Pinchbar

[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]

[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 ! !

[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 !!!!!

[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.

[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]

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

[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!

[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.

[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.

[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 !!!

[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.

[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

[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!

[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.

[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

[[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...

[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

[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]

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

[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.

[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]

They are used at many grain silos in the Midwest

[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]

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.

[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]

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.

[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?

[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.

[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