Train switch

“ They hunted mine and looked at me and asked me questions and made me forget things, and made me think and dream and speculate; all of which are sheer suicide for a locomotive engineer.
I got a switchman and started out to limber up the "III." I asked him to let me out on the main line, took a five-mile spin, and side-tracked for a freight train. While the man was unlocking the switch, I looked into the eyes and wondered what their owner was, or could be, or had been, to "Scar Faced" [Pg 103] Hopkins, and—ran off the switch. ”

“ There was a great clatter as they took the switches, then a row of streaked electric lights, a dim impression of streets and of clanging bells, a shriek from the locomotive, and again they were in the open. A few minutes later Harvey gave orders that a brakeman climb forward on the engine ready to throw the Brushingham switch. Soon the car jarred and struggled under the air brake, and then slowed down, grinding and pounding, almost to a stop. The brakes were released, and the train rolled easily out beyond the station on to the long siding. ”

“ He had gone down the tracks to the limits, foot by foot slowly, twenty times or more that morning, until he had a perfect map in his head of every rail and switch on the roadbeds.
He had familiarized himself with every lever number, and that of every train on the road. He realized that trained eye, ear, and muscle must be ever on the alert, or great loss of life and property might result at any moment. ”

“ When a train enters upon a section or block it prevents the section back of it from receiving working current. Thus any number of trains following each other will each be deprived of working current when the length of a block back of the train ahead of it, whether that train be running or standing still, thus preventing collisions. A train approaching a switch or drawbridge is automatically arrested the length of a block away from the block containing the switch or draw before a bolt can be withdrawn or a lock released in the latter. ”

“ Suppose, then, that Pee-wee had opened the switch. A train coming from the west would enter the branch, if it were not traveling too fast. In this latter case a catastrophe would occur at the spot.
If the train were traveling slowly it might make the unintended turn. But if the curving track were only a siding there would be a smash-up where the track ended. If the train were traveling from the east, it would be in no danger for on such a junction the switch, however set, would have no effect on trains running in that direction. ”

“ Not every freight yard has a hump or car retarders or radio telephones. Only the biggest ones have all these{31} things. In many yards the switch engine pushes the whole train first onto one track and then onto another, dropping a car each time.
There are several kinds of switch engine, built especially for their jobs. But switching is often done with very old engines that aren’t fast enough for regular runs any more. Railroad men call an old wheezy engine a teakettle. An ordinary switch engine is a bobtail or a yard goat. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If a switch or draw-bridge is misplaced an approaching train will set an alarm ringing at the station and will also exhibit a red signal ahead of the train as a warning to the engineer that the switch is misplaced. ”

“ So I shall either pull the whole train into the yard or get permission from the yardmaster to cut off on the main, and like an orthodox conductor, leave them for the night men to switch out. We conductors feel that, as a switch engine lies around the most of the time, it can always do at least one more job, besides having time to shove us out of the yard and over the hill. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Two locomotives are not considered too much for its grade when there is no snow on the track; now they can just handle the train, the track being slippery, and the snow-drifts heavy and increasing.
It is usual to make a flying switch at this point—one engine detaching itself from the train and entering the Y; leaving one locomotive, which is amply sufficient under ordinary circumstances, to take care of a train on the steep down grade, which begins at this place. ”

“ To-night the two locomotives should both remain attached to the train, and pull it entirely over the divide together—the helping engine being compelled, of course, to go on as far as the next station, Piedmont.
But the conductor, being a man of routine, does it in his ordinary summer way, by the flying switch, and sends the helping locomotive away. This giving its warning toot, uncouples from the second engine, runs ahead of it, and making a switch into the Y, is ready for its return to Evanston. ”

“ Other trains at other places in the line receive the same current, each by breaking for the time the ordinary contact between the two sections it touches, and substituting a contact through its own conductor and motor. When a train leaves a section it replaces the switch that makes contact with the section behind. If, however, there are more than one train on the line, an automatic block system is added to prevent one from overtaking another by letting the section which a train leaves stand insulated for a time. No control is exercised from the vehicles themselves ”

“ These traps are used to stop the train when there is danger ahead, the patrol opens the switch, which automatically sets a signal, so that the engineer knows what is coming, and the train loses its force up the steep switch instead of plunging into the abyss below. As you lie in your berth at night and watch the great shining spot of the searchlight on the front of the engine as it lights up mountain, crag, and deep defile 1,000 yards ahead, the clear whistle rings out in the night ”

