Hand signals!

We have three major yards here in our hub which use some common frequencies. The crosstalk sometimes sounds like flipping through stations on a digital radio; on a number of occasions I've had to stop a move because my transmission walked. Hand signals are much easier to use as long as everyone is on the same page.

SteelWheels21 wrote:A few other things I've learned that may help you out:

---When you're running light power, ALWAYS USE HAND SIGNALS. Engineers get insulted when you use your radio for these moves.

Right after NS took over Conrail in these parts I was waiting to go East out of Suffern and kept hearing the drill crew on the radio. Now I knew these guys and the whole crew had almost 100 years of experience between them and I knew them to be a hand signal crew. A few days later I ran into them in the shanty at Suffern and inquired as to what I'd heard and they told me that NS wants all moves made via the radio. Even moving a light engine. Probably so its on tape in case of a hearing.

I don't like the western signals, go away, or come toward me by day, while using go ahead and back up at night. In the east we always use the same motions, day or night. I have worked under both systems.
I wish more people would give car counts with motions. We did on the Burlington, but here they just start giving an "easy" motion as the hitch get closer. The easy depends on the judgement of the brakeman. I wish that I knew the exact distance. A new brakeman may start with easy too late. Yes I do take it easy until I know what to expect from the train crew.
I agree that motions are good. I hate having to pick out one voice out of 100, in a busy yard.

Engineer Spike wrote:I don't like the western signals, go away, or come toward me by day, while using go ahead and back up at night. In the east we always use the same motions, day or night. I have worked under both systems.
I wish more people would give car counts with motions. We did on the Burlington, but here they just start giving an "easy" motion as the hitch get closer. The easy depends on the judgement of the brakeman. I wish that I knew the exact distance. A new brakeman may start with easy too late. Yes I do take it easy until I know what to expect from the train crew.
I agree that motions are good. I hate having to pick out one voice out of 100, in a busy yard.

The first few times I work with someone, I hit the counter when they give me car-lengths over the radio. Gives me an idea how accurate their distance is.

Spike, the day/night thing was easily the hardest for me to master; I can't even count the times I would give a "come to me" at night instead of an "ahead" then wonder why the guy wasn't moving.

As far as car counts vs. "easys", most of the guys out here just like to run until you ease them down. I've actually been yelled at for giving signals at all when riding to a joint on the rear of a switch engine..."I CAN SEE THE GODDAM THING, YOU DON'T HAVE TO SIGNAL ME!!!"

I take a lot less grief from hogs now then when I started.

Thanks fella's,
not to sure what you mean by "easy's", since we use car counts. i've been told accurate distances are more important than hand signals, !???? but i guess it depends on the hogger. Anyone make a car length distinction between a 40 ft box car and a lumber "A" frame or center beam?
I learned a new hand signal today by a bitchy hogger, "The Bouquet"................ hand out palm facing outwards, five middle fingers!!LOL

I use to force new guys on a yard job to give me hand signs. And now with the remotes here, hand signals are really starting to be a thing of the past. When i catch a new guy (2 years or less) on a local or we have to do a power cut off a mainline train, their hand signal are really bad.

The Dakota Southern normally relies on hand signals since they have short trains and sometimes quite a few switch moves. Radios are used when commnicating with the BNSF or passing information along that there aren't any hand equivilant signals for.

steam371 wrote:Thanks fella's,
not to sure what you mean by "easy's", since we use car counts. i've been told accurate distances are more important than hand signals, !???? but i guess it depends on the hogger. Anyone make a car length distinction between a 40 ft box car and a lumber "A" frame or center beam?

I generally don't care what kind of distance you use when giving car counts, be it a 24 ft. ore jenny or an 80 ft. car carrier, just be consistent. If you go "10 cars" then "5 cars" in the space of 2 units, and then go "3 cars" in the space of 3 unit lengths, you are going to tick your hogger off every time. Wanna' give me short cars? Fine, but keep them short.

I have seen the belly rub also the hands in fists with thumbs up being brought to your mouth like your shoveling in food for beans.
Head in a siding tapping your head ,back in tapping your tush.
Slow was a slow flaping motion like "easy does it" you just made your hands go up and down at your sides like a bird. It turns into a stop signal real easy.
Kick I have seen done just by kicking with a foot holding up a fist with how many ever fingers was how many you wanted to kick so the engineer could wind her up tight or not.
Washout a REAL fast stop.Like oh crap the new hire forgot the derail!!!!( I have seen people almost fly with this one )
We had a guy telling roundhouse stories one night. he gave the signals all right down to the joint then signalled "Going between to couple the hoses" as he was attempting to do this another switchman grabbed him pulling him back just as the cars were moving! Seems that signal was ok for his home yard but here it meant "shove em pin didnt drop"
Signals were different from road to road and terminal to terminal. I agree why ues a radio when running light! Plus with hand signals your progress cant be monitored by all in ear shot so to speak. You get the work done a bit earlier you go to beans longer. Or if your just having a real crappy day no one needs to know but you and your crew.

One thing about hand signals that worked out good for me on my old switch engine days, if the tower thought he gave me too much dope or just enough to get us threw beans, id use the radio only if i really had to and never mentioned anything over the radio to give away where we were on our dope. With a whole lot of hand signs and some fast switching, we could get all of our work done and take the last hour of our six hour shift hiding in a rail taking a break before coming around and the yardmaster wouldnt know anything different other than we got all our work done. Had some good times on the goat when i first hired out.