The dangerous railroad art of shunting wagons with wooden sticks - Poling
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- čas přidán 27. 04. 2023
- In today's video, we take a look at the art of poling, an old railroad practice that involved ramming wagons with sticks
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Me ol' bam-boo, me ol' bamboo,
You'd better never bother with me ol' bamboo,
You can have me hat or me bum-ber-shoo,
But you'd better never bother with me ol' bamboo!
:D👍
i KNEW that tune was familiar!
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is where I first recall hearing it, it was driving me nutty until i scrolled down.
Ah! I knew I recognized that song! Chitty Chitty Bang Bang! What a well-done reference~
one of dick van dykes best musical bits
(slow clap)
The thumbnail almost looked like the British dude was gonna do a then, modern remake of The General with that pole.
The whole video reminds me of _The_ _General..._ When I was a child, there was no Internet, but I read about The General in an encyclopedia. It even had a still image from the film. I was into trains (and movies) and was so very, very eager to see that film. When, many years later, I finally did, I wasn't disappointed.
@@VideoDotGoogleDotCom same as I. Also, the real Texas locomotive is still around today. The actual locomotive had to chase The General in reverse which angered the driver of The General. Including that the Confederates used 2 locomotives to pursue them. The union soldiers who took part in the raid also recieved the Medal of Honor.
@arturochambers27 Rarely does Yonah and Catoosa get any credit for taking part. Texas didn't have a choice.
@@arturochambers27 The General is being housed at Big Shanty now.
"Sometimes, the best solution is the most OSHA violating ones."
I'm reminded of the "flying switch," another practice that's both an obvious time saver and obviously hazardous.
@@MrBirdnose what is this 'flying switch' you speak of?
@@Reiver-93 It's A strategy for switching a car onto a facing spur without having to run the locomotive around the car. The locomotive and car start moving on the main line, then the car is cut loose and the locomotive accelerates to open a gap. The switch is thrown between the locomotive and the car and the car coasts onto the spur.
It's effective and time saving, but also a dynamic maneuver where a lot can go wrong if your timing is off.
The Railway Men who invented Poling:
“Modern Problems require Modern Solutions.”
Dear train of thought , I would also like to add that locomotives that have poling pockets , doesn’t necessary mean that they were used a such, some of the steam locomotives of the New South Wales government railways , had certain parts such as the frames built overseas by Baldwin locomotives works , that had poling pockets in the buffer beams but we never practiced poling in Australia at all.
A~feared it would become trapped..."down under".
Yeah, some brazilian ALCos, early EMDs and Pullman Standard built cars had poling pockets but they were never used because kicking cars was already widespread.
I don't know if poling was ever "legal" on US railroads. It was probably one of those practices that workers got away with as long as management wasn't watching. It is interesting to see those built-in dimples on the cars and locomotives to make poling easier, though, which is evidence that someone along the way condoned the practice. I don't think I've ever seen those, even in museums. 'Course I wasn't looking for them. Next time I go to my nearest museum (National Museum of Transportation, St. Louis) I'm going to have to look and see if I can find those dimples.
Poling policies differed among railroads, but it pretty much stopped around the 1960s and if you look at equipment built before then almost all of it has poling pockets. Interestingly the ICC and Contemporary FRA don’t seem to have anything outlawing it.
It was common enough practice that rolling stock and locomotive manufactures provided the pockets. A number of railroads included poles as a part of their book of standards, complete with the general make up, dimensions, and sizes of "official poles". Switching locomotives often even had racks installed for a pole to be stored. Neither the ICC, CFR49. AAR handbook, or the FRA actually have anything 'outlawing' it.
Propping, as it was known in the UK was strongly discouraged but not banned in the UK due to the number of accidents and injuries caused by doing it.
I can guarantee at least half the trains there have a dimple or ring for poling. Lol. Most of the trains at the National Railroad Museum do
I think it was 2015 that the FRA mandated any rail cars with poling pockets have to be retired or have the pockets cut off. Even though the practice was outlawed 35 years prior there was still a lot of cars with pockets.
