Most of us have watched the huge locomotives with their long trains, and admired the great power house on wheels that can pull so many cars at so great a speed. Many of us have watched yard engines pushing and pulling cars into side tracks or industrial plants, or switching in a yard, but have given little thought to this piece of equipment. The humble yard engine performs many and varied duties, and is just as important to the operation of a railroad as are its big brothers.

When a passenger train arrives at a terminal where through sleeping cars are to be transferred, the yard engine does the work; a freight train pulls into the terminal and its work is done, but the sorting of its cars is done by the yard engine.

Freight trains may have as many as 100 cars loaded with different commodities. Some of the cars bear placards showing they contain INFLAMMABLES, CORROSIVE LIQUIDS, COMPRESSED GAS, POISON GAS, and EXPLOSIVES. The yard engine switches these cars to their proper places as the trains are made up, following the rules governing the handling of such commodities.
Tank cars loaded with gasoline or other inflammable products require special handling by the yard engine. There are cars to be placed on transfer tracks for interchange, or placed on industrial tracks to be loaded or unloaded. Through all kinds of weather, day and night, the faithful yard engine now brings a new kind of service which, in addition to earning money for the railroad, helps protect its property and even extends this protection to communities along its right-of-way. The yard engine has become a FIRE ENGINE.

Have you ever watched the Fireman standing on the deck of a yard engine sprinkling the coal on the tender and washing down the deck with a short hose? The stream of water came from the injector, a device used to force water into the boiler of the locomotive.
The original squirt hose threw a stream of water comparable to the average garden hose, so was used at times to extinguish fires along the right-of-way, or in yards and terminals.
Engines were already using a small steam turbine to drive their electric headlight generators, so a similar turbine was coupled up to a small centrifugal pump and put on the locomotive as a cold water fire pump. This pump was safe, threw an effective stream of water and did not take up much space. An engine so equipped could be sent to a fire in the terminal or on the line of road engines equipped with such pumps have been sent to fight fires in small towns along the road. They have gone to places where cars were stored to extinguish fires in freight cars. At flood time they have carried water to points where the regular water service no longer functioned and transferred water from their tenders to storage tanks. Thus, the little fire pump on the engine not only goes to the fire but also helps out in many other ways. The Chesapeake and Ohio has, in one of the larger towns, a flat car equipped with ramps or skids, kept on a special spur track. When a neighboring town needs help to fight a fire, the local municipal fire brigade runs its motorized pumped and modern equipment up on the flat car, and it is taken away by a yard engine with a fire pump to the place where it is needed.

If the yard engine annoys you at the crossing, remember it's only doing one of its many important chores, and it may, some day; bring you help when you need it.