Re: Hand Signals

I was raised on the 1958 New York Central rulebook which used the signals that are pretty uniform to night time operation. When I joined the Midcontinent crew here in Wisconsin, I had to relearn day signals using the come-to-me circular arm motion where the hands rotate toward the body, and the go-away where the hands rotate away from the body. A washout/stop is the same everywhere but there is also the low horizontal side-to-side signal meaning set the brakes and the hand held overhead for release. We use two fists bumped together to bunch the couplers and the clenched fingers pulling against each other to call for a stretch. Some of use a motion touching our fingers to our thumbs like you would make a mouth opening and closing movement to mean "pinch 'em" when you need to just bunch the couplers a little bit. A clenched fist with the thumb up, pointing at your mouth while raising your fist means take water. We also use the arm extended horizontally from the chest straight out to the side to indicate how many cars to the joint, being careful not to let your extended arm fall in an arc, which might be perceived as a stop signal. Rolling the hands in a motion like twidling your thumbs, then throwing both hand up means to tie up. An eastern signal I haven't seen used cause we don't go that fast, is holding your nose while pointing toward the trucks to indicate a hot box.
It's not a hand signal but one of our guys heard a Soo Line crew one day calling cars: 3 cars, 2 cars, 1 car, half car, one heifer! We figured that old farm boy meant about 8' to a joint.