Trivia

I think so... I'd say for one reason or another they couldn't bury the signal / electric wires and they still had to run them, so they put the wires above ground. This is done on the Long Beach Branch just north of Long Beach Station, over the bridge.

-Barry

Nope. That's an interesting guess though. The number of stones is to indicate how many hand brakes are applied on the standing cut of cars. We put the stones there so the conductor of the train that will pick them up doesn't have to run around guessing how many breaks will be applied. We'll usually leave the hand breaks set on consecutive cars as opposed to this one here, and then another random one somewhere in the middle of the train, and yet another random one at the other end of the train. Five rocks will indicate that the 1st five cars will have a break applied.

RPM2Night wrote:What does it mean when you find a certain number of small rocks or peices of ballast placed on the knuckle coupler you will be tying onto? Say 3 small rocks for example.

Speculation: 3 cars in the cut of cars you are tying onto have their handbrakes applied ... you will need to find those cars and release the handbrakes after you couple and before you move the cars.

jhdeasy wrote:

RPM2Night wrote:What does it mean when you find a certain number of small rocks or peices of ballast placed on the knuckle coupler you will be tying onto? Say 3 small rocks for example.

Speculation: 3 cars in the cut of cars you are tying onto have their handbrakes applied ... you will need to find those cars and release the handbrakes after you couple and before you move the cars.

We don't set random hand brakes here and there in the cut of cars. If the next crew will be tying onto the north end, then we will tie the hand brakes on the first 3 cars on the north end.

I was told the double set of third rails between Commack Road and JS was due to a grounding problem. For some reason, the rail didn't act properly through there as a return ground for the MU's so the second rail acts as the return ground.

Not sure if this is correct, but that's what I was told.

Jay