Benny's Definitive Guide to Car Spotting
An Introduction to Car Movement Work
A couple weeks ago we had a discussion about how cars may be shoved around a right radial spur. This lends itself to further discussion on how any industry might move cars while they are within their zone of control.
Railroad v. Industry v. Labor
Railroad
Let us be frank: Company time is very expensive, and while company power is the most efficient means to move a car from the point of view of the industry, it is not the most economical at least from the point of view of any properly run railroad. Car spotting is time that could be spent switching more cars and making more freight. The Railroad does not want to spend half a day switching your private industry!
Industry
Let us further awash from our minds any thought that Industry is pro-labor. If there is any one theme running throughout the brochures that I have been collecting over the past year, it is the emphasis on increasing profits at the expense of reducing labor hours. I have found this advertising angle all the way back in a flyer from 1915 where the company boasts about how mechanical improvements reduced labor costs and increased profits.
(After Acme, ADV 18-2 19-28 pg 1)
(After Acme, ADV 18-2 19-28 pg 1)
Labor
On the other hand, when I was doing the research on my Coal Loader, I found the other side of the coin: labor was not at all interested in DOING the physical jobs, either! In that case, they were suggesting Industry could either install mechanical means or they would have to start charging for their labor doing the task.
(After D&RWG Form 5085 Authority for Expense #4326 approved 6/26/1956)
We can conclude Labor would rather go do an easier job that pays less than remain employed with a labor intensive job that pays more. We can further conclude the railroad will take whatever labor savings means they can and apply them, which means your industry cars may be dropped on the first available section of track inside the industry and no further - and don't expect the railroad to go hunting for loaded cars and moving them around to pull them out! Finally, it is not reasonable to suggest any labor intensive process was favored if for no other reason but because the owner was too cheap to buy the labor saving technology because he figured he could just keep paying kids with shovels less to do the work!
Car Moving, Spotting, and Pulling
Gravity Assisted Movement
The first level of moving cars involves gravity and slight grades.
Prybars and Pinch Bars
The first method involves using a large prybar or lever against the railroad wheels to overcome the moment of inertia. This method could be used on relatively level track and to move only a couple cars or perhaps one car at a time.
(Prybar; 2x6 to scale)
https://abrental.com/product/johnson-bar/
This method is still used to this day - or at the very least you can still buy the prybars. You can also buy wedge blocks on long handles to then stop a car once you get it rolling.
https://www.aldonco.com/store/c/72-Rail-Car-Movers.aspx
Let us be short: the prybar method has not been preferred by industry for at least seven decades, especially in cold weather. This document does not have a date, being a page pulled form an otherwise discarded volume, but the age of the paper suggests early 1900s.
(After Channon Company Chicago Source Unknown - pg 817)
Car Humping
The easiest means of setting any freight car out is to start upon a grade and then release the brake or the coupler if the car is already in motion. Depending on the grade, with a little assistance and patience the car will start moving.
The railroads themselves have been using this means of humping cars since at least the mid 1960s.
https://www.up.com/heritage/history/stories/construction/construction-hinkle-hump-yard-anderson/index.htm
Interestingly enough, three decades later and they've torn out over half of the hump yards.
https://trn.trains.com/railroads/2006/07/north-americas-hump-yards
Once the car is in motion, crews can "switch on the fly" and release the car from a locomotive to accomplished switching movements against facing switches, a potentially dangerous move that has been used for over a century to accomplish otherwise impossible or inconvenient switch work.
The downsides to this method are all compounded by the matter of grades, momentum, brakes, sudden stops and uncontrolled momentum. First, the car must be set above the grade of where it needs to be spotted; this method is useless for any car that is below the elevation of where it needs to be. Next, the car has to be controlled while it is moving, which means someone has to ride the car to use the manual brakes, which may or may not work, or the operator may not be fast enough, or the railroad has to rely upon retarders that may fail. The motion through the turnout may further lead to a derailed car, if the car is moving too fast. The car presents a collision hazard when it meets the rest of whatever cut is on that track, and while it may be of no consequence to the car, the internal freight can be very badly damaged. Finally, if a car does not stop, it will keep going until it is stopped by either the end of the tracks or whatever is in the way beyond the nd of the tracks.
All of this is useless, again, if your work area is above grade from where the cars are set out, or if the work area is downgrade from where the cars have to be returned to be retrieved by the railroad. For these moves, we need power.
Propelled Car Movers
The second level of car moving are propelled vehicles, where the power source moves with the car.