"It's not known how this practice came about:"
The first use of a switching with a pole was probably around the time of the Civil War, when locomotives came equipped with long coupling links on their pilots. The link could be thrown over to the side and mated with the corner of a freight car. This is described in a few period accounts. It wouldn't take long for railroaders to figure out "Hey this is a good idea" and start to use oak poles to preform the move.
Also...no one in the US calls it "shunting"....in the US it's "switching." ;-)
@The 101st Dalmation...As an "Original Transcon RR" enthusiast, I find it fascinating how railroading was done before automatic couplers became the standard in America. Injury and death apparently was common, as modern automobile accidents are, and exploding boilers yet another hazard. The modern replica locomotives: #119, and Jupiter, of Promontory Summit fame, have one piece boilers. Thanks for your details. Darrell. 🙂
I've always called it shunting here in NE Pennsylvania where I have lived for fifty years.
I can say I've had a stick be more useful than some people I've had to work with.
I've read about poling before years ago in an old railroad magazine. I never expected that you would make a video about it and it did unlock that memory! It is truly an amazing practice.
Sounds JUST like something some fool came up with for an idea that wasnt thought thru at all, like what happens if there is "slack" and the pole falls down on the track? like what happens if the pole snaps in half, how fast will the projectile pieces slam into the nearest guy's chest?
Wow, I can’t believe I’ve never heard of this! That’s fascinating and honestly kind of genius…if not extraordinarily dangerous.
We have a similar method in the yards on swedish railways. We have a 2 metre metal pole with a flat end and the flat end is put under the wheel and you push the pole up and down with your arms to push the wagon on. I can tell you, it's and easy way to build shoulder muscles.
Do you mean an Atlas car mover?
They were called pinch poles in England.
@@ronselliers6951 Yes. Didn’t know that they were called that in english.
POV: I need to push some rolling stock but not go back n’ forth.
Some Train dudes: STICK
It's the simpler salutions that work best
A wooden pole became more useful than an E2?
perhaps
As a qaulified shunter do not fall into the trap of thinking shunting is still safe these days you see no evil do no evil and speak no evil, we are taught the horror stories of when it goes wrong. It is only safe if everyone involved does everything correctly
One of the first rules is never stand in the gauge unless your current task requires it. Drifting cars can be disturbingly quiet and you may never hear them coming before they squish you.
Here in Switzerland (and I think in most of Europe as well), Shunting Yards are almost fully automated today. Arriving Trains get split up manually, and Then a (oftentimes radiocontrolled) Shunting Locomotive pushes them over a small Hill. Once over the Top of the Hill, the Waggons then roll off on their own down the other Side, where the fully automated Network of Switches and Brakes let the Waggons roll into their new Train. The new Train then gets pushed together via automated pusher and manually reconnected. Then Locomotives get hooked up and take the new configurated Trains to their Destination.
I don't know why nearly everyday somewhere in USA Trains derail at almost no Speed. Derailments are nearly unknown here, as Rails and rolling Stock are Inspected regularely and our Trains all drive at Speeds between 60-200Km/h depending on the Line...
@@samuelbhend2521 First, you described exactly what a hump yard is. You push rolling stock over the hump and then switches and gravity arrange them.
Second Switzerland is a tiny country (no offense). West Virginia which is a very small state in the U.S. is 1.52 times as large as Switzerland.
Switzerland has 3,241 miles of track vs. The U.S. having 160,141 miles of track.
@@Cragified I take no Offense :) I know we are just a dot on the Map.
But I'm always baffled seeing US Videos of anything Public Infrastructure related, how Bad in a State most of it is. Sometimes down to 3rd World Country Level... (I'm used to 15yr. old Stock being scrapped as "too old to refit" to the new restrictions/technical gimmicks and 20year old Bridges/Tunnels/whatever getting major overhaul, for public Safety "because it's already 20years old!") ou Safety and all other restrictions get replaced/new configurated every few Years...
Switzerland is built upon and depends on it's Tightknitted federal and stately public Transportation System with matching up Timetables down to the very Minute, whilst Public Trasportation in the US is something only People from big Cities will vaguely know what it is...
