In those times there was an eastbound hump as well as the westbound. This was a massive operation, with each hump giving into a classification yard with over seventy tracks. Here's how this worked:

Incoming freight trains pulled into either a westbound or an eastbound arrival yard. The road power and caboose would be cut off, Power to the pit (diesel house), weighcars to the cabin track, both for service. The car department would bleed off the cars, prior to humping. Then Hump power, (9500 series switchers in tandem) would come along, usually doubling up a few tracks, and push the cars over the respective east or west bound humps. That is, up a large incline and over the top, where gravity would take over. A brakeman would 'pull pins' as the cars came over and then rolled down the other side, either singly or in small cuts, or blocks of cars.

There are two, four-story towers in each hump yard. A guy in tower 'A' worked the 'retarders', huge electrically operated pinchers alongside the rail on the downhill slope coming off the hump. These could literally pinch the truck wheels with enough strength to stop the cars right there. Or, used with a fine touch, merely slow the cars down enough to keep them evenly spaced. That would give the operator in Tower 'B' time enough to throw the electric switches that would determine into which classification track each car would roll. If the operator in Tower 'A' didn't have that fine touch, and let cars roll off the hump too fast for the guy in Tower 'B' to sort, the guy in Tower 'B' could be reduced to a drooling idiot in about two hours.

So, trains come into either a westbound or eastbound arrival yard and from there get humped, or classified, into out bound trains in an east or westbound class yard. Then those tracks would be doubled up and moved into an advance departure yard where 'car knockers' could inspect them.

Car knocker is a term left over from the days when guys from the mechanical department literally used large hammers to knock on the wheels to check for cracks. A cracked wheel gave off a different sounding clang. As metallurgy improved and fewer wheels developed cracks, this became unnecessary, but the name stuck. After the cars were inspected they were again doubled up and shoved to the departure yard, which had the longest tracks of all the yards. Fresh engines and weighcars would get tacked on, and the outbound trains would continue to points east and west, the Penn Central being an east west road.

With both humps going full tilt it was possible to classify several hundred cars an hour.

The noise in the hump yard was very loud. Well over a hundred decibels, louder than jet engines. The screech of the retarders on steel wheels was like a million giant fingernails dragging down the world's largest blackboard. Often, retarder operators would let cars go too soon, and too fast. They would caroom down the hump, lean through the curves into the class yard and down their respective 'alleys'. There to finally slam into the cars already in the track, with a crash that could be heard many blocks away. (Even by the guy drooling in Tower 'B'.)

If the drawbars crossed, this collision would leave an 'ess' in the tracks, literally, if not derail the cars.

Here's a funny thing: Where do you suppose the NYC railroad put the bunkhouse for layover crews? You guessed it! Right next to the hump yard. One had to be pretty drunk or tired or both to pass out there! The union finally won that case, and crews were allowed a quiet place to get their rest. It took years, though.

It was a strange life, as you might imagine, considering that the Hours of Service Law back then let Train and Engine employees work 16 hours nonstop. Then try and get a few hours rest when out of town at a railroad ''Y", as they were called - a bunkhouse next to the hump yard. By the early 1960's the Hours of Service law was reduced to fourteen, and then to twelve, where it is today.

There are several interesting jobs around the hump: Cowboy, or 'pin up' crews that handled the engines, yard crews on the humpers. Conductors pulled the pins on the hill and worked the towers, too. Then there are Yard jobs that couple up tracks and move them from yard to yard. What a weird and dangerous job THAT was.

One would get to work and take a seat in the class yard shanty, which was known to the crew callers as the 'Train Yard', when they called the jobs. This yard being at the far end and away from the hump, it might've been a little quieter, except that the shanty was situated next to a stamping plant that operated twenty four hours seven days a week. This was a busy (and extremely noisy) shanty, even in the seventies. There would be several crews on duty at all times when they were humping cars. And humping cars was also a twenty four hour a day thing.

What I recall about the Train Yard shanty is this: it was a blind pig. Several lockers were solely for the iced storage of beer and other intoxicants. This being the seventies, there would usually be a thick haze of various types of smoke over the tables, too. Guys would play cards all day and night. I'd work an eight hour shift (going home after four or five) get my rest and come back for another tour - and the same guys would still be there! Some guys must not have had a home to go to. I recall fellow's wives coming to that shanty on payday to get the paychecks from their husbands before the rent money was gambled away. The occasional rather tough but good looking female types hung out there, too. Ladies of the Train Yard. They were drawn to the men, the money, and the gambling.

