Cumberland MD radio reports CSX restoring hump. This needs more investigation by those in the know.
CSX To Re-Install, Improve Hump at Cumberland | WCBC (wcbcradio.com)
EDIT: Is it possible for a different design of a hump to eliminate or greatly reduce the use of retarders which are expensive to maintain?
I don't know what actually took place when the hump was closed at Cumberland - to my knowledge it didn't not get the Tilford Yard treatment that happened in Atlanta.
In my 50+ years working - it was 'normal' for a new regime to 'close' some yard or facilitiy on the property and claim the closing would result in saving X millions. The next regime would come on the scene and reopen the previously closed facility and claim the reopening would save Y millions.
What happened with EHH and his version of PSR was more involved and destructive than those that happened when I was employed.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
blue streak 1EDIT: Is it possible for a different design of a hump to eliminate or greatly reduce the use of retarders which are expensive to maintain?
Interesting idea, but not sure how that would work?
In the earliest hump yards, each car had a yard worker riding it to apply the brakes manually. I'd think retarders, especially modern computer controlled ones, would be much cheaper and efficient than that.
blue streak 1 EDIT: Is it possible for a different design of a hump to eliminate or greatly reduce the use of retarders which are expensive to maintain?
blue streak 1 Cumberland MD radio reports CSX restoring hump. This needs more investigation by those in the know. CSX To Re-Install, Improve Hump at Cumberland | WCBC (wcbcradio.com) EDIT: Is it possible for a different design of a hump to eliminate or greatly reduce the use of retarders which are expensive to maintain?
Looking at Google Maps, the hump infrastructure still exists, including the tower and bridge for the locomotive duck under track. The hump lead and distribution tracks were removed. I assume some of the control systems from the tower to the retarders were also removed.
Recall that Carl (cshaverr) was a retarder operator at a Chicago area yard.
The return of a hump yard may signal recognition that loose car railroading isn't going away any time soon.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
I recall that UP tried to idle one of the humps at North Platte a few years ago. I think that lasted about a week.
wjstix blue streak 1 EDIT: Is it possible for a different design of a hump to eliminate or greatly reduce the use of retarders which are expensive to maintain? Interesting idea, but not sure how that would work? In the earliest hump yards, each car had a yard worker riding it to apply the brakes manually. I'd think retarders, especially modern computer controlled ones, would be much cheaper and efficient than that.
Not to mention safer.
Psychot wjstix blue streak 1 EDIT: Is it possible for a different design of a hump to eliminate or greatly reduce the use of retarders which are expensive to maintain? Interesting idea, but not sure how that would work? In the earliest hump yards, each car had a yard worker riding it to apply the brakes manually. I'd think retarders, especially modern computer controlled ones, would be much cheaper and efficient than that. Not to mention safer.
Back in the day - many non-retarder humps used track skates to define the far end of the tracks being humped into and let the skate stop the first car into the track and then continue to hump against the cars that were stopped by the skates.
tree68 The return of a hump yard may signal recognition that loose car railroading isn't going away any time soon.
We keep hearing that carload freight is dying and will one day disappear. Yet new boxcars, flats, tanks and hoppers continue to be built, and out here in western Canada there is still a huge amount of chemical, forestry, oilfield and farming related freight that moves long distances and in amounts that are too large and heavy for trucking yet are not enough to make a 100 car unit train.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
From the article in the opening post:
"plans are to remove the exisiting hump terminal and install new switching capabilities allowing more cars to be trafficked through the yard"
it sounded to me like they were going to replace the hump with a flat-switching facility, but they claimed that it would allow more cars to be handled. Are they going to install a "new, improved" hump?
_____________
"A stranger's just a friend you ain't met yet." --- Dave Gardner
"That has cost CSX across the country millions of dollards and several other yards are also abandoning the idea"
That sounds like it came form a hopeful employee more than anything else.
An "expensive model collector"
Not really. In a hump yard, each car starts at the top of the hump going more or less the same speed, accelerates due to gravity, and (ideally) passes the last retarder at a speed such that it will be at a safe coupling speed when it reaches the coupling spot. The retarders are the only way to make that happen.
All cars are see the same acceleration due to gravity, but the deceleration due to air resistance is radically different for, say, a covered sand hopper versus an empty bulkhead flat. Without retarders, loaded cars would wind up going much faster than empties. Either the empties would stall out early, or the loads would couple at damaging speeds.
The only way to work around this would be to release different cars with different initial speeds, or at different spots on the hump. Either of those would eliminate the efficiency of humping in the first place - you would basically be flat-switching on a hill.
Maybe some day we'll have microprocessor-controlled brakes on each car, and the car can just be programmed to use the car's brakes to maintain a desired speed profilr. But we're pretty far from that (and not really heading in that direction at the moment).
One thing to note is that hump yards all have automated electronic switching systems setting the routes for each cut of cars down into the bowl, while most flat-switching yards use hand-throw switches. This is a somewhat separate issue from the hump itself. You can install an automatic routing system on a flat yard (and in fact Conrail has a yard where they did just that). But, if you are classifying enough cars to justify that kind of investment, there's a good chance that you can justify the expense of maintaining a hump and retarders as well. Once you've physically removed the hump - or, if your need is in a place that never has a hump - maybe the equation would be different. It's not a stretch to think we might see some more "automated flat yards" in the next couple decades.
Dan
Replacing Hump Yards would be the application of the various autonomous operating cars - they become autonomous when released at the crest and insure a safe low impact coupling in the ultimate class track.
CP sort of tried this in Calgary. Kicking cars with power switches, not much of a hump and fewer retarders. The new yard design had several accidents over its first year or so of operation.
https://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-reports/rail/2019/r19c0002/r19c0002.html
n012944 That sounds like it came form a hopeful employee more than anything else.
Trains news-wire
Hump and tower are getting bulldozed. Reworking the track layout and adding automated ladder tracks at each end. Hindsight being 20/20, could they have flattened Cumberland in '94 and shifted westbound builds to Gateway? It had a better footprint (more acreage and longer).
OWTXHump and tower are getting bulldozed. Reworking the track layout and adding automated ladder tracks at each end. ...
What is an automated ladder track?
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