I tried this in HO scale with a toothpick a while ago and was surprised that it worked at all - Glad to see it covered here in person!

Hard to believe that lasted until the 60s

One reason not mentioned in the vid FOR poling was that spur tracks at buildings parallel to the main track often had the lightest rauncious worn out “civil war” rail that the railroad could get away with. Consequently, this rail was way too light to take the weight of the engine (but could handle the cars), so only option to get cars on and off the spur was to pole ‘em. (Read about it in Model Railroader years ago in answer to the question, “what are those funny holes on the corners of cars and engines for?”)

As someone who has had to perform this move. You have to truly trust your engineer. It's a terrifying move to make but it got me out of a pickle

I just wanted to say that I absolutely love what you guys are doing on KZfaq during COVID. I’ve never heard of this museum before, but have been binging your videos for the last week. I really want to visit when it re-opens. What you are doing to bring the museum to us while being closed is truly wonderful and other museums should take note. Great work! I plan to become a member next month. Thank you. -Drayton

I had a friend severely injured when a hopper went by with rebar sticking out. He was too close and got gouged. He was in Track division and I was a conductor/brakeman. A momentary lapse in judgement almost killed him

Some bosses still have the power to get employees who point out issues. The attic area of the school where I had worked had asbestos debris remained scattered on the floor from a fire wall being demolished years earlier. Tradesmen refused to work there because of the asbestos. My supervisor told them it had been tested and was not asbestos. I repeatedly said it was asbestos and the issue should be looked at. But nothing happened. I sent a sample away to be tested and it came back positive to asbestos. Me sending away the sample to be tested was listed as one of the main reasons for my sacking and the other listed reasons were even more unfair.

Man I love learning new just that I had never knew! I’m building a logging layout. Will have to put a poling scene in now! Thank you!

Poling seems the kind of thing that if it was so necessary, someone would have made a poling pocket that retained a specific pole so it couldn't fall, and let the dude just hold it up and/or "aim" it with a stick and rope from relative safety up on the engine's deck.

My eldest brother, who worked for a couple of years as a switchman for the Milwaukee Road in their Menominee Valley Yard in Milwaukee, came home chortling, one day. It seems he'd stopped at the Soo Line yard in Waukesha (now a Milwaukee suburb, but a city of 30,000 then) and found the night crew had been called on the carpet. In the wee hours of the morning, they'd tried to do a "flying switch," towing a car behind the loco at a goodly clip toward a facing point switch, uncoupling on the fly---just as explained in the video---and relying on momentum and a quick switchman to get the car rolling onto the siding. Instead, it stalled, fouling the switch. The crew scratched their heads and finally decided they'd have to pole the car back out of the siding, the only problem being that not only did Soo Line locomotives no longer carry poling poles (diesels never did), but theirs had no poling pockets. So, they selected a suitable pole from the manufacturing plant nearby (so large that it took about three of them to hold it) braced it against the boxcar and the locomotive's step, and shoved the car back free of the switch. Once they'd placed the boxcar where it belonged, they spent the rest of the shift with an oxyacetylene torch and tools, _trying_ to repair the loco steps. Oh, and during the process, their "borrowed" pole was also splintered. Maybe the gang will do a program about "Brownie Points?" Stay safe, everyone.

Very interesting video. Here in Australia the imported yank steam engines had the poling dimples. We even manufactured our own engines with them, you can see them on our 38 class locos. Interestingly though, the practice of poling was never allowed in Australia.

One of the most common use of polling was to push a car out of a siding that's facing the wrong way so they could get it in the train instead of in front of the engine. And a brakeman would sometimes ride the car to operate the handbrake. When I was a kid living beside the C&O in Virginia I saw them do the flying switch maneuver to get a car into a siding that was facing the wrong way.

Thanks for this terrific informative video about a practice I'd never heard of before. Congrats, too, on your seamless transition to a timely and valuable covid PSA at the end. Thanks for caring about all of us. Hope you're back in business soon!