Coupling up those Train Yard tracks was one of the most dangerous of all the railroad jobs. Here's why: while you were working one end of a track, cars were being humped into the other end of all the rest of the tracks. Supposedly there was a 'block' on a track that had a yard crew coupling it up. But that just meant that the yard master had called up to the tower operator and told him a job was going to be coupling up track so and so. In theory, the operator would then hang a tag over the switch on his board controlling entry into that particular track. Maybe he hung the tag, or maybe he just tried to remember?

Whatever he did, I can remember many different times that I would be working a Train Yard track, and have a car (or cut of cars) off the hump slam into said track from the hump end. A very, scary thing.

To couple a hump track usually required the engineer and only one brakeman. So the crew members would take turns doing the actual work. Even the engineer, as mentioned in Playing the Game.  When it was my turn, we'd get an engine out of the pocket (engine storage) and head over to whatever track we were going to couple. A good engineer would try to verify over his engine radio that indeed, the tower operator was aware; a job was going to couple such and such track and was the requisite block in place? As the cars have come over the hump and into the various class tracks, some have coupled themselves to the cars already on the track. As often as not, however, this 'joint' doesn't make, and the cars bounce apart. The class yard, as most railroad yards, has a pronounced 'belly' - meaning that it is lower in the center of the yard. This is for drainage, and to keep loose cars from running out either end.

It also means that cars are in motion on most of the tracks, all the time. They're rolling one way, then back another. You can't hear them. Until they hit something. This makes it very interesting to couple up the cars.

After the engine is tied on, one gives a signal to have him stretch out the cars, or (usually) back up. As the cars pull apart it becomes evident where the first joint or coupling needs to be made - a gap appears. It is wise to make this gap grow to several carlengths. This is because it is now necessary to step into the gauge, a very unsafe place to be.

There is a procedure for what happens next: place one foot in the gauge, with one hand lift the cutting lever (which allows the knuckle to open) and with the other hand open said knuckle, and quickly remove that hand from harm's way. If it is necessary to adjust or straighten the drawbar itself, that is a separate - and even more dangerous - procedure. We'll assume that the drawbar is OK.

All the time one is dealing with things in the gauge of the tracks, (opening knuckles and straightening drawbars) one is also keeping an eye (and an ear) towards the balance of the cars. At any time those cars could begin moving towards you slowly and quietly. Or, they could be smacked on the other end by three gondola cars loaded with coiled steel and literally jump three carlengths in a fraction of a second. You don't want to be in the gauge when that occurs. If the initial impact and resulting jump hasn't squooshed you like a bug, the cars are now rolling along very fast and you must exit the gauge immediately.

All this is interesting enough during daylight hours - and downright spooky at night. By no stretch of the imagination could any of these yards be described as: well lighted. To lean into the gauge, in the dark, hearing all this crashing and banging going on all around - is to find oneself in a highly vigilant state. Cars colliding immediately behind one can sound like the voice of doom and death itself. I know that on several occasions I broke the world's record for standing high jump, if only someone had been there to see it?

About the only upside to this extremely dangerous task is the fact that often these severe impacts would have the fringe benefit of opening otherwise well secured boxcar doors. Which often equated to Christmas in the Train Yard, with gifts strewn everywhere.

The ground that one walks on between the tracks in the hump yard is a mess. Just simply covered with detrius large and small, sharp and dull. Sometimes I'd notice large blocks of compressed metal scrap weighing hundreds of pounds laying on the ballast. One would have to detour around these things. I wondered, how on earth did they get there? They are far too heavy for one man to lift out of a scrap gon, which I assumed is where they came from? I had occasion to find out. Those same severe impacts that could break the seal on a boxcar door could just as easily toss large and heavy compressed blocks of scrap ten feet in the air. Wouldn't want one of those to come down on my head.

Once at least one knuckle is opened between the cars (both knuckles would be even better, but why take the risk?) and the drawbars are aligned it's OK to bring the engine ahead and make the joint. Then stretch again and find the next gap between cars. Walk down there and open knuckles, etc. Stay alert. All done with handsigns, of course.

As one gets to or near the end of the track being coupled it is possible to watch the hump, and notice any cars that might be inadvertently coming along. Finally the last cars are tied on, the track is together, and one may throw a fusee into the air to signal this fact. That tells the ever vigilant engineer that he may relax for a spell while you walk back to the engine. Coupling a track might take from less than an hour to two hours or more, depending on the number of joints. Guys usually didn't want to dawdle in the hump yard.

Put the engine back where it came from, take your turn in the shanty.

There were twenty some railroad yards covered by the extra board, in and around the Detroit area. At one point, the extra board had over two hundred fellows marked up. Several of these railroad yards had their own 'hump'.

