Pinchbar

[tatans]

Now wer'e going to date you, anyone out there ever move a boxcar with a "pinchbar" ??? Now you are wondering what a pinchbar is, go to www.gwsr.com/html/pinch_bar.html Does anyone still use these things???

[edblysard]

Not dating a soul..
Those things are laying all over the place in just about every industry we serve.

Most places that dont have a trackmobile or a switcher of their own, and need to nudge a car under a rack, or line it up with w door have them.
Thye work rather well, once you get it going you can walk a car for a very long distance.

Ed

[mvlandsw]

We have one hidden in the weeds in case a dropped car does not clear the switch.

[oubliette]

QUOTE: Does anyone still use these things???

Yes we also use them in the UK. They are very handy for shifting things like bogies. On an odd occasion we will even use them to move a loco. They are very handy on a wheel lathe if the winch travels a few inches too far then the pinch bar is ideal to nudge the vehicle back to centre position before loading.

[UPTRAIN]

We have a couple of them at the railroad museum I work at. www.pbrail.org

[espeefoamer]

I used to use one occasionally where I worked. I no longer work there,and they no longer recieve goods by rail[:(].

[Anonymous]

I have a college buddy who has used one before. His father runs a coal mine loadout in southern West Virginia. They still load about 10 cars for Norfolk Southern a day and they use the bars to spot the cars exactly were they want it at the loader. They also still ride the car down the short hill leading to the NS main using the hand brake to stop the car.

[Anonymous]

That's neat, never heard of those before.

[stmtrolleyguy]

If there is a v-groove at the end of the head, they work great for pulling spikes too, like a giant crowbar.

[mudchicken]

Nolan and Aldon still sell the darned things. Aldon Item 4017-01 $154.00

(Wrong tool trolley guy - those are clawbars, they are not hinged)

[BaltACD]

Seen them along numerous industrial sidings for when the industry needs the car moved to another spot on the same track and the industry doesn't want to pay the railroad for an intra-plant switch or wait for the railroad to make the intra-plant switch. The industry also does want to invest in a Trackmobile or their own locomotive to move the cars.

[gabe]

How does one stop the car once you get it going with the pinchbar?

[jeaton]

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

(Maybe it has been a long day.)

Jay

[Gavin Sowry]

Boxcars are kids stuff, try moving a steam loco. We used to have to do it at a museum I was involved with years ago. Once it got moving, 1 guy could keep it going.

[Anonymous]

I used to work at a Portland Cement Plant in Laramie, Wy. We used to use them to spot cars that had just been unloaded of there rock into the crusher.
WFellows

[Ken Record]

I helped my grandfather use one in 1940 when I was 10 years old. The C & O
had put in a string of bad order cars into a siding which ran along the main
line of the Cincinnati Division. They left our crossing clear, but blocked the
pathway and steps we used to get down to the Ohio River shore.

I watched him pull the coupler release. Then, he and my father took turns with
a big crowbar and moved four cars about five feet forward to clear our path.
I was fascinated and some days later managed to uncouple every one of about
30 cars. It took the local freight almost an hour to pull them out. Seeing what
had happened, I laid low.

[selector]

I can remember seeing a demonstration of a motorized mover that had a small two-cycle, probably 200cc engine of about 10 hp, that rode over a hard rubber wheel that was double-flanged to stay on the rail. It had one or two handles, and was used like a wheelbarrow. Putt-putting away like mad, it slowly got the car rolling along very nicely. This was over 45 years ago, at 12,000 feet in the Andes Mountains of Peru. Not the same thing, but maybe some of you have used/seen one?

[Anonymous]

Working in a distribution center we received most of our stock via rail car. We had several doors that Con Rail would spot cars at. Most of the time they were spotted after we had gone home for the day. The local kids would get bored and being looking for some entertaimant and come over and release the air brakes, and the hand brake.Our siding had a slight grade and the cars would roll towards the bumper at the end of the siding. The next morning all 5 of us would be outside with the pinch bars and 1 guy on the ladder by the hand brake as we respotted the cars at the doors of the warehouse. This happened in the 1970's and early 1980's.

[oklacnw]

Never used them to move a box car, but moved many a tank car of asphalt to position them for heating to remove contents. Worked road construction in 1946-50 in Iowa with my dad for the "Iowa Road Building Company", originally out of Des Moines, Ia. but then moved to Fairmont, Mn. Cars could be moved easily by two of us using the pinch bars.

[Anonymous]

Some of these responses seem like they're referring to a car mover, which is a wooden bar about six feet long with a pivot point that sits on the rail and a metal point that went under the wheel tread. When I was a carman many, many years ago we had a steel bar about 30" long that we used to pull brake shoe keys, close car doors, etc. We called this a pinch bar. You could use it to move an empty car, but you had an excellent change to break some fingers too.

[theswitchman]

Yep.
Not a boxcar but a flatcar (66Klbs) and a Hopper with some rock in it (126Klbs)
Used one about six months ago. Looks slightly different from the one shown in the link you provided. We got it from Aldon, can get part number tomorrow if you want to buy one.
Short on time at the moment, can continue with war stories later.
Regards
Miked

[Anonymous]

They are used at many grain silos in the Midwest

[tatans]

O.K. guys calm down, we can all actually own a pinch bar, Badger makes a Power King Railcar Mover (a pinchbar) for $160.00 but they also sell a box of Railcar Mover Spurs for $8.00--- NOW if someone can just tell me what they are and what they are used for????

[Anonymous]

Yes, when I worked at a brick yard where each kiln car had 10 tons of brick. Usually using this device got the car rolling when a fork truck was not handy to do the job. After moving it a few inches you could pu***he car by hand. Also, when a wheel bearing got stuck or needed to move the kiln car to grease the wheel. Very handy in tight spots.

[Anonymous]

Have not used used one but have a farm tractor used to move a railcars.

[Anonymous]

Back in the eighties and nineties we used a couple regularly to move boxcars at a furniture factory from lumber unloading doors to finished furniture loading doors. We had two lumber unloading doors and two loading doors from which to ship furniture, all on one siding. Ocassionally the night MP train would spot a car on our siding near the Mainline and we used the bar to move the car to the door. They were a very useful tool.

[Anonymous]

I have never used one, but I do have one in my collection at home. The handle is broken in half. Can anyone tell me where I could get a new handel? It is made of wood.

Bob

[[e-mail]]

Never used a pinchbar, but at a summer job at a clothing factory back in the 60's, we used a Jeep pickup to reposition a car.

The boss never could figure out why the clutch kept burning out...

[GRAMRR]

Yup, back in the mid 50's when I was 16 years old, I worked on a labor gang for a large paint factory in Cleveland. The night local used to leave our box cars on the siding with the brakes off and us kids on the "gang" had to go out in the morning and spot the cars at the appropriate locations for unloading. If the weather man was predicting an especially hot day, we'd occasionally sneak out to the track early and dump the air, setting the brakes. They'd have to wait for the next switch job to pump up the air again. Unloading a box car sitting in the 100 degree sun is a job you remember!

GRAMRR

[FrankStratton]

We always called them a "car jack". I used them in the late 50's spotting box cars full of cans so we could "fork" the cans off onto a conveyor at a canning factory. Later in the 60's I used them to spot tank cars on a siding where we had one unloading station but usually had several cars to unload. The big problem here was that the siding was on a grade and it usually took two of us to get the cars moving and spotted. The jack could be a knuckle buster when they slipped and catch your fingers between the handle and the rail head.