Our federal and the 26 stately Gouvernements spend Billions/Year to maintain and expand Public Transport even more. By Law every Village over 300 Inhabitants must be connented to Public Transport and also two major European Freightroutes go trough Switzerland.
@@samuelbhend2521 safety for american railroads have very low standards due to the freight companies who own all the track there prioritising profit over everything else, not a good way to run trains
I worked for a heating coal retailer and the coal would come in a hopper car on the company siding. The coal was dumped onto a grate and a conveyor belt lifting the coal up to the silos. To position the hopper, the men used a crowbar like rod they called a come-a-long to inch the car over the grate.
Having the song “me ol bamboo” in the background is PERFECT for this video.
i think this taught us sometimes the best solution is no solution, but you're right, its not the simplest
THE STICK OF TRUTH!
Very interesting. In the UK it was quite common, and officially allowed in the rule book with various precautions, to use "tow ropes" to get wagons moving on adjacent lines. So that was a "pull" method rather than a "push". The wagons had towing lugs that the rope would drop off when it was no longer taut - the engine started, got the wagons moving, and then stopped.
I can't tell you just how happy it made me that you used Me Ol Bamboo as the background music. Perfect choice 10/10.
So that’s what those holes were for! I always remember seeing the poling pockets on locomotive pilots and wondering what they were there for, but now I know!
How it was invented:
“Hey, Mario! Look what I made!”
“It’s a stick, Luigi. You didn’t make it!”
“It’s a shunting pole! I chopped it!”
The only place where we still use a wooden pool/stick is for decoupling the cars on the shunting hill. This is done by the "stick man"
One interesting American example of poling being an integral part of railway operations was with the Hulett unloaders of Whiskey Island in Cleveland. They were ore-unloaders that had four sets of rail lines underneath them that could all be filled simultaneously. I'm not sure what factors led to this, but they had built 42in narrow gauge lines build in between standard gauge lines 1 and 2, and 3 and 4, where a custom built electric locomotive would pole cars in place so they could be filled up. Although the "pole" in this case was a special pneumatic cylinder.
Heres a video showing them in action around the 1:20 mark:
czcams.com/video/1RJfnk2S330/video.html
I was told about radio protocol when working CN maintenance of way in the Niagara Falls Canada yard. Years before, an engineer asked if it was safe to shunt. A voice came over the radio to proceed. A Yardman in the NF NY yard 2km away gave the go ahead. The Yardman in Canada was crimped in the knuckle. They put a blanket around the knuckle and rushed his family to the yard. He said goodbye, the family left, and they uncoupled the cars where he collapsed. The radio protocol was immediately updated. Imagine all of the incidents using poles to push rolling stock.
Wow, poling eventually became forbidden. Aside of the injuries and accidents, poling did look kinda fun. A shame that it didn't "stick" around modern railroading.
You'd think by now a robotic pole could be used... Seems everyone forgot about this.
While Buckeye made automatic couplers, they were best known as Janey couplers, from the patent holders name.
And poling certainly was an approved method of moving rolling stock. Look at photos of many American and Canadian locomotives - steam and first generation diesels - and you will see a pole sitting on a integrated holder.
I worked in a goods yard at Kings Langley (England). Four-wheel vans were delivered to be unloaded but we had no shunter or even a shunting horse. Out of sight from the station one of the two regulars drove a small solid-tyred fork lift and with a stout rope was able to haul several vans to where we needed them for the waiting lorries. My job was to drop the brake lever on each wagon and without a nice square wooden item used to pin down the brakes (not the one described above but a square and very long baseball bat) I simply jumped on one of the brake levers to add my weight to pin it down. The fitters often came out to renew the fork-lift's tyres and could not understand why they wore out so frequently.
Welp, you know the saying, "get a lazy man to do a job, he'll find most efficient way to complete it"
heyyy! nice, they air photo you used 5 seconds in is the freight yard i work at! It's the Kijfhoek in the Netherlands. it's the biggest freight yard in the country and the only "humping yard" we have.
