A switcher or shunter (Great Britain: shunter; Australia: shunter or yard pilot; USA: switcher (or switch engine), except Pennsylvania Railroad: shifter) is a small railroad locomotive intended not for moving trains over long distances but rather for assembling trains ready for a road locomotive to take over, disassembling a train that has been brought in, and generally moving railroad cars around - a process usually known as switching (UK: shunting). See also Kingdom of Great Britain Great Britain (Breatainn Mhòr Prydain Fawr Breten Veur Graet Breetain is the larger of the two main islands For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Australia topics. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the The Pennsylvania Railroad was an American Railroad, founded in 1846 "Railroad" and "Railway" both redirect here For other uses see Railroad (disambiguation. A locomotive is a railway Vehicle that provides the motive power for a Train. A train is a connected series of vehicles that move along a track ( Permanent way) to transport freight or passengers from one place to another A railroad car or railway carriage is a Vehicle on a rail transport system (railroad or railway that is used for the carrying of Cargo or They do this in classification yards. A ( US and Canada) classification yard or ( UK and Canada) marshalling yard (including hump yards) is a Railroad Switchers may also make short transfer runs and even be the only motive power on branch lines. A branch line is a secondary railway line which branches off a more important through route usually a main line.
The typical switcher is optimised for its job, being relatively low-powered but with a high starting tractive effort for getting heavy cars rolling quickly. Tractive Effort (abbr TE is the pulling force exerted normally by a Locomotive, though the term could also be used for anything else that pulls a load Switchers are geared to produce high torque but are restricted to low top speeds and have small diameter driving wheels . A torque (τ in Physics, also called a moment (of force is a pseudo- vector that measures the tendency of a force to rotate an object about On a Steam locomotive, a driving wheel is a powered Wheel which is driven by the Locomotive 's Pistons (or Turbine, in the Steam switchers are either tank locomotives or have special (smaller) tenders, with narrow coal bunkers and/or sloped tender decks to increase rearward visibility. A steam locomotive is a Locomotive powered by Steam. The term usually refers to its use on Railways but can also refer to a "road locomotive" A tank locomotive is a Steam locomotive that carries its own fuel and water on it instead of pulling it behind it in a tender. Headlights, where carried, were mounted on both ends. Diesel switchers tend to have a high cab and often lower and/or narrower hoods (bonnets) containing the diesel engines, for all round visibility. A Diesel locomotive is a type of Railroad Locomotive in which the prime mover is a Diesel engine. The hood (North America or bonnet (Commonwealth is the Hinged cover over the Engine of Motor vehicles that allows access Slugs are often used because they allow even greater tractive effort to be applied. A railroad slug is an accessory to a Diesel-electric locomotive. Nearly all slugs used for switching are of the low hood, cabless variety. Good visibility in both directions is critical, because a switcher may be running in either direction; turning the locomotive is time-consuming. Some earlier diesel switchers used cow-calf configurations of two powered units in order to provide greater power. In North American Railroading a cow-calf set is a pair of Switcher -type Diesel locomotives one (the cow) equipped with a driving cab Now, the vast majority of switchers are diesels, but countries with near-total electrification, like Switzerland, use electric switchers. Switzerland (English pronunciation; Schweiz Swiss German: Schwyz or Schwiiz Suisse Svizzera Svizra officially the Swiss Confederation "Electric Trains" redirects here For the 1995 Squeeze single see Electric Trains (song. Small industrial shunters have sometimes been fireless locomotives and a few of these are still at work in Germany. A fireless locomotive was a type of Locomotive designed for use under conditions restricted by either the presence of flammable material (such as in mines or the need Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe.
Switching is hard work, and heavily used switch engines wear out quickly from the abuse of constant hard contacts with cars and frequent starting and stopping.
British and European locomotives of this type tend to be much smaller than the common size in the United States. Current British shunters are Class 08 and Class 09. The British Rail Class 08 is a class of Diesel locomotive designed for shunting The British Rail Class 09 is a class of 0-6-0 Diesel locomotive designed primarily for shunting but also short distance freight trips along branch
Station pilot
A station pilot is a shunting engine based at a major passenger station, used for moving trains or carriages between platforms, assembling trains, and other passenger train shunting tasks. It is a predominantly British term.
Station pilots are no longer used in the UK as the majority of passenger trains are formed with multiple units; the few locomotive-hauled passenger trains are shunted by the train engine rather than a dedicated station pilot.
See also
- Road switcher
- Rail car mover - some of which resemble HiRail trucks
- Road-rail vehicle
- Unimog