The various rule books I've seen all list hand signals for "Forward", Back-up", "Stop" and often apply and release brakes. Most railroads I know also use hand signals when switching which are usually referred to as "Come to me", or "Go away". Unfortunately, those signals seem to vary from railroad to railroad, and even from area to area.

Does anyone know of any web sites, or online rule books that actually describe this signals? Pictures and words?

Greg

If you google up the NORAC operating rules or better yet, there used to be a 1950's PRR rulebook online, you can see that in the east, those signals weren't used.

NORAC has the advantage, IMHO, in that day and night signals are the same and deliverable either with or without a lantern.

Maybe its a matter of dancin' with what brung ya', but I think I much prefer the NORAC/Eastern signals.

I have not seen "Come to me" and "go away" hand signals described or illustrated in a rule book, but then I'm from the East and I was told these were "western" custom.

I'm not sure about the South, but I found myself working with a brakeman in Alabama one day who was using "Come to me" and "Go away". I indicated a preference for "Ahead", "Back up", and so on, to which he said "Oh, you want to use lantern signals."

Alan Maples

Years and years ago -- it was probably about 35-years ago -- I talked about this with a railfan, long-time Santa Fe engineer (he was one of the early members of the Pacific Railroad Society here in Los Angeles).

His observation is that the use of day-time flag signals (same as night-time lantern signals) changed to "come-to-me", "go-away" signals at about the Mississippi River.

One key thing to remember is that there can be many other hand signals -- BUT everyone in the crew must know and understand the signals.

When I worked on the Belfast and Mooshead Lake Railroad and was using the radio to do our switching, I was taught to say" take it toward Belfast", or "take it toward Burnham" depending of course which way I wanted him to go. Belfast and Burnham were of course the terminal ends of the railroad.
LF

Interesting thread. . .

Years ago, I worked in an underground mine where we wore the headlight lamps on our helmets. When signalling the ore train operator, the signals were similar to those described above:

"Come toward the signaller" - rotate lamp in circular motion

"Stop" - quick side to side horizontal movement

"Go away from the signaller" - vertical up and down movement

Of course, in the complete darkness, hand signals were meaningless.

Thanks for the memories!

Scott

Under both CSXT and old Norac forward or "ahead" was based soley on the location if the "F" identifing the front of the locomotive, or controlling locomotive of an M/U consist. Actual direction of the train had no impact on signals that should be used.

It was odd at first sometimes while switching out a train to tell the engineer to back up when you were pulling away but once you were used to it that became second nature. Sometimes you had to stop and think about were the "F" was, especially if you had dual control stand units.

Have never worked with "come to me" and "go away" signals and hoping not to. Too many years of "ahead" and "back".

There are two basic sets of hand signals -- Eastern and Western. Eastern signals are "move forward" and "move backward" while Western signals are "come towards me" and "go away from me." Most of the Western signals I've seen (not many) were given with both hands whenever possible, while Eastern signals are pretty much universally given with just one hand. As someone else noted, the Mississippi River is the nominal border, with exceptions.

Until this year, SCRM used a one-handed form of the Western signals. Norfolk Southern uses Eastern signals, as do CSX and most of the local shortlines. When NS started running over our track, our FRA OPI man strongly recommended that we change our rules to match NS in the unlikely event that we'd have to give a signal to a NS crew while they're on our railroad.

Personally, I prefer Western style signals -- they don't require you to remember which way the engine is facing and therefore offer fewer opportunities for mistakes. However, our use of a less common signal system has caused minor miscommunications in the past with volunteers who came from a "real" railroad background, so it makes sense to switch to the system that's generally used in our area.

As for which way is which, that's why there's an F on the locomotive frame. Forward is towards the F, backward is away from the F. If there's no F (i.e. double-ended equipment like trolleys), when the engineer is facing the active controls, he's facing forward.

I always liked the come to me / go away signals because their intent cannot be confused with the direction of the engine, as others have mentioned. But in reading this thread, I am not sure if there were more than one version of the come to me / go away signals. We used them on the Milwaukee as hands making circles. From the viewpoint of the signaler: “come to me” was performed by the right hand making counterclockwise circles and the left hand making clockwise circles. The arms are moderately extended with the hands relaxed open, about chest-high.

These are not just stiffly made circles, however. I was told to think of the come-to-me signal as though I was gathering something in and pulling it toward me. So the upper and lower arms, as well as the hands all move to make the circle, but the circle may be slightly emphasized and defined with the hands alone. The gathering-toward-you effect is also emphasized by slightly adding cupping to the relaxed, open hands as they pass over the top of their circles.

