Anyone know if it is/was common practice for a loco to be coupled to cars both in front and behind in order to work facing point and trailing point spurs ? I mean, engine has pulled a few cars out of a spur. With them still coupled uses other end to pull or push cars in or out of opposing spur or yard track..And then maybe even run them along the line this way, say a mile, engine sandwiched between cars ..all this on a very funky class B or C branch/short line such as I have..Not big main line enviroment. ??
Not sure I would use the word "common", but I have seen yard switchers pulling a cut, while shoving another. I have seen branch and main track locals pulling cars and caboose, while (for more than a short distance) shoving one and more cars to a customer down line.
usually in a branchline setting, the crew would switch all the industry's they could back into on the way out to the terminus, avoiding the ones that would require a run around or as you put it "sandwiching the engine". Then on the return trip they would pick up and drop off cars at industrys that faced the other way. Even the big main line guys did this. If an express reefer leaving Glorietta, NM bound for Chicago was on a spur that faced west, the westbound local heading towards LA would pick it up and lug it to the next big yard/interchange point and it would be put on a train going back East towards Chicago, passing Glorieta again on the way back. Simplify's switching just a little.
On several occasions I have seen an engine get sandwiched while switching out industries. They will do it as necessary for efficiency in moves, but the engine will not travel a long distance in that position. The conductor has to ride the point (car on the front of the move) and that is not safe over distances, then when the engine reverses, he would have to walk to the opposite end of the train to perform his duties there.
KCS uses a caboose to work the 5-mile long Gulfport, MS Industrial Park. This gives the crew a safe platform for the reversed leg. The crew also performs flying switches for trailing sidings, instead of sandwiching the engine. This may be because the train has to cross several high-traffic multi-lane roads where it would be dangerous to have a crew member hanging from a ladder without a horn of any kind....?
I know a conductor for Csx who's done it. He was new, and the industry not often switched. The engineer said "you figure it out, I just drive. He tells me it sucked, can't see a bloody thing anywherebecause out the front window everythingmlooks like a boxcar, and out the back everything looks like a boxcar. From a modelling standpoint, i've found it actually kinda hard to get out of thatstandpoint if a crew ends up with their engine buried, owing usually to layout compression.
So, all in all I will assume 'sandwiching' a loco with cars on both ends is or has been done ; that especially on a funky, weedy, back woods branch as mine I can do it knowing it's allowed and not out of the question..I have facing and trailing spurs, on a switchback RR to boot..So engines going in or out of the SB tail in now opposite direction and opposite end of train (sometimes now on front pulling; sometimes now on rear, pushing..) will cause engine to be trapped at a facing point (first one into spur with no runaround), unless it has gathered cars for same spur ahead of itself. At same time it will have cars behind itself still enroute to next drop, hopefully a trailing point type. Related: I sometimes deadhead a 2nd loco out to assist 1st loco where 1st loco locates its cars to be in a position for 2nd loco to push same said cars in to facing spur..I'm sure this goes on too. But it's probably a financial headache for RR..where a runaround track would deem this proceedure unnecessary..This odd practice occurs at the live interchange at end of line ,too sometimes..Here big mainline RS will assist 'my' road's loco in getting cars in position so that RS can depart from scene..and then later be able to return them ahead of itself to scene..No runarounds here either..but I like the confusion it adds .. Thanks
I'vedropped a plant switcher at the mine on the club switcher to do the same job,since the mine is a single point spur its easier to have the mine loco switch cars on and off the train. Sometimes road crew will help, even if only to clear the main for other traffic, but sometimes its just easier for them to let the plant engine do the work, and the plant engine has to spit and respot cars under the tipples anyway. Also protoypical, csx runs a lot of locals on the NEC with engines on either end. That way, crews don't have to runRound trains on 100mph mainlines with cars sitting unguarded, the crew hustles down to the other end, cut the other engine in, breaks the train, shoves the industry car into the siding (or out), puts the train back together, cuts the second engine back out, runs down t the engine going the proper direction, and toodles on down the line.
I've noticed lately that the RJ Corman trains shuttling cars between Lexington and Winchester, KY are running this way, with engines at both ends. I can only assume it's to make the switching easier along the line. This seems to be a fairly recent operational change, as I don't recall them running that way even last year.