Human ingenuity at its finest
I remember seeing poling pockets on the cars but never could figure what they were for.
I know we still did polling back in the early seventies with our Alco t6s.
As you going up the steps of the engine on the left-hand side at the step was a half round circle looking like a backwards C and it was a like a half of polling cup but I think it was made there so that if the pole would fall it wouldn't fall in front of the engine but fall away from the engine but I'm not really describing it good that way but look it up I seen us use poles a lot of times just pushing cars and specially if it got stuck in like a switch we just shove them on through.
Thanks for always very interesting videos,
I always enjoy them and always bring back good memories!
Good choice of background music, I haven’t seen that movie in ages XD
Heard of a related technique for loose shunting of single wagons used in the UK, namely using a crowbar to lever on the rail against the wheel \m/
The tool kind of comingled into the common shunter's pole; what was basically a hook on a stick to uncouple wagons safety from the sideline instead of standing between the wagons. The other end of these poles commonly ended with a prybar to get wagons rolling by hand. Especially brave yardies would jam the pole into the brake rodding and physically stand on the pole and ride the rolling wagon down the siding, leaning on the pole to apply the brake as needed.
@@45calGunslinger you wouldn't use your shunting pole to hold down the brake lever unless you wanted to break it. For braking in the early hump yards you needed a brake stick. This would be about a yard long half of which would be of square section about 2 inches thick went between the frame and the brake lever and the other half was a tapering round handle.
I think you're thinking of a Johnston bar, an American device for shifting railroad cars. You jam one end in under the tyre of one wheel and pull down on the other end of the 6 foot long lever and it shifts the car in accordance to the laws of the level a small distance.
@@neiloflongbeck5705 the Americans probably had similar practices and tools, but I was referring to UK shunters
@@45calGunslinger and so was I, you use a braking stick for braking, shunter's pole for coupling and uncoupling and nothing else. I've not come across a British shunter's pole that could be used for the movement of vehicles.
Poling while Switching (or Shunting) was common in the Coal Fields of West Virginia up into the 70's. A close friend (older) started with C & O (then Chessie System, retired right after becoming CSX) and retired as Conductor. They poled in yards between Charleston/ Huntington, WV to Russell, Ky.
Fascinating, thanks for the upload, ToT!
The indentations were also called polling CUPS…..
My favourite thing is knowing this came from a "fuck that" moment
Poling was being used on British Rail in 1973, when I got a job there. There were more dangerous practices. While I was there, a man lost two legs at another station. I left, and they asked me to come back and work in the parcels office.
I always wondered when I was a kid what those dimples on cars were for.
2:00 thats from the movie Emporer of the north pole
In the seventies I worked at Cardiff steel works. The railway lines were all on a slight downhill gradient and the empty wagons were moved by gravity. Men, and women, would push a huge wagon to get it slowly rolling then use a long wooden pole to operate the brake to walk it down the line.
In Australia the stick was called SPRAG , later it become the nickname for a shunter.
On the farm when I was young we needed a few extra feet to get the wagon in the barn and we had to push it from behind. We used a pole between the front of the tractor and the back of the wagon. It was slightly uphill. Always wondered how me, my brother and my father got so lucky that none of us ever got hurt.
It's like no-one thought of using a chain and pulling the wagons instead of pushing them.
Hulett Ore Unloaders had "built in" locomotives that moved the ore cars using shunting poles.
If my memory serves me correctly, poling is still legal and was legal back then. The only reason it stopped was because the conductor or brakeman didn’t want the risk of getting hurt, not because of management.
1:56 is a screen shot from the movie "Emperor of the North", (Also originally known as "Emperor of the North Pole") starring Lee Marvin, Keith Carradine, and Ernest Borgnine.
I've also seen switch crews use log chains to pull a car to a place where they can couple, particularly when a car is on a sharp curve, and can't be coupled.
I imagine in the UK and Europe it wouldn’t be as common because the locomotives and cars have buffers, so to push them, to coupling is needed
In the UK we certainly did parallel shunting mainly using ropes. I've never heard of polling being done but it could have been.
