scouser Posted October 4, 2012 Share Posted October 4, 2012 Hello everybody, can someone explain how in the Twenty First century a propelling move is carried out safely when a train only has a driver. There are frequently photos of this in mags and books but I have never read an explanation. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wherry Lines Posted October 4, 2012 Share Posted October 4, 2012 There are ground staff or shunters who will oversee such moves. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold beast66606 Posted October 4, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 4, 2012 There are ground staff or shunters who will oversee such moves. just like here Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Robert Shrives Posted October 4, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 4, 2012 Most sites where propelling moves are required now use talk back radios to give communications between shunter and driver, with shunter giving a continious commentary of shunt. the idea being should he fall and talk back stop then driver will stop train as no one now controlling movement. Not fool proof but better than "blind moves" One or two sites have reversing signals that are for instructing driver on movement required and these can display a "stop" if required - controlled by shunt panel or perhaps loading supervisor. Robert Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
scouser Posted October 4, 2012 Author Share Posted October 4, 2012 Thank you both for such prompt edification. If anybody wants to know what this site is about just point them here. One more question, is radio used these days? Cheers Paul Mr. Shrives had answered this before I had time to post the question. Now that's good! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ess1uk Posted October 4, 2012 Share Posted October 4, 2012 and we are finally getting rear view mirrors on locos after all these years to help out Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium phil-b259 Posted October 4, 2012 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 4, 2012 Hello everybody, can someone explain how in the Twenty First century a propelling move is carried out safely when a train only has a driver. There are frequently photos of this in mags and books but I have never read an explanation. It depends where the propelling move is taking place. Within yards any movements will be authorised by the shunter / ground staff who have the responsablility of ensuring that all points are set correctly and there are no obstructions. Moreover they will be in constant contact with the driver via radio or other mobile device and can immediatley get the train to stop if required. Propelling out on the main line is in general not allowed (the exceptions including pushing a failed train out of the way for example), however propelling trains out of yards is allowed at many locations, but under these circumstances the move will be controlled by fixed signals. An example of this would be the stone terminal at Crawley (the connections are south facing) where ariving trains propel back into the yard from the down slow line, and when finished, propell out of the yard before heading back to London. When the train arives, the shinter must be in attendence to ensure all the pointwork in the yard is set, but once the train is ready (the loco having run round etc under his control) the shunter doesn't have to hang around to see it happen. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bert Cheese Posted October 4, 2012 Share Posted October 4, 2012 Not too many years ago someone managed to propel the first/last two wagons of a FY stone train through the blocks at Eastleigh and onto someones Ford Focus in the car park behind! It made a small article in the local paper, something about too many wagons for the siding being mentioned due to a paperwork error IIRC? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium newbryford Posted October 4, 2012 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 4, 2012 Propelling out on the main line is in general not allowed (the exceptions including pushing a failed train out of the way for example), however propelling trains out of yards is allowed at many locations, but under these circumstances the move will be controlled by fixed signals. The Clitheroe-Mossend cement train backs out southwards onto the mainline, before setting off north. The exit from the sidings is by a shunt arm that the driver can't see at the other end of 13 or so JPA tanks. He's told the signal is clear by radio from the shunter who has arrived on site in his van. Similarly, the incoming empties reverse into the sidings from the mainline - there is an "OFF" repeater for the ground shunt that controls this move that the driver can see. However, the signal is only authorised once the same shunter has walked down the exchange sidings and pressed a plunger to enable the signalman to clear the shunt signal. As part of the same operation, the train has to reverse over an open level crossing. Once again, the radio is used. and we are finally getting rear view mirrors on locos after all these years to help out Why are they only fitted to EWS 66's and not DRS/GBRf/Freighliner/Colas sheds? If the mirrors were useful, surely they would be fitted to everything by now - refurbed 60's and 70's for example. Cheers, Mick Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
