“There’s one local here which runs about 10 miles south of the
yard, and if they’re in a hurry, they’ll occasionally just shove
back to the yard after switching, rather than running around
the train and pulling back. In their case, shoving back makes it
easier to yard the train as well, since pulling in involves running
around a wye and then shoving the train into the yard.
“However, that job always takes a caboose along. They used
to keep two, and ran one on each end of the train so that they
wouldn’t have to switch the cab out when they ran around the
train during the day. There is a union agreement which penal-
izes the railroad for requiring a crew to ride a shove longer
than 2 miles without a caboose.
“Given the choice between a 7 mile shove and a 1½ mile light
engine movement, most crews would take the latter – provided
it doesn’t take too much time.”
– Ken Rickman
Questions, Answers & Tips - 5
“A couple years ago I exchanged email with a New England
Central employee about how the Palmer Industrial Park (in
Massachusetts) is switched. His comment about the return trip
was that if the weather was nice and there was a nice car to ride
back (like an empty center beam), he’d make sure the nice car was
on the right end and do the shove [2] back to the yard rather than
the runaround. The distance was probably a couple miles.
“I think there are two interesting points here:
- Don’t always do the same thing.
- If you’re going to shove back, there’s one more thing to con-
sider during switching; which car will end up on the head end.”
– Ken Rice
2. Switching action at Palmer MA on the New England
Central RR.
TIPS
Holding small details
For painting small detail parts,
I use a piece of electronics
breadboard or perf board [3]
and use MicroScale Kristal
Klear to mount the parts.
The Kristal Klear can be easily
softened with water after the
parts are painted.
– Dennis Blank Jr.
3
3. Glue small parts to perf
board for painting.
MRH-Aug 2014
