About the Author J. D. Santucci (a.k.a. "Tuch") began his railroading career in 1978 as a trainman on the Missouri Pacific. After a round of lay-offs in 1985, Tuch embarked on a railroad odyssey, working in many different situations for different roads. This column tries to explain some of the nuts and bolts of the job and also demonstrates what we have to deal with on a regular basis within and without the industry. Tuch currently works through freights out of Chicago for Canadian National/Illinois Central. ©1999, 2003-2007 JD Santucci. Logo ©2002 The Railroad Network. By J.D. Santucci

October 7, 2003
Gee, one might think these are steps barked out by a choreographer preparing a dance ensemble for a new play. With a cane rapping out a beat you hear the call of "Couple and pull and swing and shove." Perhaps these words might even make up the steps from some outlandish new dance craze. Trust me though, they're not. These are the words which describe the job I am presently assigned to, the 1200 Puller at Markham.

In a nutshell, we couple tracks up, pull them out, swing them over from one side of the yard to the other and then shove them into another track. And there you have it, thanks for tuning in, drive home safely and we'll see you all back here next week.

What? You wanna know more, like exactly what in the world am I talking about? Well, since you asked so nice I suppose I'll tell.

In the process of switching out cars in a railroad classification yard, each car or in some cases group of several cars is sent into a track that is designated by a particular block. A block is a group of cars bound for the same destination. In classification yards, cars bound for the same destination are accumulated into a block of cars. Trains are then built up of these individual blocks. Depending upon the exigencies of the operation, the cars that would be set out first would likely be placed right behind the engines. Cars going further down the road would be placed behind that block and the cars going to the end of the line for that particular train would be placed on the very rear, although this is not always the case.

I intend to get into the nuts and bolts of blocking in an upcoming column. In fact, it already is a work in progress. There is a great deal about it to discuss and I would rather keep that separate from today's topic.

As cars are switched out either being flat switched or shoved over a hump, they roll freely in their respective tracks. In some cases they do not couple up to the cars next to them. It might be that the car ran out of steam and stopped on its own, the pin in the coupling mechanism did not drop allowing the knuckle on the coupler to close and lock or perhaps the drawbars (the big, long arm that sticks out of the ends of each car that carries the coupling device) did not line up and the coupling then bypassed.

Drawbars are mounted in such a way that allows them to slide laterally. This allows for the coupled cars to be able to negotiate curves and turnouts. If there was no give, the cars would derail at every curve. Some drawbars are mounted to end of car cushioning devices. These cushioning devices take up some of the shock of slack action or rough couplings to keep these forces from being transmitted to the lading within the car and damaging it. Some cars that are so equipped might have the words "Cushioned Car" painted on the sides. For many years the Santa Fe applied the term "Super Shock Control" in large yellow and white letters to the sides of cars equipped with end of car cushioning devices.

The drawback to end of car cushioning devices is that sometimes during the switching process when uncoupled while moving, the drawbars on such cars will slide to the left or right as they uncouple from the car next to them. When this car rolls into the track and strikes the car or cars in there, the drawbar is over to the side and the coupling does not make. The drawbar is off from center and bypasses the drawbar and coupler on the car with which it comes into contact. Now should the speed have been a little too great, the bypassed drawbars can cause a derailment or damage to the ends of the two cars involved.

In any event, the track to be moved has to be coupled up before anything else is done with it. On my assignment, we go into the tracks that we have been instructed to pull and couple them up as required. Once coupled, we may just pull them up to the end of that track for the switch crew allowing them room to send more cars into that particular track. Or, we may pull it out and "swing it" over to the other side of the yard.

"And we were swingin'."

The way Markham is currently set up, A Yard on the southeast side of the facility is used for receiving most inbound trains and for classification. F Yard which is adjacent and just to the west of A Yard is primarily used for a departure yard. Although several inbound trains do yard their cars here periodically.

At one time, in my lifetime and railroad career (as recently as 1987), Markham had two active and operating hump yards. The hump yard on the west side of the facility had inbound trains coming from the north yarding in D Yard at Harvey, the north end of the complex. These cars would be shoved over the hump (known as the south hump) into E Yard where they were classified and sorted. The now classified cars would be pulled down from E Yard into F Yard, which was the southbound departure yard.

Northbound trains arriving from the south would be yarded in A Yard located on the southeast side of the yard and adjacent to F Yard. These cars would be shoved over the north hump into B Yard where they were sorted and classified. They would then be pulled into C Yard which was the northbound departure yard.

