Re: What to do for a "Run away" loco

Kelly Anderson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> An engineer supporting that school of thought
> demonstrated the practicality of it by working a
> shift flat switching a yard by opening the
> throttle wide at the beginning of his shift, then
> physically removing the throttle lever for the
> day. Reportedly, he ran the rest if the day
> relying on the brakes and reverse exclusively. I
> don't recall if the engine had a Johnson bar or a
> screw reverse (I expect a screw reverse), but I'm
> sure it wasn't a power reverse. There was no
> report on how smooth the switching went that day.
>

One note - weren't yard switchers typically built with reduced lead and more nominal lap? That would increase the amount of total cutoff giving better control overall. After all you're not running your yard goat at speed - mostly slow speed, on-again, off-again operation. Even with a 1970s Toaster, movement was often made (especially in yard switching) with mostly just two throttle positions - Idle & Run8 (use of an EMD product was much more subtle). But I have no idea the extent of the Red Devil tests with switching service.

Also follows - getting good total cutoff would seem to depend quite a bit on the amount of lost motion. The more slop you've got, the less control you've got, and even a qualified and well informed throttle jockey would be severely handicapped with too much slop.