@@neiloflongbeck5705 Some locos on the North Eastern Railway had poles permanently mounted on the footframing. It was common on colliery lines in the north east to use poling.
@@nicksayajirao1730 I'm not aware of the NER using that method of shunting, but it was habit for shunter's poles to be lodge, quite often on the buffer beam, o locomotives until the 1980s. This should not be confused with beams if wood used for poling a wagon. These shunter's poles were 6 foot sticks with a hook on one end for uncoupling wagons.
@@neiloflongbeck5705 no, these are not just resting on the buffers like a shunters pole. . They’re about six inch diameter and solidly hinged to the footframe near the dragbeams. Some E class had them as well as i think some of the earlier locos. All gone by WW1 as it was considered unsafe even then.
@@nicksayajirao1730 thanks, I'll look into it.
Why not simply install a pole on a locomotive? Why build a whole separate cart for it
Good point
I've seen a picture of a British 0-4-0T with built-in poles that swung out from hinges at the front and rear of the running boards - a much better solution than a seperate pole that might break, fall or similar.
Because locomotives come in and out of service a lot more than regular rolling stock. It’s a lot easier and cheaper to have a dedicated poling car then to install a bunch of poling mechanisms on a bunch of locomotives.
@@Stoker58
Doubt that was the reason. More likely they just prototyped it on an abandoned wagon, and with the whole process being in decline anyway, it never progressed.
If the idea had remained in use, there is nothing stopping them having made a quick release fitting to swing the poles off the loco when needed, and drop them off when they weren't.... Kind of like the pockets but physically attached to the loco.
Back then the most useful thing was a stick and even now in modern america one of the most useful things to have is a brake stick. Not wooden but it makes tying handbrakes a breeze which is useful for working industries
When I was young in South Africa in the late 50s, I knew a few Shunters with missing fingers.
I live my life the same way simple options are the best option
Intrigued by your photo of it being done in GB - mainly because of the wagon being poled, a private owner's salt van from Middlewich. The engine also appears to be an industrial rather than a main line company shunter, suggesting the photo may have been taken in a factory shunting yard. Must admit I didn't know of the practice being used here.
PO Salt vans, incidentally, ran well into BR days - salt would leach out, get into the underframe ironwork and wreak havoc. BR prefered the salt companies to keep their own stock rather than risk having their own damaged, and wagon checkers at places like Stafford aand Nantwich kept a very sharp eye on the vans, red-carding them at the slightest question of suitability. Funnily enough, growing up beside the main line just south of Stafford in the 1950's, I don't recall ever seeing any of them going past. They were often brightly painted, as rolling advertising hoardings.
I own a 1927 54C International Harvestor Truck with pockets cast in the front cross member.
The 74C 94C 104C also have the pockets .
This series of trucks have chain drive after the differential at 3:1 reduction, the chain also takes some of the stresses from the differential centre .
The chain drive series was marketed for severe duty conditions .
I can not say if IHC added this feature to try and win market place shares in the rail way game .
I only learnt of poling a few months ago .
I've pondered the reason of the pockets for 24 yrs, now I wonder if it is the reason or I'm imagining things
Who would win?
A heavy rail switcher, made to push multiple cars into position for commercial trains, able to easily maneuver through curves and switch
VS.
A literal stick.
I’ve seen those “poling pockets” on rolling stock. I’ve always wondered what they were for.
I’ve always wondered. Why didn’t they simply Mount pull down poles on the 4 corners of the yard switcher. Have them on a hinge with a counterweight so you pull it down and lock it in the cars pocket. And when the car pulls away the pole rises back up to vertical.
You left out that actual poles were manufactured for this maneuver. They rested on two hooks on the underside of the tender or in other easy to get to locations. They were thick in the middle and tapered at each end down to a certain circumference and there were metal bands around each end to help them from getting damaged. The model of the polling car has one like I'm talking about mounted on it. This was very dangerous and there were many instances where the poles would break violently, almost as if they had exploded; sending large splinters flying every direction, and in a handful of cases skewering and killing the brakeman that were standing close by or placing the pole. I knew some old railroad guys that retired not long after diesel locomotives come along that told horror stories of working in large freight yards.
