Buffering up.

[centenary]

Just watching a vid of the NYMR diesel gala.

There's lots of buffering up shots of diesels to the coaches. What strikes me though is when doing this, the loco is coupled so closely that there's no 'give' in the buffers such that they are virtually retracted all the way in. The carriages even look like they have the cuffs locked in place.

I thought the idea was to have a bit of give in the buffers between loco and carriage for curves and crossing points but is that not the case?

[Bigmet]

It would help to understand what you are seeing, if there was a link to the footage that got your attention with a time reference. One thought that immediately occurs is that if the diesel was a 33/1, the side buffers are not used but retracted, because the combination of the knuckle coupler and Pullman gangway centre buffer does the work when it couples to carriages with the same system coupler and buffer system.

[centenary]

It would help to understand what you are seeing, if there was a link to the footage that got your attention with a time reference. One thought that immediately occurs is that if the diesel was a 33/1, the side buffers are not used but retracted, because the combination of the knuckle coupler and Pullman gangway centre buffer does the work when it couples to carriages with the same system coupler and buffer system.

Examples here. https://youtu.be/ub33HBmGx5M?si=SIeJzV-3Unrzgji_

[Bigmet]

You are not being shown the full job. The loco moves onto the fully braked carriage set amd pretty much compresses the loco and carriage buffers full stroke. Then one of the crew ducks under and puts the screw link coupler on the carriage drawhook, and tightens it up. Then when the brakes are off and the loco pulls the train, the buffers decompress slightly and the springs on the drawhook drawbars are placed under load as a result.

[Mountain]

If the screw link coupling is to be used then a few things to consider. First the collars MUST be in the correct position over the buffers. (Usually they will be if in regular use as a coupled coach set. Is only when one extends the formation or has taken coaches off that they might not be but one would notice the raised buckeye if one needs to extend the buffers and fit the collars).
The driver comes close and stops. Then he buffers up so the buffers touch.
Then one MUST make sure that the driver doubly checks that the ETH is switched off on the loco as if one tries to plug those in when they are switched on it is bye bye guard!
Then the guard will duck under and signal to the driver they are doing so. The guard then lifts the screw link coupling onto the coupling onto the hook, and tightens it so it is tight, and then slackers it off about a turn and a half. The guard will then couple the rake pipes and then turn the cocks and join up the ETH cables etc.
The guard then walks to the back of the train and signals to the driver that they are doing a brake test. The driver turns on the compressor speed up and the guard either does the test from the brake hose itself by holding it firmly in his hands and releasing the c0ck, waiting for the air rush, and then closes the c0ck again. Job done! If the rearmost vehicle is the guards van the guard can do it from inside the guards van as he has a gauge and a c0ck in there. Then job done.
I was taught to never couple with a fully tight screw link as this is when coupling breakages happen! Why we would tighten them and then slacker off one and a half turns or there abouts. Is usually unskilled that draw them tight who have not had proper training or who have forgotten the procedure.

Now if the loco itself has the luxury of a buckeye, then one does not is the screw link at all. Buckeye take technique to raise as they are very heavy. There is supposed to be a tool but we were never allowed one! We were only allowed to work E&C if we could raise the buckeye on our own unaided without the tool, and it had to be raised on our own. I struggled but I finally managed to do it my own way which was classed as "Acceptable". I did not have te strength to hold the raised buckeye with my arm to put the pin in with the other arm, so I used by body and leaned on it to hold it up! With this I had no problem other than getting grease on the front of my HV vest!
One also takes the collars off the buffers and pushes them in when using the buckeyes!

When I first passed out I had to remember the isolated brake procedure. Funnily enough I thought about that last night.... "RIC, DIK, PULL AND KICK!"... Apparently these days only fitters are allowed to isolate coach brakes. We had to remember how many coaches needed to have working brakes compared to the isolated ones in a formation. Trying to recall but I think it was one in five? (Or one in four? One in five is a lot safer! Thankfully only had to remember this for the first few years as when I actually worked them we did not need to know this, as if a coach needed isolating the fitters took over. We would origionally have to do it ourselves. The man teaching us said when he was a guard, he had to isolate all ten coaches when his train became stuck in the Severn Tunnel, to be able to drag them out of the tunnel to get the passengers transferred onto another train.

[centenary]

Very interesting! Cheers!

[Mountain]

I realized that the site sensitive words policy kicked in with **** where I wrote certain genuine words used to describe valves (Taps?) on the hoses of railway vehicles. I have just ammended them to use a number 0 instead of a letter o so they can be read.