# 'ILLEGAL?' Flying Switch



## DonR

I thought this old maneuver was banned years
ago, but here it is, for all to see on one of those
small regional railroads. It occurs around 5:56
in the video. 

Note the switch men throwing the turnout just
after the loco clears, the car slowly rolls thru and
stops. The loco can then push the loco to it's
spot.






Any real railroaders out there. Is this practice still
being used?

Oh, and by the way, check out the track. MOW
apparently AWOL.

Don


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## Magic

Everything I've read about this was that it's illegal.
Sometime in the 60s or 70s I believe.

Though I might use this for some of my industries on my layout. 1950s

Magic


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## Krieglok

The flying switch move is usually regulated by rules of each individual railroad. It isn't illegal as far as the FRA is concerned, to my knowledge. 

The railroad I work for, has banned the practice simply by saying the movement of cars not coupled to locomotives is prohibited. This includes drifting cars too. 

You may be thinking of the practice of "Polling" cars with wood poles. This was a common practice into the 1970s until banned by law. This explains the presence of polling pockets on pre 1970s cars and locomotives... both prototype and model alike...

Tom


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## gunrunnerjohn

It's just a poor man's hump yard.


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## Krieglok

Now that you said that, flat switching and kicking cars is another method banned by some railroads but embraced by others. 

Some railroads are starting to get away from humping cars too. I don't why...

Tom


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## gunrunnerjohn

Well, I saw a couple of videos where the humped cars kinda' got away from then and made a pretty hard landing, I suspect that's part of the issue with hump yards.


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## rogruth

A flying switch was performed almost weekly at an interchange between the PRR and the B&O. It took less than 15 minutes to spot the car in the manner used. If the car had been spotted 
in the legal way the move would have taken over an hour to do.
This info was from the train crew.


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## railfancwb

Krieglok said:


> Now that you said that, flat switching and kicking cars is another method banned by some railroads but embraced by others.
> 
> 
> 
> Some railroads are starting to get away from humping cars too. I don't why...
> 
> 
> 
> Tom




Composition of freight traffic is the major reason for disappearance of hump yards. Unit trains have increased their percentage if the total and they do not require switching between origin and destination. Intermodal - containers or trailers - are unit trains on the road even though they are loaded/unloaded individually. Humping is forbidden for some traffic such as automobile carriers because of potential cargo damage. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## J.Albert1949

Old topic, but...

...Back when I worked in freight, we'd do flying switches now and then. It was something you would do only here and there as needed to save a lot of time otherwise.

As I recall, the rule book (Conrail) didn't actually "prohibit" it, but it did say that "drops of cars" should be avoided when practicable.

This was going on 30 years ago.
The railroads may have "tightened up" the rules since then.

Insofar as "kicking cars" when switching, that was fairly normal procedure for "flat switching" on yard and local jobs. Again, don't know what they're doing now.


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