All of this is simply reversed for the “go away from me” signal. Instead of adding cupping to the hands for come-to-me, the hands are flung up full open as they pass over the tops of their circles for the go away signal. It is kind of as if you were broadcasting seeds. So with the gathering in, and flinging away body language, these signals almost communicate their intent by pure intuition. Like so many things on the railroads, they were apparently perfected over a long period of time by trial and error, finally resulting in a perfectly elegant solution.

These signals could be given with one hand as well as two. Some operations such as signaling while holding a pin that had to be held, called for the one-handed signal. Other than such necessities, however, I am not sure if there were any specific rules on when it was, or was not, required to use one or two hands.

Another feature of these signals was that you could imply slow-down, or move full speed by the diameter of the hand circles and the speed of their rotation. For instance, when slowing to make a joint, the circles gradually slow and omit the arm movement, so just the hands are making small, slowing circles with a lot of emphasis on the hand cupping / gathering gesture. Just before the point of stop, the hand circle movement is stopped frozen, as the hands are at the top of their circles. It is body language for the suspense that is required to be careful with the speed as the coupling is made.

For the sake of discussion, I refer to these as “signals,” but on the Milwaukee, these hand signals, whether by hand or by lantern, were always called “signs,” never signals. I am not sure if this was the case with other railroads.

There were many other hand signs including a bewildering variety for track numbers and car counts. Some of these number signs were identical to those used on the C&NW for instance, but others were different. I think it would be very interesting to see a total compilation of all hand and lantern signs that were used, and which railroads used which signs. I suspect that the list would include many very obscure signs or ones made obsolete by various changes in technology throughout history. I always had the impression that there were many more available signs than any one person knew.

RTK

Those signals are usually referredto as "outlaw" signals. They are much more convenient than the rulebook signals (during the day.) At night, we generally go back to the straight "ahead," back up," etc. There were hundreds of signals made up by trainmen and switchmen over the decades. I have a small book published back in the 40's by a couple of conductors which lists page after page of illustraions for various hand signals. It's in storage up near Seattle. Someday when I get it back here I will try to make it available.

Here at PSRM, we use hand signals pretty much as described by Ron Travis. The short line guys around here use pretty much the same, as do the Mexicans on the part of our line that is in Mexico.

The big problem we've had is the forward-back ones with a lantern. We used to teach that it always depended on the "F" of the locomotive. Now, we've got an Amtrak guy who says it depends on the "F" when switching, but after the train is made up, "front" is the end of the train where the locomotive is, even if the "F" end is coupled to the cars. Then we uncouple to do a run-around........

Radio-wise, we use "move east" or "move west."

Exactly! On the old IC, as I remember, the "front" end of the train or cut was where the engine was located, nomatter which way it was actually turned. A train ("engine or more than one engine coupled, with or without markers" - old rule book) It would, it seems to me, the engine would be the "front" and caboose or rear car the "rear" on an actualk train. Some railroads did it that way, others were worried about which way the engine was actually headed.

By the old timetables, an eastbound train heads into the sunset (moves west by the compass). as it departs Heber City for Provo.

...run that through your Motorola!!

sc 'doc' lewis

The yard at Williams on the Grand Canyon runs east and west, but the timetable direction (north and south) trumps the compass. That's not an unusual thing. Coming down off the High Bridge on the Georgetown Loop you are headed west but eastward on the timetable. :)

The UK uses "come towards" and "go away". This is relative to where the man giving the signals is related to the locomotive.

I found this which is a better explanation of most of them:

Hand Signals
Used, mainly by shunters and guards, to indicate required movements to drivers.
By Day
Arm moved horizontally: Move towards me.
Arm moved in vertical circle: Move away from me.
Hand moved up and down from wrist: Move slowly.
One arm held vertical above head: Acknowledge signal.
Both arms held vertical above head: STOP
One fist moved vertically above head: Create a brake (ie charge air or vacuum brake system ready for use)
ANYTHING WAVED FRANTICALLY: EMERGENCY STOP
By Night
White light moved from side to side: Move towards the light.
Green light moved from side to side: Move towards the light slowly.
White light moved up and down: Move away from the light.
Green light moved up and down: Move away from the light slowly.
Red light held steady: STOP
Red light moved up and down: Create a brake (ie charge air or vacuum brake system ready for use)
ANYTHING WAVED FRANTICALLY: EMERGENCY STOP

Bear in mind that there are some local "extras" to convey supplementary information such as how far to go or slow down.....