Do not hump!

[Anonymous]

I remember an incident involving a flatcar with two 20' containers that was marked DO NOT HUMP when I was working at the nuclear waste processing site. The car was humped and hit hard enough to shift the load in one of the containers enough to break open the doors. I can just imagine the yard crews faces finding a container marked radioactive with the doors broke open.
Fortunately it was a low level shipment and only required a light decon of the flatcar.
Never the less it was an ugly scene with the hazmat crew and the NRC involved. Lots of paperwork.

[Anonymous]

I'm pretty sure my ex-wife had a 'do not hump' sign on her during the last days. OOPS! Wrong forum- I meant to post this in the 'ex's that cut you off at the hump' forum! Darn keyboard!
Seriously though, it would take quite a large yard to hump a CWR cut wouldn't it? How many places produce CWR? I've seen only one (on video) and can imagine with the hour of service law and all the CWR used that humping would be required. Or is CWR 'on demand' and transported as needed?

[UPTRAIN]

If they are something that could be dangerous if hit hard...they will say this, also if they are MOW equipment that may be damaged by hard jolts.

[mudchicken]

Not only is it the type of lading, it also has to do with weight & Length. If it's a small bowl and the retarders are no longer that great, cars have been known to roll out the other end in search of a derail with enough momentum (Speed x Mass) to hit. Short car long car coupling (bypass) and empties going airborne with help from the next load over the hump play into it as well.

[Anonymous]

A lot of the intermodal cars have "Do Not Hump" written on the ends of them, I've been noticing that a lot of them are the new yellow TTX versions that are not supposed to be humped.

Apparently when you start getting the containers double stacked, humping isn't too good an idea. I suppose you could kick it softly and have nothing happen, but you never really know.

[TH&B]

I've seen "DO NOT HUMP" cars go over the hump including open end flat cars with pipe, steel plates and coils with all the coils ending up at one end of the gon and open cars with wheels wich is against the rules. I've also seen cars been delivered with signs saying do not unload this side. I've seen boxcars with paper roles shifted so you can't unload it because it's so jammed you can't get the first role out without destraying it AND the steel boxcar is busting at the seems from the 80 ton load shift. I've seen this in the past year and the boxcars looked old with no cusion draw gear!!

You know what else I even saw???? A loaded OPEN auto bilevel !! twice !!!! I thought they were history.

Many years ago I saw a boxcar filled with windshields.... all smash almost to pulp when the door was opened at the dock !!

Humping, kicking and switcing is a skill, that requires good judgement and practice to do it right... or else...

[CShaveRR]

Anybody who loads a car can put a "Do not hump" placard on the car. That doesn't mean we'll abide by it.

What can and cannot be humped is generally determined by the individual railroad, or even by the management at the specific yard. There are some cars, such as the glass-lined tank cars for refrigerated ethylene, that cannot be humped, loaded or empty. There are also regulations (Federal, I believe) about not humping (or kicking) cars in certain categories, depending on the color or design of the placard and the type of car or container on which it's applied.

At my local humping operation, we do not hump flat car loads of large combines, automobiles (wink, wink), or shiftable loads of steel (again, wink). Hazardous loads are given extra time for proper handling. Like Ed said in Mookie's thread about LP gas, we hump these "bombs" all the time, and there's very little to worry about. There are other types of cars, far less hazardous, that I'd rather refrain from humping because of what they can do to a yard or a track.

A lot is up to the individuals doing the work. Just because some of the restrictions on paper are often winked at, it doesn't mean that the cars are handled carelessly. Our track record is pretty good overall, and we do well when compared to other yards (which are supposedly far more sophisticated) on our railroad. And we don't have one poor railroad's record...a couple of weeks ago I heard from a source that should be reliable that General Motors (the number one customer for many railroads) will not give any business to one particular railroad because of damages incurred in its yard(s). Things have supposedly changed on this railroad, but GM has a long memory, and probably won't ship via this line for a long, long time.

[rrnut282]

I think you got it when you said the load they carry. Some cars are in "captive service" going back and forth from the same shipper/consignee pairs all the time. If the load they are always carrying is not shock-proof, it would make sense to label that car.

[Anonymous]

OK, I've been seeing more and more cars with the words "Do Not Hump!" emblazoned on the side of them, than I ever remember before. Some, such as the "waste water" tanker for work crew trains, or the specially configured cars designed to be linked together to carry new rail (which I guess applies if the cars are loaded, mostly) seem rather straight forward, and obvious, but I've been seeing some real puzzles too, such as plain vanilla looking gondolas, and covered hoppers, making me wonder why?

For you seasoned vets, from your experiances, what qualities in either cars, or the loads they carry, constitute definite "no-no" for the hump?