Note: This ran a bit long. I do talk about my experience at the end of this post. Push through the technical jargon. I apologize, but somewhere there will be a FRN that falls in love with this post.

No, no, no…it’s really not what you’re thinking…and really, you should be ashamed of yourself.

Nope, this is another edition in a short series I like to call “My Life With The Railroad”.

Ever wonder how a train gets built? I don’t mean how it gets made from metal, but how a train is put together. You’ve all been stuck at a railroad crossing as the engine(s) pass pulling anywhere from a few cars to 100 cars. At some point, that train had to be built. Those cars had to be sorted and connected with other cars heading to a common destination or location. Then an engine(s), with a crew, had to be dispatched to hook up to the string of cars and head on down the track.

Railroads sort cars in things they call “Yards”. Yards consist of multiple parallel tracks that are connected at each end by a series of switches (turnouts). A small town may have a small switching yard consisting of only three or four tracks while a large town may a have mega yard with miles and miles of track, 50 or more tracks and associated maintenance facilities. At important junctions along a railroad will be a mega yard to handle sorting cars and building trains. One of the more common methods of doing this is called a Hump Yard.

A Hump Yard is an amazing piece of Civil Engineering. It combines physics and dynamics into a beautiful symphony of sound and motion. Trains pull in with their load of cars from some far off city. A yard engine(s) pushes the string of cars up a small hill (the hump) where each car is uncoupled and sent down the opposite side of the hill to any one of 5 or 6 classification tracks. Depending of the cars ultimate destination, it will be sent to the appropriate classification track to be coupled with other cars heading to a similar location. After enough cars are coupled together, a line engine(s) is hooked up and the newly built train pulls out of the yard.

Here is a big picture of a hump yard. You will see where the inbound trains arrive (Receiving Yard), where the cars are sorted (Class Yard) and then where the sorted cars are joined into outbound trains (Departure Yard). The key is the hump and the key to the hump is the Master Retarder.

Diagram of the Hump

As the cars are pushed over the hump, a trainman pulls the coupling pin and the car(s) begin their descent down the opposite side of the hump.

Pushing the Hump

Car going over the Hump

A computer controls the switches at the bottom of the hump that lead to the Classification Yard. Back in the day, the Yard Master would pull a series of levers to manually throw the switches for each car. It’s all computer controlled now.

The only problem with pushing a loaded car over the top of a hill is how do you stop it at the other end? Well, that is where the Master Retarder and Secondary Retarders come in, as seen here:

Retarders

As a car crosses the hump it is automatically weighed. The computer calculates the speed required to have a “soft coupling” in the Classification Yard so it tells the Master Retarder how much to retard (i.e. slow down) the car. It does this by squeezing the wheels of the car. This makes a noise similar to finger nails on a chalk board but only much, much louder. So loud, you have to where hearing protection. Think of a Retarder as a massive brake pad. The “pads” are squeezed against the wheels as they pass, slowing the car down. There are a group of Secondary Retarders that can be used if the car is still going to fast as it enters the Classification Yard.

Again, the goal is for a “soft coupling” to the other cars in the Classification Yard. More on this “soft coupling” later.

Retarder Assembly

In this way, the cars are sorted and trains can be built. To see a Hump Yard in operation is pretty amazing. There are moving things everywhere. There are trains arriving and departing, locomotives heading to the maintenance shed, cars being humped, the sound of the retarders, switches being thrown automatically and cars silently rolling down the Classification Yard.

When I worked for Norfolk Southern I was assigned the project to replace the Master Retarder at Bellevue Yard in Bellevue, Ohio. Bellevue is just inland from Lake Erie and is about halfway between Cleveland and Toledo. It’s actually in the middle of nowhere and the only “hill” is the Hump.

Anyone care to wager what time of year this project took place?

Yep, winter. It always seemed that the railroad would send you to the swamps in the summer and the frozen north in the winter. It never failed.

Imagine all that I just wrote about a hump yard. Now imagine it in winter, with the winds coming off of Lake Erie and the only hill being the Hump. Yeah, it was pretty darn cold.

We had to survey the hump from just before the crest of the hump all the way down to through the Secondary Retarders and into each of the Classification Tracks. Since we were only interested in the profile of the track, we used a level and a level rod. Norfolk Southern had it set up that the engineer (me) would take a survey tech and a co-op student out on surveying jobs. The survey tech would run the instrument while the engineer (me) would run the rod to make sure the proper information would be gathered. The co-op student was for heavy lifting and other unpleasant tasks that the engineer (me) did not feel like doing.

Surveying an active hump yard is a ton of fun. We would have to wait until after a car had crossed the hump to get a shot before the next one came over the crest. We had a flagman with us who would warn me when a car was coming. The wind was blowing and it was cold, so I had on my cold weather gear and it was hard to hear things. Besides, you would be shocked to see how quiet railcars can be. So, I would jump in the middle of the track for a shot and jump out of the way before the next car came. When we came to the Master Retarder, our survey shots had to get closer together to make sure we had an accurate grade across the retarder. Standing near an active retarder is noisy even with hearing protection. I played chicken with railcars all the way down the hump. It was exciting and scary as hell at the same time. Honestly, I’m not sure how I avoided getting squished.

Once we made it to the Classification Yard, we had to get actual track time. Track time is a block of time when the track is “out of service” if you will. That way we had the entire track free from rolling stock and could survey in peace…well, not really.

See, tracks in a yard are only 14′ from center to center. A cross tie is 8′ long and most railcars are around 8′ wide. That means that if you are walking along the edge of the cross tie of one track, you are really only 6′ or less from cars on an adjacent track. When those cars are in motion, the distance seems even shorter. Remember, once the car is pushed over the hump, it rolls silently down the track by using momentum. You can’t hear it. The only thing you hear is the “BANG!” it makes when it “soft couples” with another car.

That “soft coupling” is a misnomer. Take a fully loaded railcar and set it motionless on a track. Now take a fully loaded railcar traveling a few miles per hour and have it slam into the stationary car. Remember physics? Yeah, it makes a HUGE noise. If you are standing on the adjacent track, you are only 6′ or so from the stationary car when the moving car runs into it. It did not matter how many times it happened, I jumped and my heart almost jumped out of my chest.

Then there is always the possibility that the Yard Master could screw up and send a car down your track. Well, that would just end your day. You had to have your head on a swivel at all times. You had to keep an eye on the cars on either side of you and check for cars coming down your track. I don’t know how trainmen do it day in and day out. It is a dangerous job.

We finished the survey with all our legs and arms intact and went back to the office to design the new grades. Then we had to do it all over again, except this time we had to set 1/2″ rebar to grade so they could replace the Master Retarder. If I remember correctly they replaced it over a 24-hour period from a Saturday to a Sunday over a holiday weekend. After all, having your Master Retarder down shuts down your yard. Kind of like if the Atlanta Airport shut down their control tower for a day.

It was a good job and I was proud of my work, but it was one of the most hair raising surveying experiences I had. At the same time I was risking life and limb I was thinking “I can’t believe they are paying me to do this!”

It was great.