The use of pull down jobs was required to move the classified cars from B and E yards to C and F Yards respectively. These pull down jobs would reach into these tracks, couple up the cars and then pull them into their respective outbound yard tracks. An operation like this is pretty standard at most hump yards. In my days at the IHB, we had numerous pull down jobs (referred to as trimmer jobs at some railroads as it is said they "trim the yard") working at the east end of Blue Island Yard to gather up the classified cars out of the hump and swing them into the departure yards. They also had them in my days at the EJ&E as well. And I worked these assignments during my time at those lines too.

Even flat switching yards will use pull down jobs. Normally they are employed at larger facilities. In my days at the MoPac, we used them in the flat switching facility at Yard Center. The switcher working the south end of 9 Yard would do the switching and a pull down job at the north end would couple up the tracks in the classification yard, pull them out and swing them over to one of the long departure tracks. I worked these jobs there many times, even holding one as my regular assignment for several months. Smaller yards such as CN's Hawthorne Yard on the former CCP and Glenn Yard on the former IC do use pull down jobs. The lead jobs will couple tracks, shove room and spot them for air. The reason for this is the fact that these yards are smaller and while the pull down jobs would provide some relief for the lead jobs, there might not be enough work to keep the job busy and justify the cost of its operation.

The use of pull down assignments improves the efficiency of the operation. The switchers, often referred to as "lead" jobs as they work the switching lead, can switch more cars as they are not having to constantly detract from their switching to couple and shove tracks or swing the tracks over to the departure yard. The more cars they can switch the more cars that can be moved through the yard per shift and per day. The more cars moved, the less the detention time accumulated on them. This translates into cars are moving quicker which recoups a multiple payout. The quicker they move, the happier the customers are and the more cars that can then be handled through the yard. This also translates into lower car costs as the detention time of foreign line cars (cars owned or leased by other roads) is also reduced. The less time on our property, the lower the cars costs are to CN. It can also translate into less total congestion within the yard.

As the Illinois Central Gulf began its downsizing in the 80's (often referred to as the "fire sale") much of the business that used to pass through Markham had been lost with the disposal of nearly two-thirds of the railroad. As a result, there were far less cars passing over the twin humps at Markham. By late 1986 the south hump was only humping two shifts per day and the north hump was only working one shift. It was decided to close the north hump and consolidate all the operations into one hump yard.

Eventually a decision was made in 1989 to close the remaining operational hump and flat switch all the cars at the bottom (south) end of E Yard. It was figured that jobs could be eliminated and money saved. Of course it wasn't mentioned that the volume of cars switched would be reduced as well but..The closing of the hump eliminated the pull down jobs, the Car Retarder Operators (the guys who manually operated the retarders on the hump that controlled the speed of the freely rolling cars down the hill) and also the Signal Maintainers required to keep the retarders and switches in the hump yard operating in good order. I'll save the story about the gigantic wreck that occurred when the flat switching operation began for another time.

While flat switching works very well, you simply cannot classify as many cars in most cases as you can with a hump. We used to routinely hump 600 or more cars per shift using two hump jobs working the single hump at Blue Island. That equates to some 1800 cars per day. If business levels were such that two hump engines per shift were not required, only one hump job would operate. A single hump job working one shift at Blue would easily hump 350 to 400 cars. On a very good day with a good crew of Conductor, Brakeman and Engineer, you might get one flat switching crew to do 240 cars in the same time frame. In the days when we had three guys on the ground instead of two and the electric switches at the south end of 9 Yard at Yard Center were still in service, we could routinely flat switch 300 cars a shift.

We won't get into the other logistics and costs of hump operations here though. That may very well be a topic we touch upon at another time.

Getting back to Markham, after the humps were closed, the decision was made to move the intermodal operations from IMX in Chicago south to Markham. IMX (Intermodal exchange) was becoming obsolete for the ICG. The restricted height clearances between Chicago and Kensington prohibited the operation of double stack containers through this portion of the Chicago Terminal. The decision was made to rip out the now shuttered, north hump and transform it into an intermodal yard. In 1995 this project was complete and Moyers Intermodal Facility, commonly referred to as M-I-T was opened.

