LOCOS REVERSING COACHES INTO PLATFORMS

[£1.38]

It is surprising that some people seem surprised that reversing trains was/is so common. Is the danger really any worse than reversing a road juggernaut with just a driver and a couple of wing mirrors - and no rails or signals to guide him?

[Fat Controller]

It is surprising that some people seem surprised that reversing trains was/is so common. Is the danger really any worse than reversing a road juggernaut with just a driver and a couple of wing mirrors - and no rails or signals to guide him?

Even at low speeds, trains take an alarmingly long distance to stop..

[£1.38]

Even at low speeds, trains take an alarmingly long distance to stop..

But surely that's true even whichever end of the train the loco and driver are?

[Fat Controller]

But surely that's true even whichever end of the train the loco and driver are?

Yes; but you've then got to allow for the time for the message to get from one end of the train to the other.

[The Stationmaster]

It is surprising that some people seem surprised that reversing trains was/is so common. Is the danger really any worse than reversing a road juggernaut with just a driver and a couple of wing mirrors - and no rails or signals to guide him?

There was a gradual swell of opinion against propelling building in BR from the late 1980s onwards. To be honest I found this difficult to understand as it was a natural and everyday piece of railway work which those of us who had been around for a few years had grown up with - in fact the 'old railway' simply couldn't have run without it. But the need for it was declining and this became ever more the case as multiple units increasingly became the train of choice for passenger working and freight traffic shrunk ever further. New generations of railway staff have emerged who wouldn't know what propelling was if they tripped over it and it sounds odd to folk with modern ideas of what constitutes 'safety' drilled into their brains from an early stage.

 

From a practical viewpoint the situation now of course is that is the odd places where it might be needed there no longer any ground staff to do it (other than in the freight companies) hence it has all but disappeared from the passenger railway (I won't say 'disappeared' because instances no doubt still occur with occasional moves involving charter trains and other kinds of specials - but that's about your lot. It would be interesting to learn where in Britain booked propelling moves still take place with loco hauled passenger trains as I can't think of any offhand (incidentally push-pull trains do not count as 'propelling' because they are driven from the leading end).

 

The other side of the coin was of course that propelling had its dangers. I think the vast majority of the derailments I had to deal with over the years occurred when vehicles were being propelled - albeit they were all in yards. Similarly there were instances where propelled movements killed people - because there was nothing at the front to sound a warning or because someone who was at the front controlling the movement couldn't see them or the Driver failed to stop when he lost sight of the person controlling the movement. Equally there were countless examples of folk 'getting away with it' when they were not following the Rules and the Driver simply kept going when he lost sight of the shunter and so on.

 

Nowadays, especially with the ready availability of special back-to-back radios, there is no excuse for a Driver losing touch with the person controlling the movement and I think it is fair to say that the operational safety of a properly conducted propelling move is safer than it has ever been. But there are fewer and fewer people familiar with the practice so they remain scared wary of it while those who write various safety pamphlets are even more scared as increasing numbers of them come with no practical experience or knowledge at all.

[lonesome_whistle]

 

It would be interesting to learn where in Britain booked propelling moves still take place with loco hauled passenger trains as I can't think of any offhand (incidentally push-pull trains do not count as 'propelling' because they are driven from the leading end).

 

 

The Highland sleepers at the Waverley (two portions as detailed in an earlier post) and the Edinburgh portion of the Lowland sleeper at Carstairs are propelled six nights a week.

[keefer]

after reading stationmaster's post, i remembered the PCVs introduced for the RES parcels trains. from what i've read, they were only fitted with the eqpt. necessary for safe propelling (i.e. not a full driver's cab). i don't know the exact details, but presume this would be cab windows. brake valve and cab-to-cab radio?

PCV of course stood for 'propelling control vehicle' and must've come about due to a regular need for such moves

 

not really on-topic, but there were also the 4 cl.82/83s retained for empty stock moves for willesden-euston in the day before DVTs, although i suppose these were more like specialised station pilots

[Guest billS]

Gravity shunting was also practiced at Killin Station. The train engine propelled the coaching stock

(usually just a single Thomson non-corridor) uphill out of the platform in the direction of Killin

Junction where the guard screwed his brake on tight. The engine then uncoupled and ran back to

the station where it hid in one of the sidings until the guard brought the train back down through

the station and past the goods sidings. The loco then came out, coupled up and drew back into the

station ready for the next trip.

 

Jim

 

Edit - I think the GNoSR station £1.38 referred to is Banff. The same general layout as Killin, with

no run-round loop but a handy hill just outside the station.

