There are situations where getting on and off can be helpful. Flagging crossings is my go to example. I live near a six lane highway that had two crossings within 500 feet of each other: one is a double track main that is heavily used by a Class 1, and has lights, gates, and bells. The second is for a Class 3 on an industrial spur, single track, equipped with only lights and bells. The city will not approve construction of gates for that crossing due to its proximity to another gated crossing, and the fact that there is no outlet between the two.

GCOR requires train crews to flag that crossing when they shove through it, which is a necessity to get to several of their customers. The railroad does not permit on and off moving equipment. As such, when done per rule, auto drivers see a train come up and stop, so the drivers assume it's safe for them to just drive on. The conductor then had to attempt to flag the drivers down to a stop again, usually while resuming the reverse movement, leading to lots of angry brake stomping, horn honking, and close calls with vehicular strikes.

However, one or two conductors break the rules and have the engineer slow roll up to the crossing, step off a car or two ahead of the crossing, and then can fast walk up to the crossing and begin flagging. As far as the drivers see, the train never stops, so it's definitely going through the crossing, thus a better success rate at actually getting traffic stopped. Sometimes the conductor will stop the move once the crossing is occupied to get back on the car, sometimes they ask the engineer to continue the slow pace and then step on the car when it reaches the sidewalk on the far side.

I can tell you right now which one seems safer to me for everyone involved. Personally, I sympathize with the crew that is just trying to get hectic traffic to stop so that they can continue their work.

The way Zach's complaint is handled on the South Brooklyn Railway, where much of the route is wide 'grade crossings', ad some other places where crossings are numerous and fairly close, is to have one or more employees in vehicles with lights perform the 'flagging' while the train runs through. This is an added expense for a Class III, but if the safety issues are as severe as Zach says, it might be a reasonable approach.

If this were an RCO shove, I believe the 'conductor' would have to come to a complete stop before dismounting or reboarding the shove, according to RCO operating rules.

Frankly, I cannot see any sane insurance carrier accepting 'sanctioned' boarding and deboarding at any time. Even one worker's comp claim, which would be difficult for the railroad to defend, would wipe out many crossings' worth of big savings...

In my early days with FRA, railroads were creating the appropriate safety rule that would no longer allow getting on/off moving equipment. This created a lot of discussion (similar to what is going on here) between labor, regulators and management regarding the pro's and con's of this practice, specifically as it related to efficiency and saving time. One of my mentors from FRA came off the Penn Central/Conrail and spent a good part of his years as a switchman working the various auto plants in the Midwest. He explained the moves they used to go through to get high priority cars switched and spotted as this was all time sensitive to keep the assembly lines running. The included regularly getting on/off moving equipment on the run to keep things moving.

At this time he told us this, he was probably in his mid to late 50's and been away from the railroad for about 10 years. He was proud of how quickly they were able to switch those plants, but at the same time regretted it as both his hips and knees were just about done. He moved around fairly slowly and couldn't walk very far.

But look at all the time they saved!

MDR

In the late 50's, I watched a crew shove cars into an auto plant. One of the switchmen ran along the top toward the point. Now, I can only assume he was running to get in position to relay hand signals. Of course, the railroads eliminated that option by removing ladders and walkways. One practice that the railroads did, that encouraged unsafe acts, was to offer early "quits" to get the job done sooner than later. I read that one of the first things Hunter Harrison did, who got his start as a switchman, was to prohibit quits.

In my time, we had to be proficient at getting on and off moving equipment, and I believe that anybody working with moving trains should be trained and certified to do this safely. I'd say that it "probably" is safer not to do this routinely, but in emergencies (such as catching a runaway or getting off before a collision) this skill can be a life saver.

What scares me is the practice of getting onto footboards on the leading edge of movement. Long outlawed in this country, it was still routinely done when I was working in Guatemala as recently as the 21st Century, although nobody did it while I was driving. Back in the mid 80s, I had the chance to switch the sugar mill in Los Mochis, Sinaloa, Mexico on the Mexicano del Pacifico. To put it mildly, I almost had a heart attack when my brakeman gave me a come ahead, then stepped onto the track, and WENT OUT OF SIGHT !!! Fortunately I had spent a good bit of time watching the locals switching, and I caught on that he wanted me to keep a steady pace so he could time his motions correctly. If I had dumped the air like I wanted to, I'd probably have run him over.