In mid 1990's, the Canadian National was looking to move into a new intermodal facility in Chicago. They were outgrowing their Railport facility in Chicago's "Back of the Yards" community. There was no room for expansion at Railport, a one time New York Central facility. After a false start with an announced facility to be located along the EJ&E near Sauk Village, CN worked out a deal with the IC to build a facility at Markham. The old south hump of E Yard would be given up for this purpose. A Yard was rebuilt with several tracks added to allow most of the classification of freight to be moved from E Yard. E Yard was then ripped out, leveled and converted into what is now known as Gateway Intermodal Facility, and then leased to the CN.

Initially after the move to A Yard, most of the trains departed right out of this yard. But traffic levels began to increase and then there was that merger with CN that created quite the surge in business at Markham. Bringing the outbound cars over to F Yard allows for the switchers to keep doing what they were intended to do, switch. They don't have to yield to northbound trains departing out of A Yard. It also allows for tracks to be cleared out of A Yard sooner and creates more room to switch without having to find a way to cram more tracks into an already confined location. The addition of the puller jobs at the south end of Markham has added a great deal of fluidity to the operation.

Today Markham has nineteen classification tracks in A Yard, with three of them being fairly short. These three tracks were added in 2000. One of them is used for bad order cars. Another is used to hold industry cars that are destined for industries right around Markham. In making more blocks than there are tracks, some cars are double switched. For example, cars destined to CSX and the IHB are shotgunned into one track, and then later re switched to separate them into two separate blocks before being swung over to F Yard. Both blocks depart on the same train later in the evening.

The south end of Markham is actually designed pretty efficiently. There are two leads, 7 and 8 which allow access to the south end. 7 Lead is used to access F Yard while 8 Lead is used to reach A Yard. A track breaks off 7 Lead that is called the MIT Lead. The MIT Lead has a switch that breaks off of it into a track known as 12 Pocket. 12 Pocket connects to A Yard tracks 1 through 16 and the "alphabet tracks" known as AA, BB and CC. 7 Lead is also used to access F Yard and its eleven tracks of 11 through 21. 8 Lead can be used to reach all the tracks in A Yard and also the Woodcrest Lead which accesses the south end of the Woodcrest Diesel Shop.

An inbound train can use 8 Lead to access tracks 17 through 21 at the same time a pull down job is pulling cars out of tracks AA, BB, CC or 1 through 16 without interfering with each other. F Yard can also be accessed through two tracks known as 3 and 4 Thoroughfares. With the arrangement of leads at the south end of Markham, you can have several trains moving at the same time. Under some conditions, you just might have three movements taking place simultaneously.

So with this background information, we'll now examine what we are doing here on our pull down assignment.

We are usually assigned two or three SW14 switchers for our job. Once in a while we'll get a pair of Geeps or even some road power, but switchers are pretty common on the job. The SW14 was created by the former Paducah Shops of the Illinois Central Gulf. NW2's, SW7's and SW9's were brought into the shops with a remanufacturing program undertaken in 1978. This process was far more intensive than the rebuild programs used on some railroads. The old switchers were stripped to the frames and received a complete rewiring. Main generators were replaced with rebuilt versions. The prime mover (diesel engine) was replaced with one that was remanufactured at Paducah. Other repairs and upgrades were also performed.

The first five units retained their original cabs but the rest received all new cabs. A spotting feature on the SW14's is the cab. They have the Spartan style cab of EMD Geeps beginning with the GP 28 and 35 models and SD units with the three paneled roof as opposed to the original rounded roof.

When the remanufacturing process was complete, each unit received a new build date. Even though most of these units were originally built between 1939 and 1953 (inclusive), they all received a build date based on the completion of their remanufacture. The remaining units that remain in service have 1980 to 82 dates. Upon completion of their remanufacture, these units were considered new locomotives. And irregardless of their horsepower in their previous lives, they rolled out of Paducah with a rating of 1200 horsepower.

Let's go to work. With power inspected and ready to go, we begin our tour of duty. Some days we don't get right into the coupling and pulling of tracks. On some occasions we have other chores to do first. We might have had to switch a cut of cars from an inbound train that was yarded on one of the thoroughfare tracks or in F Yard as the case may be and then swing some of the cars we switched out of that track over to A Yard. The others will remain in F Yard to be married up with cars that will be coming over from A Yard later. Once in awhile we may have to yard an inbound train before going about our regular chores.

The Yardmaster will give us instructions with regards to what we are going to do such as to couple a particular track in A Yard and swing it over to F Yard. Before we begin coupling up the track, the Conductor will contact the lead job at the north end to find out if they will be sending any more cars into that track. You certainly do not want to be trying to couple up a track if it is live and cars are rolling into it. On occasion, they may have a car or two for the track. Arrangements are made to either wait for them to add such cars, or start our coupling having them notify us when they are about to send any cars into this track. With the second option, we can proceed with our work and then stop and let the lead drop the cars into the track.