 

Peterhead was another GNoSR terminus which required gravity shunting. There was no loop their either. There was a second line into the train shed that looked as if it may have been intended to form a loop, but this was used to hold fish vans and there was no crossover.

 

Train shed + fishvans - must have been smelly!

[Guest Natalie Graham]

I recall reading about a line in South Yorkshire where the train conducting the Board of Trade inspector prior to the opening of the line reached the destination, only for the railway to realise they had omitted a cross-over to enable the loco to run round the train. The Inspector was taken off to a nearby pub and regaled with a large, and somewhat alcoholic, lunch while a gang of men lifted the loco off the rails, pushed the carriages past and put the loco on again. The train being ready for the off when the inspector returned. It was never discovered if he noticed the omission but he did pass the line as fit for operation. Now try modelling that.

[Porco Rosso]

I recall reading about a line in South Yorkshire where the train conducting the Board of Trade inspector prior to the opening of the line reached the destination, only for the railway to realise they had omitted a cross-over to enable the loco to run round the train. The Inspector was taken off to a nearby pub and regaled with a large, and somewhat alcoholic, lunch while a gang of men lifted the loco off the rails, pushed the carriages past and put the loco on again. The train being ready for the off when the inspector returned. It was never discovered if he noticed the omission but he did pass the line as fit for operation. Now try modelling that.

 

Even if there was no run-round loop, it seems difficult to believe there wasn't a siding to put the loco into so the navvies could push the coaches past?

[Gwiwer]

I recall reading about a line in South Yorkshire where the train conducting the Board of Trade inspector prior to the opening of the line reached the destination, only for the railway to realise they had omitted a cross-over to enable the loco to run round the train. The Inspector was taken off to a nearby pub and regaled with a large, and somewhat alcoholic, lunch while a gang of men lifted the loco off the rails, pushed the carriages past and put the loco on again. The train being ready for the off when the inspector returned. It was never discovered if he noticed the omission but he did pass the line as fit for operation. Now try modelling that.

 

Hand of God shunting. There really is a prototype for everything!

[Edwin_m]

after reading stationmaster's post, i remembered the PCVs introduced for the RES parcels trains. from what i've read, they were only fitted with the eqpt. necessary for safe propelling (i.e. not a full driver's cab). i don't know the exact details, but presume this would be cab windows. brake valve and cab-to-cab radio?

PCV of course stood for 'propelling control vehicle' and must've come about due to a regular need for such moves

 

IIRC they also had some form of signalling to the driver, possibly via the RCH lighting cable, and this operated a set of coloured lights in the loco cab. Apparently this was considered cheaper and more reliable than full push-pull control via TDM which used the same cable so would also have been possible without having to have special cables through the intermediate vehicles.

 

Many of the Royal Mail workings involved short runs in the "wrong" direction, escpecially when loading and unloading took place in the traditional termini, and by the time the PCVs were introduced I guess there was unlikely to be a spare loco hanging around to move the empties (or using one would have incurred a huge hire charge). Even the new Willesden terminal is single ended, facing towards Euston, so most of its trains had to reverse at least once within a short distance. As the remaining Scotland services, operated with 325s, still do.

[Gwiwer]

Basically as Edwin says. El-cheapo comms via the RCH cable rather than fit TDM for a few short propelling moves. In practice I never saw the PCV used in that way. The train was seen into a dock by a shunter or other competent person.

[Jim]

How things change?!

When I was on-call a few years ago, I was contacted by control to ring the yard foreman urgently. I thought they were off the road!

He wanted me to authorise him to carry out a propelling move towards the stops in the yard with a dead unit. He had to explain his method of working to me over the phone. Control's sloping shoulders had passed the buck to me!

It was all quite embarrassing really since the foreman had been shunting yards since the seventies.

You can't imagine the crippling affect not being able to propel in depots and sidings. It's like having a gararge where you can never reverse a car without a manager authorising the move!

Incidentally, hand signals are now banned from my companies operation except "stop". Every move must be verbally communicated which, you can imagine, takes forever whilst the shunters walk hundreds of yards just to tell you "roads set for ten, drop down mate"

We could never re-introduce hand signals because the younger crews have never been trained in them except "stop" and retraining would cost too much.