Horses
Before the internal combustion engine, horses were at times used to drag cars to spot them. Akin to those means used to move cars by hand, this could only be meaningfully accomplished on roughly level track. This means was common in Europe and the United Kingdom where cars are smaller and likely common in the United States before the internal combustion engine and especially World War I. The mechanical developments of WWI had an exponential effect across industry.
Tractors
The crudest level of car spotting is accomplished with anything that can push the cars.
In one case, this LeTournadozer is doing just that in the company's sales flyer, further advertised by the company that the soft tires permit the machine access to the cars without special preparations.
(After LeTourneau-Westinghouse advertisement)
I have further seen a Caterpillar (or other dozer company) where a bulldozer with treads is being used to do the same job. Apparently some places weren't too picky as long as the job was done.
The big issues here include damage to the rail grade, damage to the railroad equipment, and damage to the tractors themselves; equipment tires have never been cheap.
Unmodified Rail Tractors
The next step up are vehicles that have been half-way adopted to moving cars. These vehicles have been modified with a coupler on one end or they have a coupler on their boom in place of or affixed to the regular bucket. These vehicles are commonly front end loaders, backhoes, and other various tractors.
(After LeTourneau-Westinghouse advertisement, unknown magazine)
These vehicles then gave way to tractors more entirely designed for pulling or pushing freight cars and not a whole lot else.
(After LeTourneau-Westinghouse brochure, TD-263-156, unknown date)
As mentioned by those who have used them, the biggest issue is stopping cars once they are moving, whereas the braking ability of the tiny vehicles are barely noticeable to the loaded freight car once the car is in motion.
Modified Rail Tractors
At one point interest turned towards using a tractor and replacing the wheels with rail wheels. This kind of power was well used within the timber industry and other such business.
(After: Unknown)
The problems with these applications is that the equipment is permanently tied up on the railroad and it is further compounded by all the rules of switching, aka, if the tractor needs to move from one line to another, it has to go through a switch. In tight places with people who don't want to think very hard, this is a problem.
Specifically Built Rail Equipment
We finally move into the territory of specially designed and adapted vehicles specifically made for moving railroad cars on the rails and then removing themselves to another location. The benefit of this vehicle over the next category, an actual piece of motive power, is that this vehicle and move itself to either end of the car, the cut of cars, into the middle of a cut of cars, or somewhere else altogether without requiring clear unimpeded continuous rail.
An early railcar mover is the Whiting Heavy Duty Track Mobile. This little tractor of improved weight due to the addition of rail wheels and lifting hardware meant this little unit had some of the weight suffcient to both start and stop a railroad car.
(After Whiting Heavy Duty Trackmobile Bulletin T-116 circa 1956)
The perpendicular normal arrangement of the driver to the railroad cars with the cab further slung where it will can be at the edge of the cars suggests the operator had very good visibility of the railroad work. But if the driver needs to spot along the opposite side of the car, you say?
(After U.S. News and World Report, July 25, 1958 Pg 11)
Whiting was very blunt with the maneuverability benefit throughout their literature. The answer to the prior question? Easy, lower the tires, turn the tractor around so the driver is on the opposite side of the car, raise the wheels, and resume the movement; no turntable or wye necessary!
(After: Whiting Bulletin No. T-131)
Whiting was quick to further advertise that their handy dandy little rail tractor could be used to accomplish other work when it was off duty for railcar moving duties.
(After: Whiting Bulletin No. T-131)
Another manufacturer is Rail King. An interesting development in rail equipment in the last couple decades that has deviated from the example shown is the use of the rubber street tires on a knurled sprocket affixed to the end of the rail wheels to power the railroad wheels instead of a dedicated driver train.
(After Stewart & Stevenson Rail King specification sheet ES 7167 1M 3/91)
The modern arrangement using one powertrain instead of two can be seen at Rail King's website.
https://railking.net/rk-models/
A heavier car mover is available from Shuttle Wagon via the SWX-35. This heavy tractor uses hydraulics to drop the hi-rail wheels in place while using the road tires for tractive effort directly on the rail. One interesting detail in the specs is the implementation of sanders to help the unit gain traction, the sand boxes are seen on either side of the fuel tank.
(After Shuttlewagon SWX 35 Specification sheet)
Hi-Railers
After those vehicles with some modification we have rail trucks that are specifically made for moving around on normal surfaces but then set themselves on the rails and move the cars as if they were motive power.
One peculiar arrangement is this vehicle whereas it has the hi-railers, and while it has a drawbar with a coupler, it's main purpose is moving trailers. This unit may have been an offshoot of the Road-Railer trailer train concept.