I lost a high school buddy to railroad work at least 50 years ago.

That was interesting, never knew that. A typical physics feat, but never would think they actually did that. I never saw poling or noticed any dimples in my railfaning years. Not even read about it in TRAINS or Model Railroader magazine.

This could be brought back if we used a hydraulic arm that could be controlled from the cab and remote brakes also controlled from the cab

5 years ago I worked at a glass factory in Kitchener, Ontario, where the workers had to hold the edges of razor-sharp glass as it came out of a hot oven. Often that glass weighs 50 lbs for more, and when it slips it cuts off your finger, hand, sometimes your whole arm. I worked there 4 months and my supervisor got his arm sliced open (blood everywhere), two other employees had serious lacerations and lost the use of one of their hands. This is in 2016, so don't tell me that work today is not dangerous, I work in places that today you can lose your life because of the job, here in Canada. Yes, 'Windows' are 'Golden'. (hint).

In the early 1900's, my grandfather, Robert Andrew Hivick, was in charge of the rolling stock on for the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company in Cass WVa. He used to tell my mother that one of their sayings was "Eat your dessert first. You might not live to finish your lunch." This was typical when robber barons were always looking for ways to maximize production, even if it resulted in death and maiming of workers. After all, they were expendable, and just a minor cost of doing business. This changed with the advent of unions, workers compensation legislation and the plaintiff bar. Only when it became expensive to risk worker's lives did any meaningful change take place. Many employers (yes, Amazon I'm talking about you) would love to return to the old ways.

Wow! Very interesting video extremely well presented! Thank you.

Thank you so much for adding to this complacent person's RR knowledge.

I had always wondered what that dimple was for! Thank you for the answer👍 excellent video🚂

This video is fantastic, great job mate :)

You kinda failed to mention that the reason they didn't want to pole anymore is because the poles would snap in the middle, goring open the poor guy holding it. THAT'S WHY it fell out of favor

I think it was done maybe into the 90’s in some places, I recall hearing of an employee getting killed on the GTW in the 80’s or 90’s doing this.

Excellent and your closing comments, superb, thank you. Take care, stay safe and hang in there mate, great stuff, thanks again 😎👍

Hmmmmmmm, I wonder if this could work on my o gauge shunting layout

We Poled at the first underground track in mine northern Ontario Canada that I started my mining career at. Yes it is dangerous, but we did it to move mining cars etc. in congested parallel 2'gauge mine stations (mine shaft area on any mine level) to quickly sort-out the mine cars, being careful I don't remember anyone ever being hurt by this 'regular' procedure!

that emperor of the north frame at 4:27 caught me off guard, kind of. great video

Awesome video thank you

Another time it was needed was picking up a car from a facing switch without a runaround track nearby.

Great video keep up the good work 💪 👏

Hi, love your videos. I have seen photographs of shunting locomotives in the UK with poles mounted at each end of the locomotive on heavy hinges so they could do that on the classification yards. As you say a dangerous operation but at least if they were mounted permanently on the loco it removed some of the danger. All the best from Australia

Safety second, warm bodies first. "Hi Viz" coming to a theater near you soon. Good luck brothers

There are still places (not in the USA anyways) that do this to this day.

I am more surprised that people are surprised it happened. I can think of many circumstances where i would consider it now.

Very nice little video. I wondered what those depressions were for.

Another great video. My kudos to all who made this video. Thank you very much. Be safe and healthy please.

