I've re-railed cars enough to know that the frogs work best on empty cars. Jacks work the best IMHO on loaded cars and locomotives. I've seen a loaded car that had 1 axle off the track walk up a frog , climb the frog flangeway and drop back down on the ground on more than 1 occasion. 2 pneumatic Duff-Norton style jacks to lift the car end to get the weight off the truck and a couple of bottle jacks to get the offending wheelset back on the rails is fairly easy so long as you have adequate blocking.

The three typical types of frogs, Butterflies, McCartys, and Burlingtons generally get the job done. We generally use Burlingtons which are probably the lightest of the three to handle. You need a set for low and high rail. Digging the clamps and wedges in frozen ground is a pain. We have light pavement breakers on our Block Trucks to make faster work out of it.

When I worked on the west end of the railroad the preference was for McCarteys which worked very well. They were heavy and we had a couple of sets with some burn outs cut to lighten them up and make them easier to handle.

I never had an issue rerailing loaded cars and I found the trick was to always put some motor oil on the frog to help the wheel kick.

I've included pics of Plan A and Plan B. Plan C is Sidebooms and Plan D is Mantis Cranes.

EBL

Plan A is a respectable truck.

One of our crews decided on a scientific experiment: does a derail work as well when you push a car into a spur as when you pull it out in the intended direction. Turns out it does; hence the need for a rerailing frog.

The frog proved to be a steel butterfly frog. The truck was a 1949 Ford F-2 pickup, red of course. Two of us loaded it in and every downgrade entailed dynamic brakes (2nd gear and engine compression). We delivered it and let the crew on the scene use it and bring it back.

Phil Mulligan

I've rerailed with a jack, frogs, trash, and shady shady chains and an engine. And if any the above failed, ran like heck and denied all knowledge of the incident. I out track cars back on with a track jack, like a lot and way too often, 8 times in a day was old real quick. On track equipment with scrap wood and ties. A loaded flat car with frogs, ties and some scrap steel beam I found in the weeds, a plastic pellet covered hopper with two engines and a chain, this may have torn things up and I ran off letting non of management be the wiser, claims agents love writing checks don't they

You fellas want to talk railroading ?? That's fine by me.

Train and engine service jobs typically have an 80% to 90% divorce rate. (What's this got to do with derailers ?? I'm getting to that.) During my divorce proceedings, I bid out to Lincoln, NE as part of my legal wrangling, and BN found a job for me as a herder. There was a very cute little twice divorced brakeman who bid my job. I tried to keep my mind on business, but it wasn't easy, and our in cab chatter usually had nothing to do with work. One day she wore these tight jeans that looked like they were spray painted on, and a tight, slinky, transparent pink top that looked like it would come off with very little encouragement.

"It all looks flat on paper". This phrase was used whenever our engineering department couldn't seem to understand simple things, like loose cars don't roll UPHILL. There was a service pit on the coal train sidings, so that power running through could be fueled, sanded, and 203'd without coming back to the roundhouse, and it had a pocket track so we could do a bit of switching with the power still tied onto the train. It was several feet lower than the mainline, and it was protected with a derail positioned so that any locomotive left standing without being tied down would not roll UPHILL onto the mainline.

My little friend and I were sent out there with an add on for a coal empty, and were supposed to cut a short dater (due monthly inspection) out of the consist and bring it back to the house. The first part of our switching required us to park the add on in that pocket track while we dug out the short dater. She stopped me, got the switch, gave me a come ahead, and climbed back on. I saw her cross to the other side and thought that she was going to get off where she had good footing, and I fanned the independent, gently slowing down to a stop next to the derailer....

At least, that was my plan. Just about when we should have stopped, I heard her call my name, and when I turned my head, she was standing by the brake stand, asking me about the sequence of moves. My face went right between her boobs. I forgot all about trains, derailers, NTSB investigations, everything except those luscious beauties, when I heard the inbound and outbound coal train crews screaming at me about the derailer. I was getting a clue, but it was too late --- the engine jumped about a foot on my side three times, as each traction motor jumped over the derailer. This had the effect of rubbing my face right between her distractions three wonderful times. I dumped the air, and it felt like we were still on the track...

We were. I got down and looked, my brakeman locked herself inside the bathroom (It was a GE C30-7), and the engine crews laughed uncontrollably watching all this. The derailer just barely fit under our fuel tank, but there was no clearance to unlock it and flip it off the rail. I climbed back up, knocked on the potty door, and coaxed my brakeman into coming back out of hiding, so she could spot me with the derailer under the main reservoir. We took it off, finished our move, and it seemed like all was well, since the engine was still loading normally. The add on was the lead locomotive, and we took it off the line, so if it DID develop a traction motor ground later, nobody could say how or when or where it had happened. Nobody snitched on us, either, out of a dozen witnesses.

The conclusion I drew from this, is that you CAN run over a derailer going the wrong way, and land back on the rail. Try it yourself if you don't believe me.

Most of the minor derailments in the area I worked, while various forms of replacers (frogs) were used from time to time - most were rerailed using various sized oak blocks and wedges.

Remember, very rarely is there only one wheel on the ground - the other wheel on the axle set is also in some form of 'distress'. If the truck you are dealing with has center plate issues and won't slew - you have REAL problems.

I always marveled how Engineers could handle 1000 HP or more and only move a inch at a time on the signal of the person doing the rerailing.

The way you handle all that weight gently is:

Set your independent. Put it in throttle 1. FAN your independent --- this means flipping the handle back and forth between set and release, without ever letting the air fully set or release. When the brakeman (or spotter, machinist, whomever) signals you to stop, latch the independent in the set position, while cutting your throttle to idle.

This is also how you make a smooth coupling.

mmi16 said: " Remember, very rarely is there only one wheel on the ground - the other wheel on the axle set is also in some form of 'distress'. If the truck you are dealing with has center plate issues and won't slew - you have REAL problems."

Most of my derailments involved 120 ton loads of polystyrene pellets and lighter (80 to 90 tons) loads of feed while switching. When a wheel hit the ground, it was like someone dropping an anchor. Everything came to an abrupt halt. There were times the truck on one end came off. It seems that plastic cars are loaded till the springs on the trucks are compressed fully. Both the plastic and feed cars had tight centers when under load and were a pita to re-rail without using jacks. It seemed that every time I had to re-rail a car, it had real problems. Blocking alone won't get the car back on the rails. All that accomplishes is splinters and toothpicks. We only had butterfly style frogs and they didn't hold up to the weight on the axle. No amount oil would allow the wheel's flange to follow the flange on the frog. Getting the weight off the truck makes the job so much easier and faster, IMHO.

They do make double ended derails that work in both directions.