Slightly OT...In reference to "kicking"...
Kicking only works if you stop short of the switch...otherwise, you're not saving any time... as its typically used for sorting cars, always used facing the points.
Flying switches involve releasing the car or cars while in motion, either with no air or bottled... Timing is critical...
Rolling by is another option...you let the car roll with no air, etc...only useful when the grade goes the right direction...

Each had a time and place...and in many places its all illegal now... yes, I've done all of them at some point...
They can be frighteningly dangerous if not handled well...
Considering most railroads lack of interest in proper training, its no wonder they'd rather ban such practice in the name of safety...

Poling went out of style mainly for safety. If the engineer was a bit liberal with the throttle and closed the gap too fast, the shock load tended to explode the white oak beam in the face of the brakeman that was supporting it until it was seated in both pockets. Add to that it wasn't easy to match the locomotive's speed with the cars, because if the loco lagged behind the pole dropped and would need to be reset, if the cars needed to be kicked further down a siding, but usually they were used to get cars clear from fouling a switch. IIRC (or the people that told me remembered correctly) there were cases where a siding was a little too far away for the length pole and the side thrust caused by using the pole derailed either the car or the locomotive (basically one wheel would ride up the flange and over the rail).

For those that don't know a `standard' poling pole (usually hung under the tender along with rerailing frogs) were a 6" white oak timber, 6 foot long, the outer 2 feet were tapered to a 4" shaft with a spherical end, and a 4" wide ring of steel was shrunk around the shaft just behind the spherical end. The only other iron on the pole was a grab iron to make it easier to carry. The dimensions are from memory after seeing a drawing in a Railroad Cyclopedia (~1920 IIRC) and handling a real one. The PRR poling cars IIRC had spars that were 16-20 feet long, as they were permanently mounted to the center of the car and swung out when in use to shift groups of cars or condense a hump yard. Some metal refineries had poling locomotives on tracks between railroad tracks to move groups of cars too and from the incoming and outgoing tracks (IIRC Rick Rowlands' ore shunter is one of these, Tod Engine, Youngstown OH)

Rich C.

Not sure if they still do, but, CSX used to carry a chain, with a loop on one end and a hook on the other... to do essentially the same thing...

Some railroads had yards set up for poling, with a track parallel to the yard lead. They used a "poling car," which was a flatcar with a pole attached to it that could be swiveled to meet the poling pocket on cars on the lead track. Seems safer than having a man on the ground holding the pole while the engine moves ahead to contact, but on the other hand, there was considerable extra expense in having that second track.

I think the PRR's polling yards date back to pre automatic coupler days. Think about trying to flat switch with link & pin couplers... you can't make the cut on the fly, you have to walk to the cut, pull the pin, kick the cars, then stop again to make the next cut.

In a polling yard, a man with a list could be walking the string, pulling the pin at each cut... where the polling car then dropped his poll and took the car(s) off the front end. Admittedly dangerous to the man between cars further back pulling pins, but not any more so than a lot of other practices of the day.

It seems when automatic couplers gave the ability to make cuts on-the-fly, any advantage the polling yard had was gone.

With production poling, they could pick cars off of the end of a cut without having to shove or accelerate the whole cut to kick a couple cars off its end.

Hi,

No one has said so explicitly, It appears that steel cars and the Hump Yard replaced the flat switch yard with poling cars and wood cars in the places where major yars were.

Doug vV

Maybe. But more likely it is used to chain up a car with the drawbar pulled out of the "wrong end" of the car. You removed the knuckle from the car ahead, and put the knuckle pin back in though the loop end of the chain. Then wrap the chain around whatever is left of the end of the damaged car (usually the end sill or draft sill will do) and use the hook to secure it. Take the car to the next place it can be set out, and set it out.

Take the chain down, put the knuckle back in, and go back to get the rest of your train.

Kovalchick Corp has a number of WWII era wood boxcars in their Burnham, PA yard....I'd bet they have them......

Didn't all the extras at EBT / Kovalchick get scrapped last spring?
Rich C.

Here is a photo (linked) from Matthew Malkiewicz showing the pocket from one of the Army boxcars in Mt. Union, PA. Although these are gone, the cars in the Burnham, PA scrap yard should be similar, and may of those are just the frames and better for parting than a whole car.

http://www.losttracksoftime.com/p93350694/h39094514#h235ab1c0

The scrap yard sounds like they're open for business:
https://pennstate.craigslist.org/for/6011834745.html

And it's not the same critter... close, but no cigar. From what little I can see in the original photo, what he needs is meant to fit a "round corner" Dreadnaught end, which makes use of the "W" section corner post. The ex BAR cars at Mt. Union date to about two decades earlier, and have square corners.

The Kovalchick scrap yard may have something usable, if they cut some forties - fifties era cars...

Which brings up the point, the OP asks for help with a part... no picture of the whole car, no built date, no carbuilder info...

Hey, I need a door handle for my truck. Anybody got one?