"Poling", if you think that's dangerous, you should try "Fly shunting" (British). Hundreds of shunting staff lost legs and arms before they banned it. It required the shunter person to run alongside wagons on the move and uncouple them on the move. Europe of course never introduced the American knuckle coupling, so all vehicles also have buffers, and wagon couplings are hook & chain type. You needed a long broom type handle with a screw shaped hook on the end ("Shunters pole"). You put this pole over the wagon buffer, to unhook the coupling, all while running along beside the wagons. Then give the driver a handsignal, to shove, and watch the uncoupled wagons roll away by themselves. Many shunting staff tripped over and arms and legs often got sliced off by wagon wheels. The victims were henceforward known as "Spliced shunters" and assuming they had at least one arm and leg remaining were relegated to a pen pushing job behind a desk !!!😝

**Thank You** for that last safety tip!! 😊❤

When wooden poles fail under direct compression, they _explode._

It's not just time. There's a siding near where i work that's a one way dead end. Coming from the North switching that siding out would be impossible without poling. The main line and the siding are both on very busy street that would make pushing the cars any sort of distance dangerous for general car traffic.

Every rule is written in blood.

I've seen polling done still today. I won't give the of the Shortline but I'll just say that with everything now under Remote control these days polling dose happen on them rare occasions when the local steel mill is not able to give an assist with a frount end loader when there is a troublesome gondola.

Before there was OSHA there was oh shit

Is that poling car what is also known as a transfer caboose, or are those different?

I tried this in HO scale and the train crew😯 didn't complain.

Why did they not make poles with a spring inside? Is very easy to make from a pole and a tube.

I am from Europe and never heard about this and was a little appalled(pun intend) when I recently saw this on KZfaq. Was or is this a thing outside the USA? (I guess that in countrys with less saftey regulation it is still done and I would not wonder when it was a thing in Europe.)

How can you hear what is going on around you with ear plugs in?

So just to be clear, it is illegal or not illegal to poal a car today? Also I know of a logging tourst railroad that uses link and pin cuplers on log cars on there railfans weekend. There the only standard gage railroad in the US, besides the railroad at promontory summit Utah, that still does it.

Polls use to break. Now flying kicks are the cool thing to watch. Just don't see them ever anymore

How are things done these days? Are poling cars still a thing?

I've just found out that my 1927 54C IHC truck has poling pockets

I feel like this could still be done but automated so that there's no pole man

So was it ever outlawed? Some may still want to take short cuts THIS day in age..

It's a fact of human ingenuity that safety is not considered by the inventor. Most of the safety related aspects of railroading (and many other activities) were introduced as lessons learnt after accidents.

Do anybody else think they could had made a coupling bar specially for that, or am I just stupid

Sounds lazey. Why not just build an articulated arm out of an I-beam and mount on the front of the engine. Have it so that there are three set points you can set it too.

for lack of a better term, - insane. its just beyond the most insane idea ever. ...poling was standard practice? they didnt care at all for brakemen back then at all. but polling cars? makes about as much sense, as telling them, "you can stop a locomotive with your hand if its going slow enough"....

Poling isn’t dead not let the safety hounds fool you

Meanwhile the owners of the railroad gets richer!

Ha if you did a drop right U didn't need no pole.

I wonder when did Congress enact the OSHA.

Meh, doesnt seem that bad. I did much worse things when i worked at the airport.

Not really an unsafe practice, more an instance of incapable railroaders..

That sounds completely insane! Strange, that it is officially not officially illegal. Since the low end employees were the ones getting hurt, the rule makers did not care. If one high ranking manager were hurt, poling would have been made illegal instantly. This is why los end employees are called, "human resources." Resources are to be used and expended. Low end employees are still treated as garbage today.

A lot of things were done out of necessity. Now, safety has gotten out of control. Surplus safety.

You forgot…Get Your Vaccines 🙄

This is why Unions are so important! Great video!

It was very sus and dangerous

I'd bet a bottle of pop this fella has never worked an honest day in his life, and i have my doubts as to whether or not he is in lawful possession of a dog house.

Thanks to California governor Gascon’s pro-crime legislation, add an epidemic of train robbery to that danger list.

a lot of video watching him talk..........wasting my watching time.......

I was with ya until the stupid PSA at the end.

The covid speech just cost you a like

Preaches BS about masks while not wearing a mask. Get off the soap box. Keep it about railroading.

You really had to throw in the propaganda at the end??? SMH