Nothing like the east and west bound hump on John Kronk, but the principle was the same. A hill will have been bulldozed and track run up one side and down the other. The track on the downhill side split in half, like a 'y'. Along each side of this split were up to twenty odd switches leading into yard tracks. In this case the switches were hand operated. But a conductor still pulled pins at the top of the hill, and his two helpers worked each side of the yard, referring to a switch list in order to sort (classify) the cars into their various tracks.

If a yard had no hump, one might still classify a cut of cars. This is called, flat switching.

Nowadays, I think it might be illegal. It should have been, then.

When a train arrives at a railroad yard, it will be made up of cars for lots of different places. Even if it just came across town. It will have cars for all the various industries that surround a given location. It would be too much to expect that the cars just happened to be lined up in a useful and handy order. Say, all the cars for location 'A' next to each other? No. They must be sorted out and then delivered.

Trains coming over the road are 'under air'. Meaning, the brake systems on each car are charged. This is so that if the train comes apart for any reason, both halves will stop. This was Mr. Westinghouse's stroke of genius. Before he got the idea to put an air reservoir on each car, trains that came apart had no brakes. His idea was to use air from the engine's compressor to keep the brakes released; 'pumped off', as they say. That way if there was a break in the trainline (train comes apart, or just an air hose separates) and the brakes are no longer being charged to keep them from applying - they set up and everything comes to a halt. The train is 'in emergency'; in the big hole. There's a big hole in the trainline, somewhere.

This system works quite well and is still in service today. It did add one step to the operation of classifying cars - once the engine cuts away, the entire train is sitting there with each car's brakes fully applied. Before they can be humped (or moved at all) each individual car must have its brakes bled off. This chore fell to the car department. A car knocker would walk the track and pull a handle attached to a rod that opened a valve and released the air from the reservoir, and thus the brakes. He bled the track. Sometimes, if we were in a hurry, say - going for the quit - and didn't want to wait for the car department, we might bleed our own cars, just to get them flat switched and be done. Car knockers never figured out how to apply their talents and get early quits, that I know about. At least, they sure never seemed to be in much of a hurry.

Once our yard engine had ahold of some cars to switch, it went like this: The conductor pulled pins, and the head man and the field man lined switches. At a signal from the conductor, the engineer would give the cut of cars a 'kick' by accelerating rapidly until the cars were moving at a good pace. Running beside the cars (and hurdling ties and switch stands) the conductor would pull the pin when he thought they were going fast enough. That way, when he swung down (stopped the move) the cars he'd cut off would continue on down the lead and classify themselves into one track or another as determined by how the head man and the fieldman lined the switches.

It took coordination between the entire crew, and timing. Sometimes the men in the field would have a copy of a switch list, and knew in advance what to expect. As often as not, they would just watch the conductor. From his list he would signal them with hand signs - how many cars for what tracks. The conductor could even control this operation from the field, if he so desired, flopping switches himself and signaling the pin puller how many to cut off.

Here is the part that makes this interesting: a good crew could switch a track without bleeding it off ahead of time. Either the fireman (if you had one) could help out, or the man in the field worked a bit harder, freeing up one fellow. This hapless but brave soul had to bleed off the cars while the train was being switched. Sound difficult? It was.

But it could be accomplished in the following manner: When the crew tied onto the track to be switched, they would have to 'cut in the air', since the track had not been bled off by the car department. Once the cars were pumped up and the brakes released, they were pulled back and then shoved onto the switching lead. The conductor would signal how many cars were to be cut away, and one man would reach under the cars and turn the anglecock. This could be done the first time while the cars were standing still. But once switching commenced, it meant clinging onto the moving equipment with one hand, swinging low and reaching in to close the valve. Now the cars that were no longer being pumped off would (depending on leakage) keep rolling free, until they were cut off, at which time they would go into emergency. Unless they were bled off. After closing the angle cock, some frantic bleed rod pulling was in order. If several cars were being cut off, the conductor might try and get the bleed rods on one or two nearest him.

Another aspect of Westinghouse genius was in the design of the bleed valve and rod. When operating normally, one had only to give it a quick tug, and that set the valve to about three quarters open, allowing the brakes to bleed off. This is so the car knocker didn't have to stand by each car holding the rod. Those guys took long enough to bleed a track as it was.

So, after getting the anglecock closed on this moving equipment, and pulling the bleed rods on one or several cars, the pin could be pulled. As the engineer applied the independent and slowed the train those cut off cars would keep going - flat switching under air. It is something to watch. That no one perished from this foolishness is a constant source of amazement, but it did allow a job that might have taken all day to be accomplished in a few hours.

There are lots of better places to spend the time, than in a railroad yard.