Pinchbar

[Anonymous]

used these daily for ten + years working in a food sweeteners manufacturing/distribution plant for hopper cars and tank cars, but never knew they were called pinch bars. We always called them rail car jacks. To stop the cars we would either hop on the car and spool up the hand brake quickly or simply let the car run into the next spotted car, or...carefully place another bar/jack on the track at the other end of the car approximately where it needed to be spotted. (Making sure to be nowhere near the bar when the wheel hits it - if the claws are good it springs up instantly when the wheel meets it and human power can not stop this, or if the claws are worn an it doesn't grab, the wheel contact will make the bar go flying haphazardly! Either way, ouch!) Often times to get over a hump in the tracks, or moving several cars hooked together, we would have to literally stand on the end of the bar while pushing against any available hardware on the cars to get them to move initially! Foolishly dangerous? yes. Exciting? definitely!

[gabe]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jeaton

With very thick soles on workshoes. Gabe!!! Hand Brake?

(Maybe it has been a long day.)

Jay

Well that is what I kind of don't understand. Once you get the car moving, you are behind it--it strikes me as dangerous as to try to operate a handbrake on a moving car when you are not on it to start with.

Gabe

[GRAMRR]

We used to pull the handle and dump the air resevoir to stop the cars where needed. We would normally not have to move them again until the night switch job came to take them away and leave loaded cars out on the siding for us to begin the process over again next day.

[tatans]

Ironrail: Try Badger Advance Car Mover Co. P.O. Box 1 240 N. Depot St. Juneau, Wisconsin 53039 phone [phone]--------they are $50.00. Now get out there and shift some boxcars around !!!

[Anonymous]

If I had a buck for every time I used a pinch bar I would not need my pension.I worked on the NYSW RR,and we had them all around the place.

[nobullchitbids]

Have never used them, myself, either; however, I have moved loaded hoppers with a pick-up truck, which is easier, and I also have seen cars moved with a mechanical car puller, which is kind of like a winsch you place next to the track.

[nkpltrr]

I will chip in my two cents worth as well. I worked at a salt mine back in the 90's and we would ride hoppers down a short hump yard and mean ride them down! The cars were spotted in our yard at the top of a slight man made hill. When we needed a car we would walk up the hill, pull the chocks out of the wheels and climb on top of the car. Then you would release the hand brake and ride the car down to the loading chute. You had to slow the car with the hand brake, ( and hope it held!) and then once you were close you closed the brake tight and stopped the car. Then you would release the brake, grab the pinch bar and inch it foward or backward depending on where the car stopped. This was not as easy as it sounds. It the car wheels were slightly off center, the car would not budge or it might go too far. Sometimes it even rolled back on your pinch bar! Of course the wildest ride happened when the brake did not hold. The car was doing about 10-15 mph at the bottom of the hill and if the brake did not stop it, you jumped off the moving car or else faced a very large jolt when it hit the loaded cars at the bottom of the hill. Fun Fun! This talk of pinch bars brought back old memories!

[Anonymous]

used to ue them to move fertilizer cars to be unloaded at FS in
Albion, IA in the mid 70's.

[Anonymous]

I had a nice new one stashed away in the office at New Stanton, PA when VW still had an assembly plant there. It came in handy on a few occasions when my crews didn't properly secure a car and the car rolled out to foul. Using these things to boost a car upgrade and into the clear was a little work, but it sure beat holding investigations on my guys, or having a crew sideswipe the car!

[Anonymous]

I have used one more than once on the ICRR. They came in real handy when we would try to drop a car and it did not clear the switch.

[wccobb]

Also available through McMaster-Carr (www.mcmaster.com.) Page 1156 in their catalog.
Full Control Car Mover Stock #2221T8 $190.20
Rocker-Action Car Mover Stock #2221T11 $176.47
Of course I've used 'em. As the last resort !!!!!

[tatans]

I guess the reason the word pinchbar came up I saw some photos when I worked on the C.P.R. ice gang one summer on the prairies, we had to spot reefers full of ice along a siding in front of the ice houses and of course used the bar to move them around, we also had all kinds of weird icing equipment for loading, chopping, prying, shaving, etc. now I'm sitting here trying to think of the bloody names for the stuff we used, aaahhhhhh,senility ! !

[eastside]

Here's one use that hasn't been mentioned yet. In "The Great Book of Trains," the Teutonic Class 2-2-2-0 (1889) locomotives in Great Britain is described thusly: "They were not specially econonomical and were bad starters -- men with pinch bars were needed to give the engines an initial starting movement before they would go." Wonder if the train had to take the pinch bar men along as part of the crew? [:D]