Doug,
Yes sure, you and a select few will appreciate the following on that very subject. Small snippets of which I shared in last nights hand sign clinic.
One late winter Sunday morning I’m home expecting to be called for a 185 that afternoon or 85 at the latest as a brakeman in a pool turn. The phone rings and the voice says is this Leo Phillipp ? I said yes and crew caller Arnie states “you are the Conductor on #11843 on duty at Eola at 1XX PM” and hangs up. This will be my first run set up as a Conductor. Upon reporting for duty I learn the entire crew is extra including the hogger. Upon arrival at Mendota I learn why. The limit on the job was 25 cars due to terrain and a single GP or SD. We pick up 25 cars to be distributed around the horn. As you know almost every move was a facing point switch so we dropped cars all day.
Next day coming out of Savanna headed east on the C&I we again have 25 cars to distribute before arriving at Eola. While not as many as the prior day we still have to make a number of drops. With about an hour and 15 minutes to work we leave Waterman after dropping a car into then FS spur without having it run off the end of track. We head to Hinckley where we have 7 fertilizer cars for FS east of town with a facing point move. In my wisdom and the hoggers’ comment that he doesn’t want to die under the hog law and ride in a cab. I decide that rather than make the long runaround move using the Hinckley pass and then shoving cars to FS we will drop all seven into the spur.
Well, we managed to make the drop without cornering anything but…….. it sure looked like the rear car was going to come to rest out to foul the mainline. Our train was west(behind) us and the engine was east of us. So I literally put my shoulder into the end ladder of the rear car before they stopped. I pushed and was joined by both brakeman and we were able to get them in the clear. I was contemplating how to explain to the dispatcher why I needed a train to come up behind us and provide a short shove.
That should cover some of the possibilities of what can grow wrong with a drop.
Leo On Dec 17, 2022, at 4:08 PM, Doug Hartman <douglas.p.hartman@gmail.com> wrote:
When you talk about dropping cars, maybe also what happened when the drop came up short :) Maybe the following will help with the variance in hand signals. As always keep in mind hand signs were extremely regional or even down to certain locations. For example at last nights clinic I demonstrated the 2 different signs for “go to the main” that were used at locations less than 50 miles apart.
Back/Go forward signs:
For daylight it was as follows:
1)Back up or reverse or take the cars/engine away from me- hands move outward away from body, some what like swating a bug away. But on a larger scale.
2)Move engine/ahead or towards me-think of a reverse wave where the hand(s) are brought back toward the body in a circular motion.
The difference came at night.
As explained to me one night when the engine went in the opposite direction that was desired after I gave a sign. At night the ground men had to think in relation to whether the engineer was facing the control stand or facing away from it.
1) if the desired move was to bring the cars/engine towards you and the engineer was looking over the control stand the signal was up and down with the lantern.
2)if the desired move was to bring the cars/engine towards you and the engineer was turned looking away and/or the desired move would cause him to turn his body away from the control stand the signal was lantern swung in a circle.
Leo Phillipp
> On Dec 12, 2022, at 11:50 AM, Winton <runextra@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Old head CB&Q switch conductor to switch engineer after the engineer
> forgot to move the reverser 3 times in a short period of time,
> knocking the pulled pin down each time.
> 1. He points to his eye, meaning "I'm"
> 2. He makes a big kick with his leg, meaning "gonna kick"
> 3. He points to the engineer, meaning "your"
> 4. He pats his own behind, meaning "ass".
>
> Don't ask how I know this. I'll deny it.
>
> One of the things that were odd to me when I came from the Penn
> Central to the former CB&Q was the the Q mens use of the daytime
> direction "Come towards me" and the "Go away from me" hand signals. On
> the PC we used the same signals day and night. Lantern or hand up &
> down for ahead and lantern or hand in a circle for back up.
>
>
>
>
>
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