Our museum has started operating trains over about 5 miles of mainline trackage, pushing with the diesel in one direction and pulling in the other. We have lights and air horns on the rear caboose and crew members are on the platform to monitor operations. There are a total of 7 public crossings, two in town and the rest county roads, all but one protected only by crossbucks. There is also one private crossing. We are trying to determine the safety of these back up moves. We have had some "incidents" with vehicles but no actual "meetings." We are trying to find out what the consensus is of other operaters of similar back up moves. Do you consider them safe? In our case, we have some other options. Including using different trackage with a shorter run with fewer crossings but where we can "run around" so that the diesel is at the front end both ways. Or extending our main line run to about 10 miles where the diesel could move to the front end for the return trip. There are disadvantages to both options, including the length of the alternate runs, the time spent and the difference in cost to riders.

Appreciate any and all comments.

Thanks.

Les Beckman (Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum)

Have you considered a volunteer or two in road vehicles, "leap-frogging" each other and flagging the crossings?

JAC

That's a lot of unprotected crossings. Could you put a loco on the rear for lights, brakes and horn?

If not, find a way to run-around. The fact that you are asking the question is part of the answer.

Jim:

The caboose on the rear end is equipped with locomotive type air horns, locomotive type headlight and flashing lights. Air brake stand on the platform works and has been used on occassion by the conductor and/or rear end brakeman.

At the 5 mile spot where we now run to, there is no space to install a run around track without major construction.

Les

We at the M&H have done this style operation since 1986 with little or no problem. We have the onboard crew, firemen and trainmen do the flagging work so no additional volunteers are required since we all know how hard getting volunteers is these days. Our passenger cars have headlights, horns, and a brake valve to make an emergency application from the rear. So basically you are in the cab of a loco other than having a throttle and bell. Like I said we knock on wood have never had a passenger grade crossing incident except for once when a dump truck hit the side of a coach in the middle of the train with the loco leading. Hardly a back up move problem. Just my 2 cents.

If you are that concerned with safety why not flag the crossings? You only have 7 crossings in 5 miles. Nearly every day we operate the A&R we cross more city streets than that shoving our train down a 2 mile branch. The major corssings are signaled but most are not. Most of the railroads I have worked for have had long reverse moves and putting a man in the crossing is the best answer. The biggest downside to flagging is the danger to the man flagging the crossing and the extra time it takes.

John Bohon

Just for the record, the Wilmington & Western, before its double flooding in the past few years, operated an almost-identical scenario: a ten-mile round trip, out and back over seven road crossings through the course of the trip, with no run-around track at Mt. Cuba, plus an additional two public crossings between the station and enginehouse. The crossings ranged from simple crossbuck affairs to massive overhead and roadside flasher cantilevers on the two busy state highways. (When the crossing flashers were installed, a friend of mine who lives nearby said "It looks like they plan to run the 20th Century Limited through there!")

The W&W originally used "conventional" backup caboose whistles, but later switched to full-sized locomotive air horns mounted on the wooden B&O cabooses (it helped that one of the W&W volunteers was/is an air horn collector). This practice was used for years with both steam (98, 3, 58, 37, etc.) and diesel (the SW1s).

It would be wise to approach them for their advice and experiences, as they probably have about 40 years of experience at this practice to draw from.

I second what Mr Mitchell suggested.

The W&W has been doing this since they intiated their excusions in 1966.

Back in the late 1980's and into the early 1990's through State aid, 99% of their heavily traveled crossings were completely rebuilt with over head and side crossing signals. The only crossings that did not receive lights were private drives and lightly used crossings. (they have later have added signals to even the lighter traveled crossings) The lightly used crossings have actually posted the most problems, if you will, when it comes to near misses...but they have been few and far between.

The only crossings on the line that have gates are the two crossings in the town of Hockessin, that are actually "lightly used" rail wise but State Law required and paid for the installation of the Gates since both crossings have 2 tracks. At the remaining crossings, if gates were to be installed, the Railroad would have to pay for it.

Their most traveled crossings, Rt 41 (both in Greenbank, 4 lanes and in Hockessin 6 lanes) and the Rt 48 (now 4 lanes) had only seen a handful of "near misses" and one actual accident - with the diesel engine in the lead and a dump truck - in the 13 years I was there.

