You are just trying to find a pot to stir with no idea how to hold a spoon.
50' is, as you pointed out, a recommendation. Recommendations are not gospel and every railroad has their own set when it comes to recommendations. Without a hard copy of SRC's operations rule book, you and everyone else know nothing about them. Plain and simple.

They are lining up a coupler for a hitch while the locomotive is doing a blow-down. SRC takes their operations seriously and 3-step protection is second nature to all their enginemen and ground crew.

How about a relevant post, eh?

I hope they take 3-step more seriously than checking for switch points…. Oh! Haha.

Now you can scold me again and teach me a lesson - you seem to be into that ;)

Where I worked, 3-Step was:

1) Brake applied;
2) Reverser centered;
3) Generator Field Switch opened.
Steam would have to be throttle closed, of course.

There is nothing to prevent an engineer from doing any other task from the seat, nor does it prevent advancing the throttle on a diesel (i.e. for pumping air).

Do not feed the troll. If you quit feeding him he will go away.

Regards, John.

There is a big difference between going in between a cut of 40 and 50 cars, where you are a long way away from the engine and have poor communication, and there is a lot of potential latent slack action, and between the locomotive and end of train, as these various tourist scenarios show. In the example, the engineer is working off of direct visual contact with the brakey, and further, the brakeman can hear distinctly if the locomotive makes preparations to move.

It is not fail safe. Who says the cut of coaches can not begin to roll? Probably the one safety function missing from the knuckle coupler is a chain or rod one can use to shift the coupler position without going between the cars. Maybe it is time to have a push rod on the locomotive one can use to move the coupler from outside the conflict zone?

Where I was - cylinder cocks also needed to be opened for 3-step on steam.

I wasn’t saying the blow down was wrong, just seemed like odd timing under the circumstances.

Safety is very important, but sometimes overlooked. The discussion here is just a small part of the issues out there in the preservation, tourist RR world. I know of an operation that qualifies engineers today who have no idea what a leakage test is or when it is required. Track inspections, I've seen a tourist RR ok the operation of passenger trains over completely broken joint bars and on excepted track. I could go on but I won't. I hope no one gets seriously hurt or killed.

It happens in the big boy railroad too.

I was recently watching a video of a track crew using a TLM and was appalled at the number of times I saw a guy standing on and balancing on the rail on an adjacent track.

I don't have that much "real railroading" experience, but in my first training session I was taught to never do that.

That being said, in a venue that literally exists to show off railroading to the world, avoiding public displays of unsafe behavior (and even worse, a very public display of the aftermath of them), is decidedly antithetical to our goals.

I mean, can you imagine what would happen if someone was run over in full view of a train full of passengers? It'd go viral on the internet, but it'd also absolutely kill attendance.

Which is why I brought it up - preservation needs to go above and beyond.

It’s interesting that a former employee of Strasburg questioned how one could even line up for a coupling at 50’ - as if the FRA recommendation wasn’t possible when many railroads follow that.

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Haha! That’s why it was surprising you seemed unaware of 50’ - tourist trains was a high school / college job for me - fun but not a career payment wise. But that 50’ got drilled into me in the rules class. Along with never getting on or off moving equipment, check, double check and re-lock switches, etc.

You wouldn't BELIEVE what happens on the "big boy railroad" !!! Just one example --- I've lost count of how many times a brakeman/switchman/helper has given me a backup and then stepped in between without giving me a stop, so he could line a drawbar or open a knuckle. The clincher is that they invariably ask me why I dumped the air......

There is nothing wrong with getting on and off moving equipment at slow speeds, and some railroads still allow this practice.

My carrier doesn't require 'three-step' to operate a handbrake if you are on the car, or even close an angle cock as long as your body stays to the outside of the car as you are reaching in. Not sure of the exact logic behind those two things but that's how our rules are written.

Until about 5 or 10 years ago we could get on and off moving equipment, kick and catch cars, and make gravity drops or even a full running/flying switch if needed. All those things are prohibited now, and somehow I feel less safe at work than when I hired on.

As for adjusting drawbars and truly going in between, a good brakeman can definitely eyeball the situation and get everything lined up from well over a car length away, but just because you have a full car of separation does not mean you are safe. We had a fatality out on a double track mainline where one train got a knuckle and a second train on the other track stopped to help, this being easier than having the conductor of the first train go for the typical long walk. The second train stopped beside the break and its conductor got off with a replacement knuckle, but before starting work he closed the angle cock on the front half of the broken train to speed up recharging the air brakes. As he wrestled the new knuckle into place the brakes released and the slack ran out, far enough that he was crushed between the couplers.

Or, given the interest in political train wrecks these days, probably become a very popular destination in hope of watching it again.

Got this in email today. It might come in handy:
https://www.oshacademy.com/pages/resour ... st_web.pdf