Trimmers & setters/ switching lingo

[Mookie]

Can someone describe what happens air-wise when you set out bad orders on a train that is ready to leave town fully loaded.  How is the air affected and how long does it take to build it back up?  Is it "saved" in the preceeding cars so they only have to redo the ones behind the cut? 

Mook

[youngengineer]

     How long are we talking about, from the time the locomotives couple up with the train, until it's ready to go?  How does that compare with starting from scratch?

From the time the locomotive couples to the train if its just one track maybe 2-3 minutes to get air up to within 15psi of regulating valve setting, making sure the ETD shows a rise on the rear end and continuity, a lot of engineers will also do a set and release to make sure ETD pressure drops 5 psi and recovers 5 psi, covering for a possible situation of an overcharge in the brake pipe. Overacharge in the brake pipe usually occurs in cold weather where yard air can get the train line to a much higher PSI than the locomotives can.  

If the cars are not pretested, even a small train  of 50 cars can take 1-2 hours to do class one air test. The yard air allows the carman to do a class one air test.

[Murphy Siding]

     How long are we talking about, from the time the locomotives couple up with the train, until it's ready to go?  How does that compare with starting from scratch?

[nbrodar]

That's the idea.  The car knockers perform their inspection with ground air.  Then a crew comes along with the power:

• Takes the ground air off (preserving the air charge, so the crew only has to build up 20 lbs or so of air instead of the full 90)
• Couples up
• Arms the EOT
• Does a continuity test (to ensure there is air on the rear)
• Does an apply and release on the rear car (to ensure the brake signals carry to the rear and that the rear will stop if train breaks apart)
• Pass the tests and away you go.

Nick

[Murphy Siding]

Setting or setting out can also refer to spotting the newly made up train on an air spot, so the car department can work ground air (an independent compressed air source separate from locomotive supplied air) and pump up the train line, and do an initial terminal air test with out the need for the motive power to be attached to the train.

That's interesting.  Can the train be aired up (?) by the ground air, then have the locomotive hook on and go?

[CShaveRR]

Second question first, Murph--there are times when all the extra hump crews in the world won't push the cars over any faster.  I'm sure we could come a lot closer to a "design speed" if we didn't have to make special arrangements to handle some of the cars we get in the shoves (shiftable loads, loaded autos or stack cars, hazmat), or if all of the cars rolled the way they should.  We don't have the problem they had down south--we're usually humping as far as we can go, waiting for the pulldown end to make us more room.

Having said that, up here in Proviso, the trimming is done on our end of the hump--covers kicking cars that stop short, retrieving in-wrongs, or shoving tracks "into the corner" to give ourselves more humping room.  What passes for trimming in most other yards is done by the "pulldown" crews.  Just a difference in terminology.

[Murphy Siding]

     Thanks Ed.  If this were the case, isn't it just a matter of adding more equipment/workers to the crew?  The article seems to say, that they couldn't work the hump to designed capacity.  Since yards are said to be the bottlenecks, wouldn't a problem like this receive priority for improvement?

[edblysard]

Trimming is just what it sounds like...trimming up the yards bowl tracks, cutting out cars that were switched to the wrong track, pulling out bad orders, clearing out tracks when they fill up or dragging tracks down farther into the bowl to make more room in them, things like that.

Setting trains means doubling up and or setting over tracks to build up an outbound train.

Setting or setting out can also refer to spotting the newly made up train on an air spot, so the car department can work ground air (an independent compressed air source separate from locomotive supplied air) and pump up the train line, and do an initial terminal air test with out the need for the motive power to be attached to the train.

What the author was telling you was they were humping or switching cars faster than they could make room in the bowl for them.

 

[Murphy Siding]

     The current (Nov. issue) Trains Magazine has an article about UP's Sunset Corridor.  It mentions some train operations in the West Colton, California yard, but the comments are written in *traineese*, so I don't quite understand: "We were not capable of trimming and setting trains at the same rate we could hump them...."  Translation anyone?