Their main reason for restoring the Erie cab was for added safty as it is a steel caboose compared to their wooden, steel framed cabs of B&O heritage they also own. Now adays, you will always see the Erie cab on the tail end no matter how many cabs are in operation.

M&H has the atvantage of owning former DL&W cab cars. Their back up operations are very simple and to the point since they are using equipment that was meant for this purpose. They purchased the right cars for their operations.

I don't see push-pull as that big a deal myself, probably because I've been doing it for so long. We initially ran with a loco on each end, first our 25-tonner and when she crapped out our 45-tonner. Then we got the SW8s and we didn't need two engines any more.

Our trains never have a headlight on the back end. The cabooses don't have horns, either. When we run with just the coaches, we usually have a horn on the rear, but still no headlight because there's no power for it.

Granted we only have two public crossings and we stop and flag those. It's going to be interesting in a couple months when the gates and flashers at US 321 go in. I suspect we're going to "blow and go" but take it very, very slowly as we approach the crossing.

My advice would be to do what someone else suggested and have somebody in a car drive to the public crossings ahead of the train. The conductor contacts them by radio and gets permission to cross the road. The man on the road is a bit of a target for crazy drivers, but I've found that people are more willing to stop and wait for a human flagman than they are for gates or flashers. If you can get an off-duty cop to help you for free or for a pittance, so much the better -- having a black-and-white parked at the crossing with the bubble gum machine turned on really makes people behave!

The thing you really have to worry about is what would happen if you did nail some yahoo who thinks he can beat the train. In a contest between a car and a caboose the caboose is probably going to win. A caboose vs. an 18-wheeler or cement truck, though, could cause you problems as in a derailment.

We did it all summer at SRI crossing 9 seperate roads (including two private drives). Only had one near miss all summer, even though tons of people ran the crossings. (including a state trooper, and then everyone behind him).

On the caboose we had a set of airhorns, and a brake valve. Basically we just slowed down to a crawl before the crossings until we knew they were clear.

At the rr I have volunteered at over the years, our rule books specifically require that a crossing be flagged in the event of cars being shoved through a crossing. Our cabooses have conductors valves or if a pass. car is involved we use a monkey tail with a dump valve. I have participated in backing moves with a 3 man crew, ie: engineer, fireman and conductor such that we slowed at the approach to the crossing to a crawl, I stepped off and into the crossing to flag, and reboarded once the crossing was occupied without actually bringing the train to a stop. I had radio communication with the cab at all times and the train could easily have been stopped due it's short length to avoid a collision. At other times, we have used a seperate flagging crew to proceed the backing train to the crossings. I strongly believe flagging the crossings is the safest course. We do have an exception in our rulebooks to adress backing through our one gated crossing which need not be flagged provided the gates and lights are working. If we back through the gated crossing the conductor or brakeman riding point notifies the cab as soon as he sees activation of the gates as an additional precaution in the unlikely event of a failure of the signals.

I have been involved with two tourist lines that did backup moves of this type as well as now the short line I work for doing it daily to service customers. All had one thing in common, either protection in the form of a flagger on the ground or lights & gates. If the crossing does not have lights and gates it was required to be protected from the ground. This was accomplished by slowing or stopping to allow the man on the point to walk ahead and flag or the use of "leapfrogging" vehicles. I have seen more incidents with the locomotive with it's headlight, ditchlights, bell and horn than with the type of backup move you are asking about.

The basic concern is proper training of your people to know how to provide the proper protection.

Simple solution...this sounds like an operation in great need of the Edwards Rail Car "double ended" 50 passenger, self-propelled motor rail car, or Doodlebug!

Signed,
Your Friendly ERC Representative

Now if you only could offer a model seating 300 - - - -

That would tolerate rough track, sharp curves, accelerate quickly, was constructed of standard off the shelf components, and was AUTHENTIC 1920ish - - -

But back to the subject. It is not out of the question to have the railroad train come to a stop before crossing any county roads. This may, in fact, be desirable to not put the rails as having the right of way if you are not going to want to be FRA inspected, etc. There are arguments in favor of remaining a private carrier not part of the national rail system (even if you connect to and receive deliveries). This would not work so well crossing city streets a block apart, but a few roads in five miles is not a hardship.

Bob Kutella

Hey Bob, doesn't IRM already have a doodlebug (gas-electric)? Have they ever thought of restoring it to service for days when visitor traffic to the museum is light and as an alternative to streetcar/interurban service on those days?

Les