on the main for any reason because the amount of work we would be doing..We would take the caboose with us rather then leave it behind.Also if we was making a shove the cabin/caboose would be place as the end car on the shove.That way we could protect the shove and use the caboose whistle at crossings along with flag protection..Also recall hanging on cars for any length of time and your arms and legs give out.Now on the other hand on the PRR we would ride the roof of the car or inside of a gon.Some would sit on the top edge of the gon as well.Of course this was a big NO-NO.
Also on the PRR we would use 2 cabooses if we had several reverse moves to make.
Every conductor I work with went with us up the industrial spur.You see if there was a problem he could take care of it and of course he would have to give account of his where abouts in the event of a accident or derailment.
I can hear it now:
Superintendent:And where was you at Conductor Brown when the derailment happen?
Conductor Brown..Well,huh,I was huh, sitting in the caboose 5 miles from the accident..
Superintendent WHAT??!! YOU WASN'T WITH YOUR TRAIN???!!
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
Depends on what you mean by a "long spur".
Normally if it is less than a mile they will just take the engines and cars to be spotted back on the spur.
If there are runarounds or situations where they can drop cars by at either end and its more than a mile, they may not take a caboose.
If they can't drop cars by, there aren't runarounds and its well over a mile back on the spur, they may take the caboose.
If its over a mile and there aren't any grade crossings they might not take a caboose.
There wouldn't normally be two cabooses. They might have the engineer, and both brakemen, if they had 2 brakemen, work the spur and the conductor might stay on the caboose. Or they all might go down the spur. Could work either way. If they had only 1 brakeman they probably took the conductor and brakeman down the spur and left the rest of the train unmanned.
Dave H.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
Dave H,For the record on the PRR/PC we had 5 man crew.Engineer,Fireman,2 brakemen and conductor..On the C&O we had a 4 man crew..Engineer,2 Brakeman and Conductor.
2 cabin cars was used on the PRR on at least 3 urban locals in Columbus(Oh).The normal was one on other urban locals.
Since D-the-T said he was in the 1980's, west of Chicago, I was going by typical crew sizes then and there. There were very few "full crews" by then, most had gone away.
During the '80's the cabooses started to disappear. By the end of the '80's the cabooses on through freights were pretty much gone west of the Mississippi. They were retired as fast as the railroads could get shipments of EOT's. Every other small town along ended up with a caboose in the town square bu the 1990's.
I guess also there could be some confusion based on terms.When you say "spur", in my mind that implies a relatively short track (mile or less) used to serve industrial customers. In some prototype timetables spurs may be called "business tracks". A little bit longer is an industrial lead which can be several miles long, but is primarily for serving industrial companies on spurs off the industrial lead. It is a fairly "new" term (post 1970's). There are branches, which can be hundreds of miles long, but are usually a secondary route. Some roads call them "secondaries". All the lengths are relative and there is no firm definition as to which is which, unless they are designated as such in the timetable.There are "subdivisions" which are portions of a division, normally major routes. Some roads have both branches and subdivisions, some only subdivisions. And just to confuse things, industrial leads, branches and subdivisions all have main tracks. Don't confuse main track with "main line". Main line is a slang term for a primary route. It is very rarely used by prototype N American railroads. Main track is the track or tracks that runs through yards and between stations. So even though someplace isn't a "main line" it can still have a "main track".If you are talking about the CNW double track east-west line west of Chicago, I doubt that in the 1980's a train would have left the rear portion sitting on the main "for a long time" to go switch industries. There were just too many trains, somewhere in the 30-50 trains a day (total both ways) range, more if it was in the commuter district. Probably if it were more than 20 min or so, the train would have to clear the main. Since that was current of traffic ATC (automatic train control) cab signal territory with no wayside signals, it wasn't just a matter of swinging the trains over to the other main like CTC. They had to get permission to run against the current of traffic, etc.Any particular place west of Chicago you are focusing on? Chicago to Clinton, Clinton to Boone, Boone to Mo Valley?
dehusman wrote: Since D-the-T said he was in the 1980's, west of Chicago, I was going by typical crew sizes then and there. There were very few "full crews" by then, most had gone away. During the '80's the cabooses started to disappear. By the end of the '80's the cabooses on through freights were pretty much gone west of the Mississippi. They were retired as fast as the railroads could get shipments of EOT's. Every other small town along ended up with a caboose in the town square bu the 1990's.Dave H.
Tell me something I don't know..FRED stole my job.
I was using the PRR as a example as I am sure that lasted well into the CR era as it did during the PC years.I have no doubts other roads may have use 2 cabooses on urban locals to include the CSX merger roads.