Spacer cars.......when are they necessary ?

John_Perkowski wrote:I've even read on the Internet where a spacer was added behind a private car for the end of train device so the private car owner wouldn't have to have it on their coupler.

This practice, at least in my experience, isn't about the owner of the car not wanting a marker on their car. On many passenger cars the drawbar doesn't have the necessary casting holes for mounting a modern two-way marker. And, most also don't have the vertical clearance needed between the drawbar and the bottom of the platform/bridge plate to clear a double shelf coupler let alone a 2 - 2 1/2 foot high marker. Both of these reasons are why when we move our passenger cars around on the VTR there are spacers on both ends. Sometimes the crew building the train will use something other than a box car, but box cars are reliably bottom shelf or no shelf equipped and we have a lot of them kicking around so they get used more often than not.

I think if I had a private car (fat chance of that!) I would weld on an attachment point for the EOT beside and behind the coupler. The thing doesn't have to be attached to the coupler, it only has to be able to reach the train line.

Electric marker lights on passenger cars traditionally were attached to the rear gate. An air valve was hooked to the train line so back-up movements could be controlled from the rear end in conjunction with a signal whistle.

I really would not want a spacer car, especially a box car, banging along behind my private car. Not only would it make noise and cause slack action, it would spoil the view out back.

Les

I should have stated, the only time we use the spacers is when the cars are deadheading to and from their assignments in a freight. If they are being used in a dedicated passenger train, then there are no spacers and we have the usual blinking light/flags and monkey tail to protect back up moves. Since the federal regs do not allow occupied passenger cars in trains with haz-mat, we usually can't have riders in the cars when they are deadheading to their next assignment so the lack of a view is pretty much mute.

Not many Railroads use or have 250 ton Cranes on there M/W Rosters but normal rules required were to have 5 idler cars ahead of the crane when being pulled in a train.

Also a few of the railroads that still use car floats also use an idler to push and pull cars off the barges.

A wreck crane "outfit" was at least 5 cars(crane,boom car,tool car,MOW Diner,MOW Sleeper,Panel track flat,etc)
How fast it moved depended on if the boom was leading or trailing.

Backshophoss wrote:A wreck crane "outfit" was at least 5 cars(crane,boom car,tool car,MOW Diner,MOW Sleeper,Panel track flat,etc)
How fast it moved depended on if the boom was leading or trailing.

I know just stating what the rule book's have in them about requiring 5 idler cars between the crane and the locomotive it dose not say what kind of cars could or should be used as long as they have working brakes.