To save a member of my assignment from having to walk too much, we will frequently solicit the assistance of the lead job. When we have made couplings, I will be instructed to "stretch" the track. I will pull it south stretching it out and getting it all moving. We will ask the lead job if this track is all moving. If one of their crew is in a position to observe it, he or she can tell us if it is all rolling. And now being there are several cameras in place controlled and observed by the Markham General Yardmaster, he too can also inform us if a track is all moving.

As part of the process of coupling the track, the Conductor or Utility Brakeman assigned to our job (or Brakeman if the job is a full crew assignment) will open any knuckles and adjust any draw bars to make the couplings. They will also remove some of the handbrakes on cars in the track after we have coupled onto them. Markham is built on the side of a hill with a descending (downhill) grade to the north. There is a twenty-two foot difference in the elevation of the yard from the south end to the north end, so handbrakes have to frequently be applied to cars in the tracks to keep them from rolling back out on top of the lead job.

Most Conductors and Brakeman will leave a few handbrakes applied to a few cars. They don't have anchors (tightly applied handbrakes) that will cause or allow the wheels to slide, but will leave on a few brakes that will help retard the rotation of the wheels providing for some braking effort. We need these handbrakes when shoving the tracks as we are shoving them downhill. Being that there is no air for the air brake system on these cars, I need some help in controlling the cut of cars when shoving it. Some Conductors will couple up a few air hoses on the head few cars and cut the air from the locomotive brake pipe into these cars to provide me with some extra braking effort using the air brake system.

So now we have our track all coupled up and ready to pull out. The Yardmaster will give us permission to pull out and instruct us of what route to use for the move. The most common route is out through Twelve Pocket and 7 Lead. If we have more than ten or twelve cars, we will also need a signal at Homewood. The Yardmaster will contact the Desk One Dispatcher via the "Squawkbox" located in his office. This is an intercom system of sorts that is ground based using a direct line. He hits a button that rings up the Dispatcher alerting them that the Markham General wishes to communicate with him or her. When they have a free moment, the Dispatcher will answer and they can discuss whatever is needed.

The Yardmaster informs the Dispatcher that we will need a signal off 7 Lead for headroom. Depending upon the Dispatcher and the situation with trains in the area that will require the use of the Homewood interlocking (aka control point), they will inform the Yardmaster if we are going to be delayed or blocked for a bit. Sometimes there are other movements taking place and we have to wait our turn.

Should it be that the Yardmaster cannot raise the Dispatcher himself, he will have us attempt to contact him via the radio. These folks are human too and sometimes they need to step out of the office for a few moments. On occasions owing to certain circumstances like a train ahead or signal or switch problems, we may have to speak directly to the Dispatcher and do so by flipping over the channel one on the radio and ringing him up.

When we swing the cars over from A to F Yard, we normally spot them up for air. There is a plant using an air compressor and a system of piping to send compressed air throughout the yard. This system, often referred to as the air plant, yard air or ground air is connected to the air hose on the first car spotted at the plant. A hose with fittings is used to connect the cut of cars with the air plant. This plant is used to charge the brake pipe system of the cars to and allow the Car Inspectors to work them and pretest the brake system on each car. There is a device used in conjunction with the yard air to make applications to the cars on air so that they can be walked and inspected to make certain the brakes are working properly and that any adjustments to the brake system on each car requiring service can be made.

On occasion when swinging a track from A to F Yard, there will be a misfit car within the track. This misfit might be a car that was erroneously routed into the track when in fact; it should have gone into another track. Or the misfit might be a car that has been reconsigned; that is had its routing and destination changed after it was classified. This does happen from time to time. Some commodities such as lumber are shipped to "Chicago CN" with no particular destination. This load will be sold en route and then given a final destination. However, sometimes that buyer then resells the entire load and it is given yet another destination. There are various other reasons for reconsignment as well, but we won't dig into that now.

So we pull the track out up to the misfit car and stop and make a cut. This misfit is then sent into the proper track. We then recouple to our track, then pulled out and swung over to the other side.

There are air spots on both ends of F Yard. We will be informed if the track we are swinging over to F Yard is a north end or south end spot. Trains departing northward out of Markham are normally north end spots while southbound trains are normally south end spots. You want the yard air attached at the end from which you are going to couple up against.

