Railroad siding

“ To see what CTC does, you’ll first have to imagine a stretch of railroad way out in the country, thirty miles from any station. There’s just one main track, with sidings where trains running in opposite directions can pass each other. Each engineer has his train orders, so he knows whether he’s supposed to go onto the siding or continue straight through. But unexpected things can always happen. If a train is late, it may not get to the siding on time. ”

“ Now, every railway man knows that when one thing goes wrong on a railroad, two more mishaps are sure to follow; so, when the rescuing crew heard over the wire that the train they had left on a siding, having been butted by another train heading in, had started back down grade, spilled over at the lower switch, and blocked the main line, they began to expect something to happen at home.
However, the driver had to go when the old [Pg 95] man was in the cab and the G.M. with a whole army of engineers and workmen waiting for him at Pee-Wee ”

“ The application was denied and this appeal was taken.
The industrial siding in question diverges from the main line of the railroad company, and was built many years ago for the convenience of industries then located on it. ”

“ No station to be constructed, and no siding to join a passenger line, on a steeper gradient than 1 in 260, except where it is unavoidable. When the line is double, and the gradient at a station or siding-junction is necessarily steeper than 1 in 260, and when danger is to be apprehended from vehicles running back, a catch-siding with points weighted for the siding, or a throw-off switch, to be provided to intercept runaway vehicles at a distance outside the home-signal for the ascending line, greater than the length of the longest train running upon the line. ”

“ The sagging makes the mechanical resistance but little more than is experienced in hauling a train of the same weight along a rigid track, while the use of flexible rods enables the road to be built much more lightly and hence much more cheaply than if stiff rails were used. On curves, sidings, and sections for loading and unloading, however, it is found better to employ the stiff rails, which are supported by posts thirteen feet apart. The form of
Fig. 2-A Telpher Train at the Railway Siding. ”

“ Other outgoing shipments, consisting principally of boxes, containers, and household goods, are also made. The siding is a flag station for three passenger trains, two eastbound and one westbound daily. ”

“ No wagon or car shall (under a penalty of 1s.) be moved by hand on to or along the main line, except by special arrangement with the engine-driver; and the term “main line” shall be understood to include every part of the railway not being a siding or within a terminal yard.
6. Hand shunting of vehicles on sidings shall be done carefully, so as to avoid injury to the rolling stock; but no vehicle shall be moved at all except by an authorised person. ”

“ I said, "Isn't this Flimdunk Siding? We're supposed to stay here until a train picks us up."
He said, "Yes, but this car has no business inside the fence; this is the old ice-house freight siding. They should have left you standing out near the main line."
I said, "Yes, but this car has something to say about it, too, and it wouldn't stop, so here we are. Don't blame us, blame the car. That's the way it is with railroads, they don't care about anybody's rights." ”

“ Every few miles, to the accompaniment of shrieking brake shoes, the train would slow to a stop, and rumble onto a siding at some little flat town, to allow a faster train to hurl past in a rush of smoke, and dust, and deafening roar, and whistle screams. Then the wheezy engine would nose out onto the main track, back into another siding, pick up a box car or two, spot an empty at the grain spout of a sagging red-brown elevator, and couple onto the train again with a jolt that threatened to bounce the cars from the rails, and caused the imprisoned horses to stamp and snort nervously. ”

“ Is it possible for one man to attend to all these things without losing time, without endangering his life, or exposing the rolling stock to great injury? When he has waggons to take on at a station, he will most likely leave his brake van and part of his train standing on the main line while he goes into the siding. Here is the danger: the engine-driver may be backing into the siding too fast, through not being able to see the guard’s signal, either on account of the dullness of the night or otherwise. ”

“ Late in the afternoon the time freight, or some other train, came along, and the special was once more set in motion eastward, but at dinner-time it was again side-tracked, eighty-odd miles from its destination, and once more at a desert siding where there was no telegraph office. The car was still standing on the siding when Blount went to bed. ”

“ It is usually understood and provided that, when trains meet, those having the right of track shall keep the main track, with sometimes an exception to this in favor of trains which cannot go on the siding without backing. Where this latter provision exists it renders it unnecessary for either train to pass the switch in the face of the other when they are to meet at a siding open only at one end. It is sometimes, however, necessary to put a superior train on the siding for a train that is too heavy or too long to go on, or for some other reason. ”

“ Great care must be taken to prevent the sidings from becoming blocked by crossing a wrong point. Where two or more engines are operating over a complex siding this may easily be done, and a delay of several hours will be the result. ”

“ When one of these sorting-sidings contains a full complement of waggons, an engine is attached, and the train despatched to its destination, leaving the siding clear for another set of waggons. Where the trains to be sorted are very numerous, two or more shunting-engines may be engaged working at the same time on distinct sets of shunting lines and sidings. Sometimes it may be expedient to have one lot of sorting-sidings leading off the UP line, and another lot leading off the DOWN line, to meet the requirements of trains coming and going in both directions. ”

“ In the tower a man works an automatic device which alters the points outside according to which siding, or road’ as it’s called, the wagons should run into. On each set of rails there is a retarder which is used to slow the wagons down to the right speed for running into the siding. ”

“ Such traveling way shall be made on the same side of the track as the refuge holes. In no case shall a locomotive be detached from a train of moving cars, for the purpose of making a drop thereof, more than one hundred feet from the switch of the siding. ”

