Shove Moves for Efficient Operations

 Greetings All,

Shove Moves for Efficient Operations

or How I Learned to Embrace The Shove

A railroad shove move can be basically defined as a train movement where the locomotive is at the rear of a train and shoves any number of cars to their destination. The shove move would be protected by a trainman using a radio, lantern or hand signals. 

Trainmen can be seen holding onto the first car of the shove or in some cases when a RR deems it warranted a caboose or shoving platform will be used for longer moves to protect the trainman, the train and the public.

A trainman rides a caboose now converted to a shoving platform to protect a shove move. Note the plated over windows.

"Waiting All Day" by Leo Blackwelder is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/?ref=openverse.

On the Union RR, a class III switching railroad, that served three steel mills in Alleghany County, PA, shove moves are an integral part of their daily operations.

"Union Railroad Caboose" by joseph a is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/?ref=openverse.

Union RR switch engines pull a cut of gondolas with a caboose on the rear. The URR often pulls and shoves long strings of freight cars that support the steel industry.

"Union Railroad" by joseph a is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/?ref=openverse.

On The Layout

The need for a shove move to service the Bedford Park Ford Plant has been an on again off again endeavor dating back to the earliest days of the layout as seen in this "Protecting the Shove" blog photo from July 02, 2013.

Clinchfield RR caboose #1064 is modeled after the1:1 scale CRR 1064 at the Southeastern Railway Museum with a horn and lights added by modeler Sam Rehonic who gifted it to me about 15 years ago.

Learning To Embrace The Shove

For more years than I care to admit I have been resistant to running the BP-41 as a shove move from Terminal Yard to Bedford Park Yard. One of the reasons was that the 86' and 89' cars were prone to derailment when shoved.  

The NYCTL Shops corrected these issues several years ago on both the 86' boxcars and the 89' auto racks.

A 2-56 Kadee plastic screw through the long tongue that allows the car to negotiate tighter radius curves when being pulled cures the talgo shoving woes while still allowing some swivel movements.

The 89' Bachmann Tri Level auto racks come with talgo mounted couplers. Some with a very long shank coupler and others with a long talgo mounted coupler box like the BB 86' boxcars.

I varied the cars from body mounted couplers with Kadee long shank couplers and modified McHenry talgo mounted couplers. This works well when the cars are shoved thru the tight turnouts at the Ford Plant. Not sure where the screw came from on the bottom car but it was needed to control the side to side wobble of the car.

But I still didn't like the look of the train being shoved from Terminal Yard through Bedford to Bedford Park. It didn't matter that the Ford Plant and the other industries in Bedford Park could be easily and more efficiently served without the need for a runaround move that required freight cars at American Hardware Supply to be moved and put back to accomplish the runaround. 

Add in the limited amount of space that restricted train length to a few cars and the tight radius that often led to derailments of the 86' and 89' cars the BP-41 was not a train I enjoyed operating.

In this PCCM 81 photo the BP-41 prepares to make its runaround move as it passes the empty American Hardware Siding with the max number of freight cars that will allow it.

A Reversal of Thought

All that changed after an ongoing conversation with friend and fellow HO Scale modeler PC Ralph who is frequently mentioned on this blog when he began to have his Kings Port & Western RR serve Hedberg Aggregates in Marion, NY from Williams Yard in Kings Port NY via a shove move up the mountain.

Photo by PC Ralph. Used with Permission

A special purpose KP&W caboose was outfitted to help protect the shove move. 

Photo by PC Ralph. Used with Permission

The First Shove!!

Train BP-41 prepares to leave Terminal Yard. Normally, with the RS11 in this position this photo would be of counterpart train BP-12 bringing Bedford Park freight traffic into Terminal Yard.

The headend of the BP-41 is the NYC Transfer Caboose that will protect the shove move to Bedford Park.

The BP-41 has arrived in Bedford Park and prepares to cut off the caboose.

The RS11 shoves the boxcars and auto racks into the Ford Plant.

The following day it's time to pull the loaded auto racks and empty 60' auto parts cars from the Ford Plant.

The BP-12 is at Terminal Yard and a Bedford Park trainman strolls towards the PC caboose that will protect the Train BP-41 shove back to Bedford Park.

PC RS11 #7608 is coupled onto the Wabash 86' boxcar and is ready to shove the BP-41 out of Terminal Yard.

Three 86' auto parts cars and three 89' auto racks are shoved into the Ford Plant.

The 86' Wabash boxcar was one car too many for the Ford Plant and is gingerly delivered to the Bedford Park Yard to await movement to the Ford Plant.

Several days later we're back at Bedford Park Yard with the crew getting ready to work the local industries.

A WM boxcar from American Hardware Supply and two boxcars from All City Storage will be heading back to Terminal Yard.

Empty Coil Cars have been pulled from the Ford Plant Steel Track for their trip to Terminal Yard. 

Train BP-12 with a full compliment of freight traffic from the Bedford Park industries rolls past Bedford Tower.

Train BP-41A has returned to Bedford Park and delivers two cars of steel coils to the Ford Plant Steel track via a trailing point turnout.

Two boxcars are delivered to American Hardware Supply which sits on a double ended siding.

Train BP-12A will run caboose lite to Terminal Yard.

The Bedford Park Yard RS11 couples up to a 50' boxcar that is going to All City Storage for the big shove to Bedford Park.

A BPY trainmen signals the engineer as two flatcars of automobile frames are shoved into the Ford Plant.

The work at the Ford Plant is completed and the crew heads to All City Storage.

Two 50' boxcars are shoved into the All City Storage siding.

The BPY crew ties down in the yard after another productive day moving tonnage. 

Checkout the various BP-12s and BP-41s that were run during these experimental ops.

Final Thoughts and Comments

The tight radius curves, facing point turnouts and limited space are still a factor in Bedford Park. The BP-41 shove move when appropriate minimizes some of these issues and allows for much more efficient operations. 

The first BP-41 train that took care of the trailing point sidings and the second shove move BP-41 that took care of the facing point sidings worked very well and is something that I plan to continue with.

And there it is, efficient train moves that have been over a decade in the making have finally come to be. The question is why did it take so long?!!!

Thanks for reading and watching!!!

See you soon!!!