Poling a car in 1964

El Classico posted:

Sweet introduction to the hobby .

Hobby?  He is referring to his life long profession as a professional railroader.

When was poling outlawed?

1963

Poling never goes out of style when necessity is the mother of invention, only when Supervision is around.  I've done it but a solid piece of wood is better than a rotted tie.

Wasn't a CP or Soo employee killed poling a car(against the rules)  in the 80's?  I always thought it was neat that 765 still carries a pole right on the side of the tender.

Wyhog. Great picture capturing the moment. 

If you know how to pole a car, you probably will not be killed or injured, or damage the car or engine.  However, if you think you know how to do it, but actually don't, you are in danger of getting an unpleasant surprise which you might or might not live through.  It's all about assessing and managing the risks.

Even if done correctly, and with a pole designed for the purpose (which at one time many engines carried), the pole was always in danger of shattering, sending potentially lethal shrapnel of wood flying around.

I sure miss the Greatest Generation, mentors I had as a kid, all of them had a keen sense of common skill that our next generation will surely miss...There wasn't a thing they could not fix!

I remember I bought my first car, '69 mustang for 400.00... a deal of a life time... I must have torn ever piece of that car apart and rebuilt it in the 4 years I owned it.  The real value of this car was what I learned from it...

All of it from my Dad and my Uncle...

I reckon the original post refers to a "flying switch" maneuver, also known by other names, and also outlawed by many railroads?

In the early 70's I was surprised to see SP perform a "flying switch" maneuver with about 17 cars. The loco did a brief run to accelerate the cars, then cut loose and pulled ahead and the switch was thrown ahead of the moving cars. I wondered if that long string of cars would clear but they just kept rolling.

J Daddy posted:

I sure miss the Greatest Generation, mentors I had as a kid, all of them had a keen sense of common skill that our next generation will surely miss...There wasn't a thing they could not fix!

I remember I bought my first car, '69 mustang for 400.00... a deal of a life time... I must have torn ever piece of that car apart and rebuilt it in the 4 years I owned it.  The real value of this car was what I learned from it...

All of it from my Dad and my Uncle...

At the risk of sending this thread off on a tangent, common sense was shall we say, common place at one time.  Now days, the common thing to do is assess the liability before doing the task.  We have become way too correct, thus stifling incentive.  

We all talk about how the older generations had more "common sense."

Where's the common sense in standing between two massive hunks of iron and steel, holding a rotten piece of wood?

Sure they got things done but at great personal risk and at times, great personal COST. We seem to forget that more than a few of these "common sense" individuals were maimed or killed performing these "common sense" activities.

Dominic Mazoch posted:

When was poling outlawed?

Farmer_Bill posted:

1963

That's a joke with reference to the 1964 event, right?

In actuality I believe it was up to the individual railroads to spell out disallowed practices in their own rules.

Poling pockets were a standard feature on railroad cars for decades. It would be interesting to know when poling pockets were omitted from new car construction.

In bygone years special poling cars were used to switch cars on parallel tracks, and there were even special "poling yards" set up for this.

http://www.oil-electric.com/20...h-poling-part-2.html

Another curiosity: poling yards needed special low-profile switchstands.

Thanks. A very interesting

reference! 

We called a "flying switch" a "drop", as in "We need to drop that hopper around the engine". 
We also did what we called a "dutch drop".  Several people have told me it is impossible but I assure you we did it EVERY night (sometimes twice) on the Penn Central industry switcher in Middletown OH that I worked my way through college on.
A dutch drop is when you do a drop at a trailing point switch. You pull the cut of cars to get them rolling, give the slack, pull the pin, then race ahead with the engine. Stop just past the trailing point switch, throw the switch, race the engine into the adjacent track (going TOWARDS the rolling cars), throw the switch back and the cars roll past your engine. You can then throw the switch again and the engine comes out and grabs the cars. Simple. Did it hundreds of times on that job. Even did a few times years later on the BN. You need the fast response of an actual switch engine to do this. A road engine like a GP9 is not going to rev up and load fast enough to do it.