05/11/2025
I thank all mothers for raising children like me.
Not only we thank human mothers, but also locomotive mothers.
"Mother" locomotives couple up with their children known as "Slugs".
Mothers and their Slugs work in the railyard together to help push each train up the artificial hill called the "Hump".
The Hump serves the most-important purpose for sorting railcars within the Classification Yard.
When sending a mixed train up the Hump, the Mother is the one at the end of the train.
Her Slug is the next one coupled up the incline.
The unsorted train is the next consist coupled further up the incline.
While the Mother pushes the train up the Hump, she stays at a fixed speed of 3 or 4 miles per hour.
Since locomotives alone are insanely heavy, they struggle to roll up steep grades.
Therefore, Mothers teach their Slugs how to boost power and traction for pushing the train without much strain.
The Slug is a different species of locomotive.
The Slug has no cab for humans and is remote control.
Mother and Slug work together to continuously push the train up the Hump.
When the first railcar meets the top of the Hump, a human uncouples that first railcar safely using a cut-lever.
The cut-lever is a bar mounted at both ends of each railcar and each locomotive.
At the outside end of the bar is curved at a 90º angle, which represents the handle side.
At the inside end of the bar, located under the coupler, is a small thick metal rod called the "pin".
When the cut-lever is applied from a human hand, the inside end of the bar pulls the pin, resulting with the coupler unlocking its grip away from the railcar.
As Mother and Slug slowly push the train up the Hump and human pulls pins from each railcar, the now-uncoupled railcars are slowly pushed down the Hump.
Gravity sends each railcar down the hill; accelerating speed.
To control the speed for each freestyle railcar, metal grippers called "Retarders" are built into branching tracks.
When the railcar meets the Retarder, the Retarder gently grips onto the railcar's wheels, resulting with the railcar slowing down the downward slope and safely coming to stop at level grade.
Those metal Retarders gripping metal wheels causes silly squeaks and squeals to happen, which I love.
Each railcar rolls down the Hump into different branches of tracks.
For example, the Elkhart railyard has a Hump.
Coming down the Hump has 72 branches of tracks; each track assigned to a different destination in the USA.
Once railcars are switched into different tracks, the railcars form newly sorted trains within each track.
Control towers standing along the Hump have humans controlling the branching switches, just so each railcar is directioned correctly into the branched track it's assigned to.
Within an unsorted train, nearly every kind of railcar is in the consist, such as:
Autoracks, Boxcars, Coilcars, Hoppers, Flatcars, Gondolas, Lumbercars, Reefers, Tankcars, Wellcars, etc....
However, specific railcars cannot be Hu**ed, due to fragile items, hazardous materials, or needs repairs.
The workload about Hu***ng railcars takes between 30 minutes for short trains, or more than 1 or 2 hours for long trains.
I find the job 100% satisfying.
The Mothers and Slugs are the Busy Bees inside their home yard.
The Fathers are the ones hauling freight outside the home yard and neighboring yards too.
Locomotives and Power Boosters, as well as, Cabooses, Flags, and FREDS, are all wonderful creatures.
The Mothers are the hearts of the railyards.
They keep the railyards flowing.
They know when and what trains to hump, sort, and switch.
They know every schedule for every day and night.
They are the powerhouse for every railyard.
They provide dedication, ease, strength, and support for every locomotive, every slug, every railcar, every marker, every city, town, and village, for every building, human, and animal.
They are our Mothers.
No matter what, I treat every railroad creature as my babies.
I love them very much.
💝