I'm 72.....

I remember seeing those Santa Fe rolling crew changes, they had the speed down to where it was a comfortable swing of grip and man on to the power and caboose.

For me, I worked on the NKP prior to radio. To make set-offs in Cleveland, it was up onto the roof to pass signals by hand or lantern. Working "the field" on a yard job meant catching cars kicked into the yard to tie on hand brakes; otherwise, they rolled through a clear track or rolled back into the cut being switched.

We worked that way until the 86' high-cube boxcars arrived. That just about put a period on the end of that era.

I'm with you on this.

I suspect a lot of this comes from lawyers @ HQ who never had to make a train in their life and they dictate the obvious from their comfy desk.

So here's a couple of things at play:

1.) C-Z asks what's the benefit. Fatigue reduction. One of my best mentors told me early on "a good conductor is a lazy conductor" and that what seems easy or fun (in the case of volunteers) an hour into your trick, might not be so an hour before you mark off after everything's gone to hell. Done properly, the horizontal movement is translated into a vector with a horizontal and vertical component-lifting you up and reducing the soreness/stiffness on your legs at the end of the day-and those of us over 50 know what that's like.

2.) Something called the "Peltzman effect" comes into play.

https://thedecisionlab.com/reference-gu ... man-effect

The TL; DR is that when people perceive something to have it's inherent risk reduced by some mitigant; they change their behavior (yeah, I know it's snowing, but I have AWD/4WD) to accept more inherent risk. It's closely related to something called moral hazard.

So, if you think the act of mounting/dismounting equipment is safer, you might be a little less vigilant when selecting your point. You can twist an ankle on loose ballast just as easily when stepping off stationary equipment.

Of course there are times you should NEVER get on or off moving equipment-weather can make handholds/steps treacherous, as does the loss off depth perception from dusk to dawn. Are you weighed down because your carrying somebody else's grip because they are going to return a switch behind you to normal position and you realize they pack for war and you're the walking dead?

What is the speed of the train, can you gauge it? Remember 2mph is a good hitch, 4mph is a collision-force increases on your shoulders as a square of the increase as well.

I really would like to see an objective/informed analysis of the incident rate on various similar roads (especially in switching operations) where moving mount/dismount is permitted vs. where it is banned.

That said follow your Book of Rules and Safety Pronouncements.

A few years ago, EEH brought back getting on and off moving equipment to CSX. Like stated earlier, a prerequisite was that a manager had to "sign off" on showing you the correct way, and make sure you could follow the procedure.

My conductor and I were at Brunswick MD waiting for our train home to appear when a then-current RFE asked if we had been briefed on the new bulletin and if we needed our "demonstration". We did, so all 3 of us went outside to the ladder where a job was switching next to the yard office.

Now, what he was supposed to do was radio the crew working to notify them of what was going on, but in the interest of time and due to him not having a radio on him, he would just "show us real quick" as they pulled by. So the crew is pulling cars by, and the RFE swings on a gondola. Well I guess this was a whole track to be pulled out, so right as he swings on, the whole heap starts really pulling fast and there goes Mr. Roadforeman up the ladder at 10mph.

It was really damn funny. Finally he bailed off, and walked back to use the 20 or so car lengths and said "alright, you're qualified".

The place could be pretty funny at times.

As for "why" getting on and off moving equipment...money. A lot of the places and pools I worked during my time there were on mileage and trip rate jobs. To get any OT, you would have to be on duty forever and in some cases like our ID pools...you wouldn't get OT until you were over HOS because of the high miles they paid, so the sooner you get the work done the better. All the old guys that trained me were all about shortcuts, and got on/off moving equipment all the time so they could make tee time/last call. Heck, most of them didn't even tie brakes when cutting away from stuff and let the air hold while doing work. It was just the way it was done.

So I had been doing the same, just as long as nobody was looking. The new "rule" didn't change much in the way I worked personally, although I was an engineer by then.

You couldn't do rolling crew swaps now a days anyway because each new engineer has to login to PTC with their ID, and (csx) has that "new" rule about doing a huge (useless) briefing with the dispatcher each time a new crew comes aboard even if the train isn't doing any work.