It's like having a long stick to turn the telly on because you don't want to get up to press the button.
Just came across your channel. Subscribed. The subject matter of American coming of age, and fulfillment of "Manifest Destiny" has been well-written about. My suggestion to those interested in this fascinating history, is to look at literary sources of 20 and 30 years ago and older. The true history is well worth engaging in, without the PC aspect that is poisoning my country's modern "interpretation". Thanks. 😇
Always wondered what those "circles" on cars were used for.
In the US, we call shunting switching, wagons are cars, shunting locomotives are switchers.
I actually did this on a model railroad within two or three weeks of this video coming out!
ah, the high tech stick, wonder of the ancient world
I've only used this technique a hand full of times gets pretty sketchy when all you have is a 2x4
Apparently after the practice was made illegal, the pole cars were still used. Not for poling cars in sidings, but for moving ground crews around from one side of the yard to the other, sorta like go karts. So in a way, they still helped save time in switching, but with crews rather than cars
Takes all the strain from the locomotives, this tactic was certainly clever for its time!
Referred to as propping in the UK, I think it was still a thing in some places in the UK until the 1950s.
So that’s what those pockets on locomotives are for, despite their no longer practical use
also possible to pull with a cable winch
or push with a forklift
A practice long since abandoned in the UK. Frought with peril.
A little off subject, but we used to use a pole with a metal shoe device to move rail cars on the siding when we were loading them and we had no locomotive. I have no idea what it was called, but it was amazing how it worked. Anyone?
In the Durham coalfield, we had a horse...
Your still at the 1:58 mark is from the movie Emperor of the North (1973). Great railroad/hobo movie. Watch if you have not already.
I was seeing if anyone was gonna mention that. I absolutely love that film.
@@MadMax-sc1su One of the best!
Narrow gauge lines in Romania and Ukraine still use poling to this day, to move log cars around. They don't have much in terms of safety standards.
Edit: for anyone interested, poling at 20:45
czcams.com/video/ble-aT4WnJM/video.html
Couldn't the poling pocket be made into a safer bracketing attachment and the pole made out of high strength aluminum?
One of my favorite things to do at museums is look for poling pockets. So many trains have them. A few of the steamers at the National Railroad Museum in Green Bay have them on both sides of their cow catcher beam thing and some on the tenders
I live in Scranton, Pennsylvania and will have to look next time I am over Steamtown, which is walking distance from my house.
I was trying to get my head around, "how does a human being push a railroad car?" The answer is they don't. Once I noticed the engine parallel, it made sense! Dangerous or not, it fits the logic.
This was before the invention of either health or safety.
Poling is still legal and still a thing, it was never deemed illegal in the states of course!
"How do we solve this logistics issue?"
"A STICK!"
"No, I didn't ask what's brown and sticky...."
I mean, it's does look fun XD
Well....... Sticks and Stones are the backbone of railroads.......You refine and smith the stones into metal sheets to make the engines and rails, and getting oil, wood and charcoal form the sticks, combine them together and you get a working railroad.
I've done it. Used to get cars in the clear
I'm a Pol. taking a poll about poles .😊
0:03 Kijfhoek Netherlands!
rip the lost wtyp episode
Wouldn't it have been better to build poling armatures directly onto shunting engines rather than make a whole separate poling car?
I was always told BNSF uses those giant chains on their engines to pull cars on adjacent tracks. No idea if thats true or not
I've got some spare, sturdy wood you can use as a pole
And I thought this was gonna be about using sticks to switch rails.
Funny thing I tried this with model trains in both HO scale and ON30 scale
We would pole boxcars out of the way especially when making a drop and not have the car go all the way in the clear.
Poling you say? Hmm I wonder how much one of those would sell for.. My best guess is £1000..
Along the same lines as performing a flying switch.
Bruh, i just shunted my girlfriend before work, this never gets old! 🤣👍
Hello train of thought
Side note, this was deemed unsafe and illegal in Canada. Whether our workers did it anyway is another matter.
2:20 Railroad Bruh Moment