For my contemporaries who railroaded back in the stone age, try that when the knuckle breaks or the air hose bursts in the middle of nowhere at night and it's always in the middle of the train. NO communication like today. You lug that stuff back to the problem, repair it, and then use your lantern. Sometimes you had to get on top of a box car so the engineer could see you, especially on a curve, or, you relayed your signals to the conductor who had a radio, and he in turn relayed to the engineer. Broken knuckles or a burst air hose are still part of railroading, but at least the guy on the ground has communication with the engineer.
they suck to fix alone I do the pin last. I get the kuckle where I want it pull up on cut lever hoping the guts don't jump out and push the knuckle into place
ElfNet Gaming no, he got it. The battery was about to die on my camera so I turned it off so I wouldn’t loose my video. This was only the beginning of his problems for the night.
@@etwncengineer you're a moron if you carry a knuckle more than 10 or 15 car lengths. The way to do it is drop it off the engine, walk back, get your air to come back on the train, ride the rear car of the separated portion up to where the engine was. Grab the new knuckle, shove back to the rear of your train, replace it, put the train together, walk up. Or shove the whole train back depending where you Are.
As a conductor on the Chicago Northwestern we had some really good engineers we had some bad ones I remember one night it was foggy you couldn't see in front of your hand we had a bad engineer we broke in three places we had to go out there and change out the knuckles took us almost 4 hours I felt like Bella Lugosi was going to tap me on the back of the neck when you're in deep fog like that your mind plays a lot of tricks on you
On a coal train on grade in middle of winter, goes into emergency,.Drop off knuckle off head end, walk train with air hose an a wrench to find break.Signal engineer to go ahead with a fusee or lightbulb RR lantern.Stop train and replace knuckle. Then backup train and recouple train. Signal to go ahead slow and hope on caboose , with a HI Ball signal. E
etwncengineer How many knuckles and so on are on the locomotive, as I remember American trains are long, so there are a lot of knuckles which can break.
@@CDRSpock03 There are two basic types of knuckles: E and F types. They are NOT interchangeable. So, most locomotives will carry 2 spares, an E and an F. There are a lot more cars with E knuckles compared to the F type. F's are only used in "tight lock" couplers.
Yes but mostly only on rotary coal gons. And the reason for that is the during the dumping process, obviously the pins fall out. But those cotter pins are a pain to remove. Best to not put them where they aren't needed.
No he didn't. He asks for it right after he stretches the joint. The engineer says "drawing them down" they are likely on a hill im guessing. Once the brakes are set the engineer gives him the 3 step confirmation. He was fine here.
+jasfromoz Most important is that the engineer/conductor gives you the signal that the train is safe, ie he has the brakes on and is not going to move (reverser in neutral), in this case you could hear him giving clearance over the radio. When the train line pressure was dropped enough by the conductor (brake handle in emergency) nothing should move when opening the cocks, so opening the cock from underneath in the same way as he had to reach for the hose should not impair a danger, or is there some risk I overlook? I ask because on British passenger stock the same couplers (buckeye) are used and we normaly reach under the drawbars to open the cocks in case of air brake stock, in the case of vacuum brakes there are no cocks, the unused hoses are shut of by putting them on dummies (and there is even less space because of the buffers and gangway conections, so we have to squat down underneath)
@@thomasdupee1440 UK has recommendations on max weights but they are not legal so bosses can demand workers lift heavier things. I regularly used to lift 160 pound steel blanks into lathe when I was making pipeline parts.
Doing this is a lot easier than working with remote controlled locomotives. The rcl box doesn't weight much but, when you have to lug it around for long periods of time day after day, it truly hurts your back. I'm just waiting to see some lawsuits in the future.