Getting a bit OT here, I think that employees who work the ground should also be taught the basics of driving a locomotive. Here's an example:

When I worked for BN, we had a short, fat lady that usually cleaned cabs, but who we would use as a helper when we were short handed. I was concerned that she would get hurt, so when we were slow I took her out on a switch engine and coached her on getting on and off until she could do it consistently. I also taught her to drive and let her practice a little bit.

One night she was cleaning cabs when she stepped out of the wheelshop to find the next engine called, and there was a switch engine with nobody on it, and brakes released, rolling down one of our inbound tracks that sloped down toward the turntable. It was picking up speed. She dropped all her stuff and chased it down, scrambled aboard and set the air in time. The turntable was lined for one of the bullring tracks --- that sucker would have gone completely into the pit and T-boned the turntable bridge. IMHO she saved the company years worth of her salary in that one hot minute....

In the vein of this discussion, I present these 1925 supplemental rules I found pasted inside the back of a well used 1923 Kansas City Southern Operating Department rule book.

Jason Midyette

Back in the day of rolling crew changes most if not all employees carried a single grip that contained the things they needed for the trip and the away from home terminal as well as company required materials.

Today it is a rare exception for anyone to only have a single grip.

We're still allowed by rule to mount and dismount moving equipment, and we train on the proper way to do it. That said, working with volunteers we make it very clear that it's prerogative of the Conductor or Trainman making the move if it should stop or not, no judgement. I'm also of the mindset that your brain works in a different mode while getting on or off moving equipment that makes you more attentive to where you're actually putting your feet. Our regular short trains involve zig-zagging out from the roundhouse to the main running track, so we throw more switches on average than the standard tourist operation, and being able to step off on a roll by does save a fair amount of time and opportunity for unwanted slack action. Plus, when it goes just right you feel really slick.

I won't say where it was, to avoid getting anyone in trouble, but I went to a tourist line that allowed general public to buy cab rides, and they were running push-pull for the weekend. I got a cab ride ticket, and the engineer from the locomotive on the south end came up and rode with us on the northbound leg. As we neared the turning point, he asked if I wanted to come back to the engine on the south end for the return trip, since the engine we were in would just be coasting along. I agreed and he leads me out onto the running boards and goes, "Ever gotten off one of these while moving?" I had not, but understood the basics. We dropped off, and then snagged the engine on the south end as it went by, both without incident, but the whole time I was thinking, "I don't think you're supposed to be doing this by guests."

In any case, it is the risk that the individual (employee/volunteer) and the railroad Company/Museum are willing to accept.

Since I had a close friend get killed (on a tourist railroad) when getting off moving equipment at a slow speed (correctly), and 2 times where I almost injured myself getting on/off moving equipment (correctly), I eventually chose not to accept that risk, even if it was allowed.

During my time as a operations manager/trainer I also used to train employees/volunteers how to correctly and safely get on/off moving equipment as that was the practice at the time and accepted by most railroads.

After years as a safety specialist, and seeing procedures developed to "save time" which is all this procedure does, I choose not to practice it. I explain to our employees that we are never in enough of a hurry to move trains or switch cars to risk their safety.

Our company chooses not to accept the risk.

MDR

Interesting discussion. I have actually witnessed sort of the same thing with the California Zephyr in Mt. Pleasant, IA in the late 1960's. My then girl friend had come out for the weekend, and was returning to Chicago on the CZ, getting on in Mt. Pleasant. Several minutes before the train was due, the agent started spotting passengers along the platform (there were only a few) about 10-12 feet apart. The platform was high enough that a step stool was not required (would have been handy but not absolutely necessary). The train was precisely on time, which I marvelled at coming all the way from the coast, and slowed to about 1-2 mph but never stopped. The agent started at the first passenger, handed up the bags to the brakeman, and then the brakeman put out a hand, and helped the passenger on board. So it continued on down the platform, the distance between passengers determined by the number of bags that they had with them. My girlfriend was the last to board, and as soon as she was on, the brakeman pulled up the trap, and the E-9's up front throttled up and the CZ was gone. I have never seen this done before or since but it was a ballet in motion. Probably was not officially permitted though.