Flying switches! ... twice, even? at Albina Yard, Portland OR, 1993

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I love shunting by flying (a?) switch. The practice is now probably prohibited on most railroads, and the decline of single car traffic has made it less useful. I found a video on youtube, but no trace of a documentation of its use in yard switching.

In the following picture, switcher 1311 moves to the right towards the loading shed to pick up the blue car that is barely visible. Also, keep an eye on the two yellow cars in front of it:

Albina Yard, Portland, Oregon, 1993

In the next picture, 1311 has the blue car in tow and is running to the left. The two yellow cars rolled a little to the right and were then stopped by the brakeman (in the previous picture you can see him travelling along and braking them)—we'll talk about then again at the very end of this posting:

Albina Yard, Portland, Oregon, 1993

The switcher and the blue car have moved over the switch and are now coupling to the yellow cars:

Albina Yard, Portland, Oregon, 1993

A little later, it has pulled its three cars forward some distance:

Albina Yard, Portland, Oregon, 1993

The two yellow cars have now been stored somewhere—presumably onto some track to the right, maybe the one where the blue car stood!—, and now the show is going to start (or has already started): With the blue car in tow, accelerate a little, then uncouple while driving (to do this, you have to brake the engine for a moment so that the coupler runs into some "slack", i.e. becomes loose, and then—it's easy with American couplers!—pull the uncoupling handle on the engine) and finally apply full throttle—you can see the cloud of smoke in the picture. The switcher pulls away, the car lags behind:

Albina Yard, Portland, Oregon, 1993

At the switch between the two, you can see the switchman, who is now reversing the switch without any haste in front of the approaching car. The cloud of smoke is only slowly dissolving:

Albina Yard, Portland, Oregon, 1993

Unfortunately, that's it for the pictures. In the next picture, 1311 stands innocently next to a row of boxcars, while the blue car has disappeared somewhere to the left.

Albina Yard, Portland, Oregon, 1993

Where did the two yellow cars actually come from, in the first image above? There was a picture in the previous posting that also shows them—unfortunately the order of my pictures here is chaotic, but I should have taken it just before the initial picture here. Here is that other picture again—you can see the switcher to the right of the two. For them to roll past the switcher in the first picture up here, another flying switch must have been performed, right?

Albina Yard, Portland, Oregon, 1993

Finally, for another short text plus photo of doing (or not) a flying switch see this posting at "Industrial History"!