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From: Malcolm Laughlin <mlaughlinnyc@...>
Posted by: "Robert" > I believe the rulebook says "do not hump" means do not let car roll
free.

That was a UP rule and not a general railroad rule. Was that actually in the book of operating rules, or was it the procedures for particular yards ?

Something else that makes me curious is that UP president John Kenefick came from the NYC, as VPO, where I believe he was one of the officials who would have gone up in smoke if yard crews had given those cars special handling.

The hump retarders were more often than not out of calibration or otherwise not working properly. Not uncommon for cars to hit standing cuts way too hard or to leave cars fouling other tracks.

That sounds like apretty poor operation. Did they neglect putting the skates on the far end of the bowl tracks ? I've been in enough hump towers on different railroads to think that what you describe is not usual.

A good crew could flat switch a cut almost as fast as the hump,

The best I've ever heard of for a flat yard, and that a well-designed new yard, is two cars per minute, unless there are a lot of multiple car cuts. A hump can get up to four cars a minute when operation is going well and shouldn't fall below three. Of course they couldn't do that all day because the constraint in a hump yard is the building of outbound trains.

but that usually meant a four-person crew vs. three on the hump.

In the steam era, even through at least the early 70's, it was all five man crews.



Malcolm Laughlin, Editor 617-489-4383
New England Rail Shipper Directories
19 Holden Road, Belmont, MA 02478