“ The heavy express which has discharged its baggage and passengers in the train-shed is hauled out to the yards by one of the sturdy little switch-engines that are eternally poking their way about the yards. The engine that has pulled it in from the road backs itself down to the roundhouse, without another thought of the train. Its responsibility ended as soon as the run ended in the train-shed. [Pg 90] The engineer simply has to see that his locomotive is carefully put away in the roundhouse; and, on some roads, that his fireman cleans its upper parts before the next run out upon the line. ”

“ The evidence shows without contrary intimation that on the first movement into the storage track the twelve cars to be picked up later were south of the crossing and therefore more than an eighth of a mile from the switch. 'When the cars or the train was backed into the pass track to let the northbound train pass, I (the conductor) threw the switch and the derailer and then came back to the crossing to await the other movement-to keep from hitting an automobile.' 'When that movement was made-when they backed out on the main line-I was at this crossing, protecting the crossing. ”

“ A controller is mounted upon the platform at each end of each motor car, and the entire train may be operated from any one of the points, the motorman normally taking his post on the front platform of the first car. The switches which open and close the power circuits through motors and rheostats are called contactors, each comprising a magnetic blow-out switch and the electro magnet which controls the movements of the switch. ”

“ First the regular engine leaves the train and a special switch engine couples on. The engineer of the switch engine has a radio telephone in the cab, so he can listen to orders from the towerman who unscrambles the train. ”

“ As soon as an engine has safely dragged a passenger-train to the top of the incline at Camden Station, at which point the coupling-chains which connect it with its load are instantly unhooked, it is enabled by the switchman to get from the main line upon a pair of almost parallel side rails, along which, while the tickets are being collected, it may be seen and heard retrograding and hissing past its train. ”

“ The to-and-fro movement of a dense traffic on a four-track railway requires a large amount of switching, especially when each movement is complicated by junctions of two or more lines. Practically every problem of trunk line train movement, including two, three, and four-track operation, had to be provided for in the switching plants of the subway. Further, the problem was complicated by the restricted clearances and vision attendant upon tunnel construction. ”

“ These trains must work upon the track away from stations, often with a large force of men, and delays to their operations cause expense as well as hindrance to work. At the same time they must not be permitted to interfere with the passage of regular trains, nor of others more than can be avoided. The solving of this problem has been attempted in various ways. Some allow the "work train" to occupy the track by right, except that it must keep out of the way of regular trains. Some permit it to work under flag "until freight trains come in sight." ”

“ 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. ”

“ Express trains and local trains alike are provided with a bus line, which interconnects the electrical supply to all cars and prevents interruption of the delivery of current to motors in case the collector shoes attached to any given car should momentarily fail to make contact with the third rail. At certain cross-overs this operates to prevent extinguishing the lamps in successive cars as the train passes from one track to another. ”

“ The engine has got over the slippery point on the rails,—slippery either from the ordinary foulness of the atmosphere, or more probably, from some of the oil which has fallen from the engine to the rails. She is now getting to her speed; the guards, who have not jumped from the platform until after the train is in motion, shut themselves within their vans, they see that their breaks are all right and begin arranging their parcels; the sisyphi of the sorting post fall to again at their always-beginning and never-ending labours; such passengers as can sleep, sleep, such as can’t [237] don’t. ”

“ As a matter of fact, the task of carrying on the business of a single-track road, where it is practically impossible for all trains to run on time, where meeting-points must be provided for all freight-trains, without delaying them unduly, and where the passenger-trains must have always a clear track and opportunity to make up as much time as possible, if they happen to be late, is one of the most delicate and nerve-racking that could be imagined, though under the new double-order system it is not so bad as it was under the old single-order one. ”

“ On many new height trains the conductor or the brakeman can call immediately by radio telephone and tell the engineer to stop for a stinker. But on older trains, the conductor can only pull the emergency air-brake, which stops the whole train fast.
Although a hot box is dangerous, it’s easy to remedy. The box only needs to be re-packed with fresh oil-soaked waste.
Everybody who works on a railroad watches for smoking journal boxes. Suppose a freight train has stopped on a siding to let a fast passenger train go by. The head freight brakeman stands beside the track. ”

“ Trains cannot bump into each other when CTC is at work. It is a wonderful system of electric wires that run along the tracks, all the way to an office building in a railroad town. The wires end in a long board that’s dotted with lights and small levers. Now when train wheels travel over the rails, the wires carry electric messages to that long board. Lights flash on and tell the man who watches the board exactly where the train is. If he wants it to go onto a siding, he pushes a lever. Electric switches miles away guide the train’s wheels off the main track. ”

“ 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. ”