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Show ! GOOD ADVICE IN' SWITCHING. j All yardmen should bear in mind the necessity of always having a man within sight of the engfheer. so that he can pass signals promptly, and the engineer should inforce this by stopping as soon as he fails to see at least one member of the crew he is working with. When handling long drags, and in fact, at all times except to prevent accident, the use of violent stop signals sig-nals should be entirely discontinued, as, in the case of a long train, a suddenly sud-denly heavy application of the brakes brak-es on the engine has the same effect ef-fect on the cars as the game of snap the whip has on the long line of boys on the ice. You all know what happens to the last boy in the line when playing snap the whip, and some of us know to our sorrow what happens to the last car in the drag when the man up ahead "puts her all on." A good way to avoid the necessity neces-sity of violent signals is to work far enough back from the switch points so that every time a cut is made it won't be necessary to stop on a ten-cent ten-cent piece to avoid running past the switch. - When about to make a coupling 'the judicious use of the "easy" sign before the coupling is made will help a lot in saving jars to equipment equip-ment and freight; also be sure that at least one knuckle is open before the cars come together, as there is a terrible strain on drawheads when they come together with both knuckles knuck-les closed, due to the twisting motion mo-tion they receive at time of impact. When it is necessary to shove a track, see that a man goes to the rear end before shoving, because there might be a track foul at the other end that you don't know about or some one might have put a car in at the other end and forgot to teave a brake on it. Also, never shove a track clear to the limit without first finding that the cars are all together, togeth-er, by stretching them, as if there happens to be a coupling somewhere in the middle of the string that did not make, the cars will run out at the other end far enough to foul the next track before the brakes that are-set are-set on the rear end can stop them. I have sometimes seen a lone- track with a few cars on each end of it and a big gap in the middle. When it comes the time to couple up this track the engine will go In on one end and shove down through the track to the other cars. When making a move like this, don't permit per-mit every member of the crew to get on the first car and ride with their backs toward the engine up to within with-in a few feet of the cars at the lower end, as it has happened that when the time comes to slow up the cars are not all coupled, with the result that you make a bad mess of things when the cars come together. Cars should never be cut off from the engine until there is a man in sight to catch them and the man that is in sight should be close enough to the cut so that he will have plenty of time to stop it before be-fore striking other cars in the track. Single car cuts should never be made without first having a man get on the car and try the brake because be-cause if the brake on a car is no good it may be necessary to go down and get the derrick to pick up the mess it makes. |