40044 Posted October 4, 2012 Share Posted October 4, 2012 and we are finally getting rear view mirrors on locos after all these years to help out Mirrors are not intended for this purpose. They are for the driver to check for any defects with the train while out on the mainline. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waveydavey Posted October 5, 2012 Share Posted October 5, 2012 The mirrors fitted to Schenker 66s are, IMHO, hateful things. They are almost always filthy, broken or badly aligned. Fair enough you can clean them and realign them but on many of them when you close the window it knocks the alignment back out as they haven't got enough clearance from the loco body. They do however give the driver a very good view of the cab door handrails. For me the worst thing about them is that they block the drivers view when entering sidings on a curve as they essentially double the thickness of the cab corner pillar so you have to bob your head around all over the place to see where you are going. No doubt somebody high up in EWS thought wing mirrors would be a brilliant idea and managed to get the budget passed for their fitment but for me as a humble driver I would rather they had spent the money on improving the notoriously bad cab environment on the 66s. Cheers David Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevindickerson Posted October 5, 2012 Share Posted October 5, 2012 The Felixstowe North frieghtliner terminal has (had) a special set of shunt signals that gave drivers right of way when they were still in the front of the loco, so that they could propel the train into the terminal. Regards Kevin Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold big jim Posted October 5, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 5, 2012 can't add too much else to what people have put but going back to beasts picture of lbt, as he says the propelling movement empty through the hopper is controlled by the shunter however once through the hopper the shunter (who could also be another driver) goes up into the hopper filling cabin and the "hopper operator" takes control of the move, relaying the info to the driver by radio via the shunter one propelling move i did a few times on my own was when leaving ratcliffe power station, we normally had to go into toton or beeston to run round however on some occasions it wasn't possible (engineering work, other trains etc) so we used to propel the train right across trent jn using a singnalled move, you would come out of the powerstation on the goods (now the slow lines), cross over to the down nottingham and stop at the signal protecting the north jn, phone the box who would confirm that the ground signal to send you back across the jn onto the down derby was off and you would set back, once you had set back behind the main aspect signal on the down derby it would pull off and away you went towards sheet stores jn! a few signallers didn't like to do it as it was quite an involved move which basically blocked all lines and involved setting back a 1500ft train into a tunnel! another occasion i had to set back on my own with a loaded coal train was when i got routed into beeston "freightliner terminal" to run round as usual and as i entered the non track circuited siding i was confronted by a class 31 on a test train, having passed the controlling signal by a good 10 wagons, i was given permission to set back by the box accompanied by the words "oh s*** i forgot that was in there", once i confirmed there were no catch points behind me i set back and had to do a couple of unsignalled moves and passing of signals at danger to get back to my train which i had to leave on the goods!! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Captain Kernow Posted October 5, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 5, 2012 A few years ago, EWS used to use a modified Freightliner flat, with a small metal cabin at one end, to house a shunter, when propelling wagons into the Chittening private siding near Avonmouth. I'm not currently sure whether this is still used, or whether the shunter is on foot these days. Either way, back-to-back radios would also be used to maintain continuous communications between the driver and shunter. One circumstance where no shunter is involved, as far as I am aware, is where a freight train sets back through a crossover during Single Line Working. Admittedly this is fairly rare on our patch these days, as I for one always try to plan the SLW using crossovers that are facing to all moves. However, there are some places, such as Yatton, where there is only a trailing crossover, set by a GF. Once the GF Operator has set the road and obtained the signaller's permission for the movement, the propelling could take place (there are no level crossings at this particular location). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bon Accord Posted October 5, 2012 Share Posted October 5, 2012 A few years ago, EWS used to use a modified Freightliner flat, with a small metal cabin at one end, to house a shunter, when propelling wagons into the Chittening private siding near Avonmouth. I'm not currently sure whether this is still used, or whether the shunter is on foot these days. Either way, back-to-back radios would also be used to maintain continuous communications between the driver and shunter. If memory serves 'Railfreight Construction' had such vehicles for use during propelling moves on binliner trains, the light grey container used as the Shunters 'shelter' even had the sector logo on the side. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eggesford box Posted October 5, 2012 Share Posted October 5, 2012 I can remember at Banbury some years ago when we still had the last remnants of a yard. After propelling their engineers train into one of the sidings (I think they had a pair of 37s), the guard and driver walked towards the station. On passing the North box they where accosted by the signalwoman as she had recieved a phone call from the Traffic Assistant at Oxford who had been contacted by the police. Did they want to check the rear of their train as apparently they had shoved the end of it off the siding, through the boundary fence and into the public road! Shortly afterwards two of Thames Valley Constabluarys finest turned up. I have no idea of the legality of it but no one minded and it was taken in good humour but they breath tested the driver. The policeman was tickled pink that he could claim he had breath tested a train driver! Certainly I could not see it being taken so light heartedly nowadays. Incidentally the end wagon had got no further than the pavement. On another occasion, the late John Ellner asked a driver to set back inside a signal. He was somewhat perturbed when he realised the train was just continuing to set back past the signal and continued to do so until it piled a rake of wagons over the top of the buffer stops. I have no idea where the driver thought he was going they must have come to two competely seperate 'complete and clear' understandings. I can still remember John commenting in his rich Dorset accent "I don't know why they call them stop blocks they don't stop f*@^ all!" mind you, I was told they are there to mark the end of the sidings. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Posted October 5, 2012 Share Posted October 5, 2012 I've hand freights reverse during single line working (SLW) at Gilberdyke - this involved reversing trains across a trailing cross over, thus facing to the move. Drivers were aware each morning could involve SLW, so you'd stop them at the first home and speak to them, and generally they'd be straight on the phone knowing the circumstances. I dropped them down to the down section signal and asked them to contact me there to confirm what we'd be doing. Once they rang I could confirm they were clear of the ground signal which was right outside the box, then we could reverse them. It was all signalled so went quite smoothly. Good fun too! This is the result, didn't get a photo of any reversals as I was a little pre-occupied! Bang Road at Crabley by JamesWells, on Flickr Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
scouser Posted October 5, 2012 Author Share Posted October 5, 2012 Thanks to everybody for the really useful info. I've really enjoyed reading the posts from professional railway men, they are not just full of info but also provide atmosphere that us hobby jockies (well me anyway) are quite ignorant of. Wonderfull reading. cheers Paul Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rob D2 Posted October 6, 2012 Share Posted October 6, 2012 Interesting, especially the concept of propelling onto the mainline using radios.... There must be some standard, un ambiguous radio terminology ? As this move would be safety critical, there must be a "fail safe" option somewhere in there. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest stuartp Posted October 6, 2012 Share Posted October 6, 2012 Interesting, especially the concept of propelling onto the mainline using radios.... There must be some standard, un ambiguous radio terminology ? As this move would be safety critical, there must be a "fail safe" option somewhere in there. You either use radios which emit a contiuous beep to indicate they're still working, or you talk continuously "Keep going, keep going, keep going...". If either the beep or the talking stops, the driver stops the train. Propelling specials back into the yard at Appleby was always fun, 12 vehicles, a double reverse curve and a couple of hundred passengers and photographers milling about. The drill when I started there was for the guard to ride in the leading vehicle and the handsignalman, railman and supervisor to relay his handsignals back along the platform to the driver. This was fine except the two of us on the platform were trying to do this whilst constantly fending off a stream of questions and general chit chat from the punters. We asked for back to back radios but Regional Railways refused on the grounds that steam trains were nothing to do with them, I mentioned this in passing to David Ward at Intercity STU one Saturday and a box full of Motorolas turned up the next week. I had to rather sheepishly ask him later if he could order some earpieces as well as the railman and supervisor were usually on the platform throughout these manouveres, and the instructions between the signalman and handsignalman could occasionally get quite graphic. James - in 1990 standard procedure in the Sheffield Area for indicating to the driver that he was clear of the points was to walk behind the last wagon and yank the air brake cock open for a second or two. It was sanctioned by the AOM too, I bet it isn't now ! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted October 6, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 6, 2012 As Stuart has indicated you either use radios with a continuous tone (the best and safest for the purpose) or the Shunter has to talk continuously to the Driver). An interesting aside to Stuart's point about not getting any radios out of Rusty Railways - we were asked to back up a local request from the Area Manager to Trainload Petroleum in the early '90s to get another pair of back-to-back continuous tone radios for use at Theale - the cost £12,000 per pair of radios (yes, twelve thousand). The reason they were so expensive was that they had to meet oil industry specifications for use in a spark free environment - but they were supplied. In fact propelling nowadays - using continuous tone radios - is safer than it has ever been in the entire history of train movements in Britain but strangely there seems to be enormous fears of it in safety management circles (albeit mainly from people with little or no experience of railway operation). I just wonder how folk would have coped with the railway of not too many years ago when we used to propel back trains of 70 odd short wheelbase oil-box wagons into marshalling yards here the ballast was dirt and point switch rails had great chunks missing. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold big jim Posted October 6, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 6, 2012 as a slight aside, regards radios we use them for brake tests on the mainline set in moor st, couple of weeks back i did a brake test which went something like this.... "driver to guard, recieving, over" "hello there" (broad irish accent, my guard wasn't irish) "erm, driver to guard, ready to do the brake test, over" again the irish guy comes over the radio "joe, we need ya to move the car out o da way so we can get da van out da compound" "driver to guard, change to channel 6 please, over" we were getting crossed messages with the highway maintainance yard below the viaduct!! back on topic, as others have said the golden rule when shunting is if you lose contact with the shunter either by radio or sight then you stop, i must admit now i work passenger trains i do miss doing "proper shunting", remarshalling the coal trains in chaddesden was good fun, sometimes moving 3 sets about at once (60odd wagons) to get demic wagons out of the rake, that involved propelling round a blind bend and very slight double curves, slight enough to restrict your view though the end of the day you are putting a lot of trust in someone else doing their job right when you are working to their instructions, a classic occasion that springs to mind that i had (sorry if i'm boring people with my anicdotes) was during a weighbridge test in a powerstation, we had the big bosses from the FOC there doing the groundwork with us as it was the first one we had done, that morning the big boss was being a bit funny with us, maybe the fact it was 08:00 on a saturday morning and they had been staying in a hotel 150miles from home i wouldn't like to say but they were showing to the powerstation people that they were in charge if you see what i mean! without going into the ins and outs of a weighbridge test i was instructed by my manager that they has not managed to get the weight of a wagon so it would need to be reweighed, as each wagon that is weighed is uncoupled from the rest if the train i needed to SET BACK onto the wagon to recouple and DRAW FORWARD back over the weighbridge to reweigh it "ok jim, set back onto the wagon" set back onto it under his instruction, i.e counting down until contact "shunter going in to couple" distroyed the brake while he did that "ok shunter is clear, recharge brake and set back" now at this point i recharged the brake and prepared to move off, it seemed a bit strange that he had asked me to set back but, he's the boss "ok brake is recharged, driver setting back now, over" started the move then almost immediatly got.... "WOAH, STOP STOP STOP, what are you doing i meant set back the other way" "draw forward then, over" "erm, yeah draw forward please" "drawing forward now, over" the same person then later in the day while controlling my light loco movement back toward the train failed to stop me prior to reaching the wagons and i ended up going straight onto them with a right bang, the big boss of the company summonsed me out of the cab and told me that if he ever saw me drive like that again he would take me off the track (i.e driving from a non leading cab) when i said that i was working to the shunters (my manager) instructions via the radio he didn't know where to look or what to say to me, the boss made all sorts of excuses including, "i thought you had changed cabs", "i thought dan, (my relieving driver) had taken over from you" all of which i had an answer for that was the only occassion i really had to bite my lip during my time with them, i just got in the van and went home before i said something i shouldn't have!! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fat Controller Posted October 6, 2012 Share Posted October 6, 2012 As Stuart has indicated you either use radios with a continuous tone (the best and safest for the purpose) or the Shunter has to talk continuously to the Driver). An interesting aside to Stuart's point about not getting any radios out of Rusty Railways - we were asked to back up a local request from the Area Manager to Trainload Petroleum in the early '90s to get another pair of back-to-back continuous tone radios for use at Theale - the cost £12,000 per pair of radios (yes, twelve thousand). The reason they were so expensive was that they had to meet oil industry specifications for use in a spark free environment - but they were supplied. In fact propelling nowadays - using continuous tone radios - is safer than it has ever been in the entire history of train movements in Britain but strangely there seems to be enormous fears of it in safety management circles (albeit mainly from people with little or no experience of railway operation). I just wonder how folk would have coped with the railway of not too many years ago when we used to propel back trains of 70 odd short wheelbase oil-box wagons into marshalling yards here the ballast was dirt and point switch rails had great chunks missing. I thought our Motorolas were expensive enough, Mike... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rob D2 Posted October 6, 2012 Share Posted October 6, 2012 Interesting stuff guys...I'm not familiar with these " constant tone radios ", I assume ( other than jims example ) , they are fairly unjammable/ scannerble. We have numerous problems in aviation with deckheads who get hold of a radio that can transmit on the FM emergency frequency. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eggesford box Posted October 6, 2012 Share Posted October 6, 2012 Years back when we used to take platform staff on shunting rules I asked one of the staff at Leamington how he would stop a train at night if he was waving it back with a handlamp (pre radios) and found that he could not change the lamp to a red aspect. Back came the reply shout or whistle. No, using the handlamp I mean I told him. A second or two's thought then a big beaming smile, throw the lamp at him! I had to laugh. The correct reply was any light waved violently though not in the same way as you where previously waving it as that would likely to have the opposite effect to what was desired. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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