Jim

[pH]

Incidentally, hand signals are now banned from my companies operation except "stop". Every move must be verbally communicated which, you can imagine, takes forever whilst the shunters walk hundreds of yards just to tell you "roads set for ten, drop down mate"

I've been wanting to ask this question for several posts in this topic, but kept thinking it would be the proverbial 'silly question'. However, what you've written here means I have to ask - do train crews not have radios yet in the UK? AFAIK, all North American train crews and all staff 'on the ground' in yards have radios and can communicate from one end of 120-car trains to the other. (If I'm wrong about that, there are plenty of people on here who will correct me.) It would seem to be a pretty cheap way to make operations more efficient and safer.

[Jim]

 

I've been wanting to ask this question for several posts in this topic, but kept thinking it would be the preverbial 'silly question'. However, what you've written here means I have to ask - do train crews not have radios yet in the UK? AFAIK, all North American train crews and all staff 'on the ground' in yards have radios and can communicate from one end of 120-car trains to the other. (If I'm wrong about that, there are plenty of people on here who will correct me.) It would seem to be a pretty cheap way to make operations more efficient and safer.

 

I can only speak from passenger train operation point of view, I don't know about the freight boys. That's another thing, crew skills since privatisation have reduced. I only deal with passenger units, I haven't shunted coaching stock, vans or ballast trains for years. The thought of shoving back into a yard with twenty odd grampus with the odd seacow and lowmac would give me an exciting moment now!

The "shunt drivers" in our yards have radios so they can communicate with the foreman and each other but we don't get radios. We wouldn't be allowed to use them anyway because it would be seen as a distraction! Hmmmmm?

Railway operational de-skilling?

Jim

[The Stationmaster]

IIRC they also had some form of signalling to the driver, possibly via the RCH lighting cable, and this operated a set of coloured lights in the loco cab. Apparently this was considered cheaper and more reliable than full push-pull control via TDM which used the same cable so would also have been possible without having to have special cables through the intermediate vehicles.

 

Many of the Royal Mail workings involved short runs in the "wrong" direction, escpecially when loading and unloading took place in the traditional termini, and by the time the PCVs were introduced I guess there was unlikely to be a spare loco hanging around to move the empties (or using one would have incurred a huge hire charge). Even the new Willesden terminal is single ended, facing towards Euston, so most of its trains had to reverse at least once within a short distance. As the remaining Scotland services, operated with 325s, still do.

Part of the reason for it was to reduce costs - as long as the trains could do everything by themselves there was no need for pilot locos and the staff that went with them so the Parcels Business avoided a lot of out-payments to other business sectors (and in a number of places pilot locos disappeared in consequence).

[The Stationmaster]

I've been wanting to ask this question for several posts in this topic, but kept thinking it would be the preverbial 'silly question'. However, what you've written here means I have to ask - do train crews not have radios yet in the UK? AFAIK, all North American train crews and all staff 'on the ground' in yards have radios and can communicate from one end of 120-car trains to the other. (If I'm wrong about that, there are plenty of people on here who will correct me.) It would seem to be a pretty cheap way to make operations more efficient and safer.

British operations use two sorts of radio out on the ground (plus various other systems on trains). At ground level there are local radio nets in a number of places used in 'walkie-talkie' mode and they have been around for well over 40 years. These radios aren't much use for shunting as they are not compliant with the Rules for Shunter to Driver communication so the other form of radio is the 'back-to-back' I mentioned above; these come as a matched pair of handsets and apart from allowing voice communication will also transmit a continuous tone as long as the tx button is kept depressed. Thus the Shunter can walk along, keeping a proper lookout for the safety of both the shunt and himself while keeping the button depressed and that is all he has to do - if the tone cease the Driver must bring the movement to a stand; all far simpler than the alternative of the Shunter continuously talking into his handset and trying to do everything else he is supposed to do. Back-to-back sets have been around since the back half of the 1980s (possibly before that?) and were first used in oil terminals as far as I'm aware although the sets used in those circumstances have to be specially spark etc proofed to avoid any risks of setting off a conflagration. I don't know how much those special sets cost now but in the very late 1980s they were around £1,000 per handset ; ordinary back-to-backs are much cheaper.

 

All UK railway radio networks operate on licenced wavelengths and any capable of voice communication are subject to Home Office random monitoring - at one place where I worked we nearly lost our site licence because one of the ASMs was very prone to using some extremely rich language and it was picked up during random monitoring.

 

Back-to-back radios are extremely effect and are ideal for use where propelling takes place as they are fail-safe and modern sets are simple and robust - as I said, their use makes propelling a safer operation than it has ever been in the past. At a non-network site I visited recently most of the propelling moves would be impossible without them as the site is sharply with numerous obstructions of the lines of sight.