“ They walked between the rails which carried, every day and all day and night too, long lines of trucks, heavily laden, needing no locomotive to carry them to their destination, they stepped aside now and again at some siding to pass another train, this time of empty trucks being dragged up by a smoking engine, and for a while they did not exchange another word. ”

“ An arriving goods train is first drawn out of the main-traffic lines into one of the shunting lines, and then handed over to the staff of men in charge of the sorting operations, who at once mark the waggons according to the number or designation of the particular siding into which they have to be placed. A suitable engine is generally set apart for this work, and in a very short time the entire train is divided out by one or more waggons at a time, and distributed into the various sidings, representing different sections of the line, or groups to be handed over to neighbouring railways. ”

“ The man is crazy, thought the operator, but he would try. As he rushed from the office a light engine was just pulling out of the siding to take water. This locomotive belonged to the crew of a work train, but the train had been left in the siding. The operator sprang into the cab, and shouted to the engineer to pull out and catch No. 8; "lap order," he added, and that was enough. The driver, without waiting for his fireman who was some yards behind, tugging at a stiff switch in an effort to close it, pulled the throttle open and bounded away up the steep grade behind the passenger train. ”

“ Each was firm in the belief that he had seen a ghost, but he would never tell it,—not for his job.
The officials in the special train felt the resistance of the engine when the engineer shut off and reversed, and the general manager, turning to the superintendent, asked, with surprise: "When did you put in that siding?"
"What, back there? That's Coyote spur, and has been there for six months," was the reply.
"I know very well," said the manager, "where Coyote spur is, for we waited there fifteen minutes for No. 8 going down the other day, but we just passed a siding on the north." ”

“ Putting my foot against the main line rail, I grasped the switch rail and throwing all my strength into the effort, jerked it-over to the main line, but would it stay until the train passed over? I felt sure it would not. I looked about for something to hold it. Part of a broken pin was the only thing in sight. The headlight of the express shone in my face, and something seemed to say, "This is your trial, do something quick." I threw myself prone on the ground, my head near the rails, and held the broken pin between the end of the siding rail and the main line. ”

“ On shot the locomotive, like an arrow from the bow, the men throwing over the ties until the train was well nigh unloaded, when just as they were close to the curve by which the train arrives at the station, they saw the dreaded cars strike a tie, or something equally of service, and with a desperate plunge rush down the embankment, some fifteen feet, to the little valley, and creek below. ”

“ A locomotive attached to two vans of coal had been shunting, in order to get on to the siding and let us pass, when one of the vans got off the rails and the locomotive tired its lungs with whistling the alarm, while men ran to meet us scattering petards. ”

“ Matilda Pitman RILLA and Jims were standing on the rear platform of their car when the train stopped at the little Millward siding. The August evening was so hot and close that the crowded cars were stifling. Nobody ever knew just why trains stopped at Millward siding. Nobody was ever known to get off there or get on. ”

“ We had been "hoboing" a ride upon a freight train and had been fired off by its crew at a lone siding about fifty miles east of Minot, North Dakota. In those early days trains were few and the chances that one of them would stop at this lone siding were so small that we decided to walk to the nearest water tank, which in those days of small engines were never more than twenty miles apart, and there catch another ride. ”

“ All the passengers are requested to walk. In single file we march over the bridge, and then await the train. It comes across, lightened of its load, slowly and safely. It is quite likely that in America the engineer would have put on all steam, and dashed across in a second, or, if not, he would have gone down a hundred feet, into a frightful chasm, and the verdict, if any were sought, would have been, “nobody to blame.” Fret as we do about the railroad management in Europe, it is safer and surer than ours. ”

“ A medium-sized travelling-crane is a most useful appliance about a railway station; it has a much greater range of utility than a fixed crane, but it is not always appreciated as it should be. It merely requires a line of rails laid down parallel to the rails of siding, and may be placed either on the same level as the siding, or on the level of the loading-bank. Being laid flush with the roadway, the rails do not present any obstacle to the passage of carts or movement of merchandise. ”

“ At convenient sidings on the railways throughout the theatre of war construction trains were stationed in charge of permanent-way inspectors and sections of Royal Engineers who had at their disposal, at each of such sidings, a gang of men—whites and natives—varying in number from 300 to 1,000, according to circumstances. ”

“ So they kicked off tramps with a proud kick, and they coupled freight cars with a self-satisfied air, and they received deaths with complaisance as defective couplings broke and box cars crashed together, and they made up passenger trains and ran locomotives with the haughty air of men belonging to the most prominent road in that great country which centred in Chicago, to which the rest of America, especially the East, was but an attachment.
"Oh, you are a railroad man—a Western railroad man. Perhaps you can tell me about the Rocky Mountains?" ”

“ Engine the 107 was not rebuilt for a long time and was never again employed in passenger service. The foreman in one of the repair shops wrote to Philadelphia and learned that the 109 was completed on Thursday and the 107 on Friday. As I said a while ago, railroad employees are not superstitious,—they will all tell you so,—much less railway officers; but it is a fact to-day that a new locomotive or a locomotive that has been rebuilt is never taken out on the Denver and Rio Grande on Friday. ”

“ A siding may be a hundred or a hundred and fifty yards from the signal-box. On a dark, and perhaps foggy night, the usual way of performing shunting at the present time is, for the signalman to depend upon the man in charge to show him a white light by hand lamp, or give a signal on a gong worked by electricity, when the main line is all clear for another train to pass. Now the former is a very dangerous system, for where shunting is taking place, the guards and the men in charge have each lights in their hands; there are also lights on the engine, and on the train which is being shunted. ”