Bob,
Yes, your conclusion is correct. A Brakeperson is usually added to yard
crews,
locals, & trains that have considerable on-line work. This usually includes
unit grain pickups and setouts since few elevators have room for entire
grain
units on one track and there are usually grade crossing complications.
Makes
a terminal air test on 104 or 110 cars a lot easier with 2 men on the
ground.
Sometimes an extra Brakeperson is called just to transport to the elevator
and
assist and then goes back to their terminal. There are also a few coal
dumpers
that do not have a loop although many mines and utilities have switched to
contract switching services and they load or unload.
At terminals where trains are assembled from blocks or separated into blocks
on different tracks yard crews normally do not do this work. These yards
will
normally have a Utility Man on duty each shift to assist in this work. For
safety reasons the Utility Man "attaches" to a crew for the time required to
do
the work and then "unattaches" after the work is complete. A great deal of
"modern" railroading is block swapping, even on high priority Intermodal
trains. Really not that many yard to yard transfer jobs anymore. It is
just
as easy to have a train made up in blocks and have the road crews exchange
blocks either online or at a particular yard. Clovis NM is the re-blocking
point for Intermodal trains on "The Transcon".
In Canada most yard switching is done with two men on the ground and a
beltpack controlled locomotive. There has been a recent court ruling that
frees U.S. roads to switch over to this method. BNSF has picked Newton KS
and Mandan ND as the first two yards to be converted and I'm sure it will
spread very rapidly.
More details, let me know,
Russ
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob Weber" <eng95@a...>
To: "BRHS" <BRHSlist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, 24 March, 2002 19:03
Subject: [BRHSlist] Modern operations
> Since it's been 45 years since I railroaded, I'd like a little update on
current operations. In the early 50's a train crew consisted of 5 men;
engineer, brakeman and fireman in the engine and a brakeman and conductor in
the waycar. Operations in single track areas included manual blocking via
telephone or telegraph. Communications between the dispatcher and the
traincrew was via handwritten train orders hand delivered to the crew with a
Y fork. Then came CTC, radios and the elimiation of the waycar, conductor,
fireman and 1 brakeman so that a train now consists of engine, crew of two
and an end of train device, right?
>
> Regards,
> Bob
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