(After Ottawa YT-Railer Yard Tractor/Railcar Mover Model Specification sheet, YT-Railer 1/84 1M)
Company Motive Power
Finally, we have company owned motive power, where the company is big enough and moving enough cars they buy their own locomotives. This should be easy to understand without too much attention.
Stationary Car Spotters
The third level of car movement involves stationary modes where the work remains in one place.
The next method is a car spotter, a specialized stationary winch or capstan that the company would use to physically pull the cars to where they needed to be spotted. I am inclined to believe these winches may have been a lot more common than we currently know precisely because the people interested in taking pictures of everything railroad often spent all of their time looking at the rolling stock and the engines and payed no attention to the more mundane objects lying all around. Furthermore, they were also probably more inclined to take their pictures when there wasn't a lot of people around, which means opportunities to see the machines in action were assuredly lost.
Electric Car Spotters (Capstans)
The electric powered capstan works by turning a drum. The worker uses this drum by attaching a length of rope to whatever he wants to pull, runs this rope to the capstan, wraps the rope around the capstan at least three or four times and then lets the weight of the car and the power of the capstan to hold the rope tight and pull the car forward or backwards depending on where it goes.
This first example from Channon Company has some interesting notes in the literature selling this idea.
(After Channon Company Chicago Source Unknown - pg 817)
Here's another example from Link Belt; they call this device a car spotter. Once again, we see workers playing out line or pulling it to the side as the capstan does the work.
(After Link Belt Haulage Machines Book 2892 -7-59 Brochure pg 2)
And here's an example of how an electrically powered capstan might be used on a curved track. The method would require an idler or midpoint pulley to make the move.
(After Link Belt Haulage Machines Book 2892 -7-59 Brochure pg 4)
These car spotters were interestingly available as both stationary devices and portable devices. I can only imagine failing to secure the portable capstan before use had serious consequences.
(After Link Belt Haulage Machines Book 2892 -7-59 Brochure pg 5)
Powered Car Pullers (Winches)
These devices are the next step up from a capstan involving a winch, pulleys and an increasing number of complexities that makes these machines increasingly useful.
Up first from 1959 we continue with Link Belt with these two examples:
(After Link Belt Haulage Machines Book 2892 -7-59 Brochure pg 3)
On the left we see a simple linear system. On the right, we see a double drum setup with multiple pulleys and idlers used to manage the cars. At the caption suggests, the cables are in loops, allowing the company to pull the car into the work area and then retrieve the car without any repositioning.
Here's a couple arrangements from the company's sales brochure:
(After Link Belt Haulage Machines Book 2892 -7-59 Brochure pg 10)
Here's our curved spur situation.
(After Link Belt Haulage Machines Book 2892 -7-59 Brochure pg 10)
And one more showing a single puller achieving two direction movement.
(After Link Belt Haulage Machines Book 2892 -7-59 Brochure pg 10))
Another company I have encountered is the Sanford-Day Company with two different devices.
The first is their Model HK1 "Brownie Hoist Retarder." This brochure prominently shows the pullers in place within the coal industry.
(After Long-Airdox Sales Manual February 1969 Section 17-100 pg 1)
The specifications of these devices detailing their capabilities are rather interesting:
(After Long-Airdox Sales Manual February 1969 Section 17-100 pg 1)
Some of us have locomotives that have similar ratings!!
The sales brochure includes this image where there are a total of 4 of these devices in use with large blocks in place to move the cars.
(After Long-Airdox Sales Manual February 1969 Section 17-100 pg 4)
Here's a second puller model, the Sanford-Day HDT Car Puller. It's similar, but larger. This unit's main difference is a hydraulic take-up that keeps rope tension on the drums.
(After Long-Airdox Sales Manual February 1969 Section 17-200 pg 1)
These car pullers appear to be both tough and well suited for their task of moving cars. The HDT shows their development did not remain stagnant.
Further research found that these devices are still very much in production and in service. Here's just three modern producers of car pullers that I found within a short period of searching.
http://www.davidround.com/product/vertical-capstans/
https://www.carpuller.com/capstan-rail-car-pullers.html
http://www.jeamar.com/industry/rail/
Bonus Content
Addendum: here's a little extra tidbit I found on my adventures with sales brochures.
Car Unloading
Once you get the car spotted, there's that small task of unloading it. There's this nostalgic thought that people emptied boxcars out with large shovels before the advent of covered hoppers, but going back to the principle of making money by saving on operating costs, there's other means. While it was indeed likely a necessary to use shovels or at least brooms to finish the job, there were also mechanical means being employed and often. Time is money, after all.
Here is a little Kelly Duplex Automatic Power Shovel:
(After Duplex Mill and Manufacturing, Sheet No 317 Date Unknown)
That will be all for now.
