I was a conductor/brakeman that used to do a lot of switching. We had an iPad that showed what cars needed to be blocked for certain destinations. He probably has a switch list in his pocket that shows what order the train should be in. Also, watching him hook up thise tankers brought back memories. I was probly 2 months into my career, hooking up a string of tankers that weren't completely full, and when I called for 3 step protection, the cars all of a sudden rolled toward me as I was trying to hook up the hoses. I jumped outta there so damn fast! Next thing I heard was my engineer just laughing his butt off! They wanted to bust my chops a bit since I was new and didn't tell me the liquid in the cars will make them oscillate back and forth when they come to a stop and they usually wait a couple minutes for that to die down. Lol! They just wanted to give me a scare! Lol. Flashing or Alternating ditch lights were created by the railroads up in the mountains of east like NS and CSX to aid in visibility at rail crossings. BNSF and UP don't use them. And one last note. As you know, I grew up in Bakersfield, and when Inwas in 3rd or 4th grade, my calls tooka field trip to Frito-Lay. We got to tour the plant and make our own bag of chips. At that time it was standard Lays Potato chips. It was cool!
i was watching this video and talking with my sister Peggy at Bakersfield Rubber Stamp and she said that she knew you. Keep up the good work onyour videos as I find them very interesting. I now live in Austin, TX and grew up in Oildale. I found you through TLTC and help set up permission for the camera in Mojave where I lived after mt=y tour od duty in the Navy. That town has really changed since I lived there 1965 to 1975.
When I saw the white Ford Explorer in the back ground, I thought for a second that maybe the U.P. might have given you a new company car with all of the positive publicity you bring them!😄
Great video! Love the switching aspect of railroading, because to me it’s more interesting than watching a train go by! Will be checking out your other switching videos!
Having ridden on my share of local switching runs for various short lines, it's absolutely up to the conductor's discretion to allow motorists to pass during complicated switching. These guys were being uncool.
Many years ago, on my way home on a busy street in the South end of San Bernardino. A switching crew blocked the street while moving cars. People in their automobiles started honking and yelling. A BIG burley woman in coveralls came out of the Cab, looked right at the traffic and give them the Finger.
Bit early for a comment...14 mins into this but geez it's great watching. Amazed at the size of that rail! Looks too small. And the quality of the track....I guess not enough trains over it to warrant an upgrade... I am a lover of watching trains switch. This is such a cool video. Another big thanks. Oh....and the weather. Crazy.
I'm glad you enjoyed it! I don't know if you've seen my other switching videos. If not, they are in the "Yards and Switching" playlist. Thanks for checking it out!
What a fantastic video! As a model railroader I’ve heard about and studied local switching jobs for decades but I’ve never actually seen one, even in a video. This seems like it would be a very interesting operation to film from a drone, so you could get different angles on what’s going on. Maybe someday I’ll try to do that.
For all the locomotive spotters out there SJVR 2408 is a KLW NZE24B DET4L. Knoxville(TN) Locomotive Works has been busy since 2018 rebuilding locomotives to Tier 4 specs. SJVR has 4, 2405, 2406, 2407, and 2408. If anyone knows what a DT4L engine is, I'd like to know as the only info I could find was on WIKI and the engines listed were MTU, a German made engine.
A friend of mine is building a switching layout modeled after a certain part of Wisconsin from the Wisconsin Central era. He had me do a minor switch job and ot was actually very fun but time consuming
The Canadian railroads have long run with ditch lights, the FRA didn't require them on US units till the mid 90s when it became a requirement for any loco going more than 20mph over a public grade crossing.
@@MarkClayMcGowan I have seen videos of other rail fans that show Flashing dich lights on BNSF and UP back east and in the mid west. But only one UP engine that I have seen.
Not as simple as you would think! The logistics of which car goes where and what time. I assume (like you) car # and a main dispatcher call the loading. even if it looks to have no rhyme or reason. Are the tankers at Frito Lay carrying cocking oil? Now you got me speculating too. thank you ALL stay safe
I've been told that the spurs here (locatioin is Bowerbank, also this is the name of the job) at that elevator or whatever it is are used only as off-spot for Frito-Lay to the west. The elevator itself isn't used. I think the train is sorting cars to be sent to Frito-Lay.
Sad that some people have nothing more constructive to do with their lives than go out and vandalize somebody else's property with their crappy graffiti. On a more positive note: nice video, thanks for the upload, Mark.
Originally, it was the McKittrick Branch, but when the line was abandoned beyond Buttonwillow in 1960, it became the Buttonwillow Branch. Buttonwillow was named for a large Buttonwillow tree on the north side of the town where the Yokuts Indians had established a trading center in the 19th century. The tree is still there and is an official historic site. Here is the link to a video I did about the McKittrick Branch. Forgive the quality as it was the very first video of this kind I did! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-13A_wGZSH44.html
I have a question unrelated to this particular video. I've long loved trains. I'm born and raised and still living in the West, in the Rocky Mountains, and the train history is rich here! I've always thought about being a train engineer, or whoever "drives" them is called. What are your thoughts on it? Is it as awesome as I imagine it to be? Is there a lot of schooling that I need or training? Is there a long waiting list? Would it earn me a comfortable living I could retire on? Is it mathematically very dangerous?
The short answer is yes to all of that. Lol. Nothing more exhilarating than having thousands of horsepower at your command. The railroads are hiring right now pretty heavily. There's a lot of controversy about some of the things BNSF and others are doing because of attendance policies and other issues. But getting a job right now isn't too hard to do. Good luck! It's an awesome career.
Thanks, @BigDave8802008. Mark, I have to defer to Dave as I was a signalman. I just know train service requires a lot of your time, but most of the folks I know from that service like (or liked) their jobs. The railroad makes no secret of its demands, so if you're ready for it, as Dave said, it's an awesome career with great benefits, pay and pension.
Hay Mark : Great switching upload; viewed with interest and appreciation. As per the comments below; in having just fulfilled my biblical * Three Score Years and Ten * allocation; I just do not grasp the concept of graffiti and / or the need of an individual to carry the disrespectful defacing of someone else's property .... It simply eludes me ! In this case; two once pristine Locos have been ruined. But on a technical note : As there is no Tagging standard; what if the ( pointless ) spray-on graffiti covers the Scanner report-marks ? Understandably; it is evident that RR's have had to give up on having to continually clean these * Art-Works. * So what do the RR's do if the Scanner report-marks are obscured / covered by the paint ? Lakka and Cheers For Now Mate / Johnny 🤙 PS : I recently watched a video where just 2.5 % of an 86-Car train remained * Un-Tagged * .... Watta shame ! 😡
The Automatic Equipment Identification system uses a microprocessor code embedded in a metal bar on the cars that is unaffected by paint, dirt, oil, ect. I suppose it could complicate switching if the car numbers weren't visible to switchmen, who would then have to count cars, but I'll defer to the trainmen here to verify that. I have seen graffiti where the artists have blocked off the car information though. Here's the link to the piece I did on how the AEI system works. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-4Fe9ecCLOp4.html
