# Try this Hitch out for size!



## DSLinc1017 (Sep 27, 2009)

Saw this at a feed producer here in Vermont. Did a double take. Then had to take these pictures just for HT!

Go figure they are right next to a train yard.


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

Wow....looks like a boxcar hitch!

Regards, MIke


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## thendrix (May 14, 2015)

Me likey


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## Wethay (Jul 17, 2015)

looks **** it would work good for both train cars and tailgaters.


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## Nate926 (Apr 6, 2014)

I used to be a conductor on the railroad. They have hitches like that to move the cars around so they don't have to call the railroad. To move a car 5' or a 100' it's gonna cost you at least $500 if a crew has to come back out and do an inter plant switch


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## PaMike (Dec 7, 2013)

That's the hitch they use to pull the barrel train at the fair. Those little kids are obese now a days...takes a little more grunt than it used to...


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## Colby (Mar 5, 2012)

At least they're pulling it with the right color tractor


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

So I must be wrong in my assumption that rail cars are like heavy trucks? Or does that tractor have an onboard compressor to release the air brakes on the rail cars?


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## panhandle9400 (Jan 17, 2010)

Colby said:


> At least they're pulling it with the right color tractor


Yep


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## Nate926 (Apr 6, 2014)

Rail cars don't work like trucks. They have a bleeder rod on them that releases the air from emergency air reserve tank. Once you pull it you have no brakes at all. Only way to put the brakes back on them is fill the tank with either ground air compressor or the engine. Rail cars also have a mechincal hand brake that you tie the cars brakes down with when you bleed the air off them with a bleeder rod or if cars are off air for along time ie at a customer or in the rail yard they can eventually leak down on there own. If you don't have the hand brakes tied they can and will roll off on there on.


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## RuttedField (Apr 24, 2016)

Hey Nate, I worked for the railroad myself. Not a conductor though, worked on the Maintenance of way crew, then at the Engine-house as a Machinist and Yard Hostler. When it comes to sheer horsepower there is nothing like the feel of a locomotive throttling into the 8th notch! Turbos winding up, 400,000 pounds of locomotive thumping up and down from 4000 horsepower...oh yeah I still remember those days.

Bob Sieger has a song called "Roll me away" where he says, "was out on the northern plains and just rolled that power on". He was referring to a motorcycle, but I fondly remember being up there on those trains and feeling the same way.

Because tugboats have locomotive engines in them, I went from the railroad to working aboard tugs as an engineer (ran the engineer room in what the railroad would call a machinist), and then to building US Navy Destroyers as a welder. Kind of an odd career path, but that is how it turned out.

I think I prefer dry land though; I looked at the space between my toes and do not see any webbed feet if that is an indication.


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## Nate926 (Apr 6, 2014)

Sounds like you have had a heck of a career path!! I lost my job last October. Where I worked we hauled 75% utility coal, so when Obama destroyed coal he destroyed my job. Me and 300 other men and women lost our job. CSX came in and just shut it all down and locked the doors. But God has a plan for us all so I'm ok with it! Life has slowed down for me a lot since leaving the railroad and I'm enjoy it one day at a time.


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## RuttedField (Apr 24, 2016)

Don't get me started on Obama and his hatred for coal. I worked mostly out of the Powder River Basin (Wyoming) so I know what you mean by coal dominating the industry. I also burn coal myself even though this is Maine and we are the most heavily forested state in the nation!

Life slowed down for me as well though. I got a really bad injury in 2014 welding ships together, but was too busy on the farm for surgery until 2016. That was a bad choice as now I am just not getting better, but with some free time I have been helping getting a Christian Camp ready for summer campers with my bulldozer. After spending time doing that I realized commuting 80 miles one way to a shipyard just to wreck my body for a few bucks was not worth it. I can farm full time and still provide for my family, I just hate to give up the paycheck.

So who do I have faith in; God or a shipyard?

It is scary, a lot of people DREAM of working at the shipyard where I work now as it pays okay and is kind of cushy, but I was never built like that. Driving for 15 hours a week just back and forth to work takes a toll on you when you only have 52 days a year (Saturdays) to get everything done on the farm. I also have 4 daughters and a wife...so yeah I am busy.


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