As I have mentioned, Markham is on the side of a hill. And the hill can wreak havoc to the operation. A lot of loads in a track we are pulling out can make it extremely tough for a pair of SW14's to pull. Sometimes we will stall as there is too much weight and not enough power. We will need to get a push from the lead job to get us out of the yard. This situation occurred three times this past week for me when I only had a pair of SW14's.

We will coordinate the move with the lead job and they will couple on to the rear car of our cut. I instruct the Engineer on the north end to "shove it to me" and simultaneously I will begin to pull on the cut. The lead usually has a trio of SW14's for power, so we now have five of these little critters at work. Friday was just such a situation with a big, heavy cut. Even with five switchers going all out, we were struggling to make 10 MPH as we rolled this cut up and out of A Yard.

Once the lead job reached the south end of the A Yard coming as far south as the road crossing there, they cut off on the fly. This means we did not stop the move for them to uncouple. The Brakeman on the lead job is riding the steps of their locomotive coupled to our cut. He will get enough slack between the couplers to allow him to pull the pin (uncoupling lever) and instruct his Engineer to stop. We pull away from them just like that. Of course you can tell as soon as they have cut away though as the cut again becomes very heavy against your locomotives, as if you had just made a major brake application. Normally though, there is enough momentum and a short enough distance between the point where they cut off and where you will be stopping once you clear the switch. So you don't stall and are finished with the lead job as a pusher or helper, at least for this move.

The south end of Markham is located in Homewood. The lay of the place makes it very accessible without having to trespass onto CN property. We routinely spot railfans observing the operations and frequently taking photographs. From time to time I will spot somebody I know out there. I wonder how many pictures of me exist in somebody's files and archives?

Should you make the trek out here, it helps to have a scanner so you can tune into the action. Should you want to listen in, we normally work on IC channel 7, which is 43-43 on the digital railroad radios with a frequency of 160.755. This channel is also the road channel on the former CCP between Hawthorne and Freeport, so you might pick up a conversation from there as well. The lead jobs work on IC channel 3 which is digital channel 90-90 and frequency of 161.460.

While our actual job symbol is R97191, we normally use the old IC symbol of RMK09. Oftentimes we just say "O 9" or sometimes "Job 9." Once in awhile somebody still calls it the MIT job, which is what this job used to be. And still other times somebody will call it the 12 o'clock job or the 12 o'clock puller. Once in awhile I'll call it the "12 o'clock south pull" resurrecting a name from the past. Now on Sundays I work with a different crew. The regular Conductor is off on Sundays and I have the relief job known as RMK02 covering for them. So on Sundays we go by that symbol or O 2 for short. And we often work on IC channel 4 instead. This is digital radio channel 78-78 and has the frequency of 161.280.

So to quote the late Harry Carey back in the days when he used to broadcast the White Sox and long before he joined that "other" Chicago baseball team; "If you're in the neighborhood, come on down."

By the way; I don't care if the Cubs get into the World Series, I cannot route for them as it would be morally and ethically wrong. Here's hoping "the Florida Fish" sweep them in four. Now one last note before we call it thirty for this edition, periodically I make mention of web sites that some of my readers operate and suggest you visit them. I visit them before I endorse them so as to make sure they are not some weird, sick or disgusting type of sites that are not suited for family entertainment or information. Even though I have been called all of these names over the years, I don't wish to subject you the readers to such stuff. So it is not to worry when I mention a site.

And with that, it's time to endorse another one. Click onto www.ridetrain.com when you get a free moment. You'll be welcomed to the "secluded and luxurious world of Private Railcars." Should I ever hit the lottery, I'll be one of these people. In the meantime, I can look and hope as can you. Also, a little bribery was offered to promote this site. Several years ago, the greatest name in the entire history of morning drive time radio, Fred Seibold had me on the air with him as a guest. Fred has been the king of radio for so long I believe that as a youngster, he was friends with David Sarnoff, Lee de Forrest, Edwin Howard Armstrong and Guglielmo Marconi.

Fred made the fatal mistake of offering to have me on again if I promoted this web site. Now of course I told him this time I want the entire show and not just a time slot. And yes, even the legendary Paul Harvey would have to wait for us to conclude. I may be easy, but I'm not cheap. Yes indeed that would make for a "Good Day."

So click onto that URL and make the counter at this web site run into the next century. You asked for it Fred.

And so it goes.

Tuch