> At No time have I posted that I moved a Shunt loco without being signaled by the Shunter or on my own volition whilst anticipating the movement.
>
> You inferred that,

A listener infers; a speaker implies. The language and diction of your posts allowed too many incorrect inferences on the part of our lay readers.

> only God knows why, and still spout it in every post so I'm guessing you are a Democrat and/or a close relation of Adam Schiff. :)

So you're an expert in the nuances of US politics too? You infer incorrectly; I've been a moderate/liberal Republican for slightly over 50 years. If you think Trump is a good Pres, or Mealy Mouth Mitch is a good Senate majority leader, I have a new tinfoil hat to sell you, several of them.

You just don't get it, do you? It's a case of one knowing what he/she meant to say, but others reading things in which weren't specifically said or meant to be said. Since it was becoming apparent that others were doing precisely this, it is them I began addressing. There are a lot of readers who want the "straight dope" and come to these forums in hopes of finding things out.

Yet you continued to argue and yammer on and on about how skilled you are at train handling and how much experience you have, finally culminating in a severe case of harumpers on the carumpers.

> Interesting take....we learned to anticipate the Shunter's move and regulate the move accordingly, once you knew the vagaries of the various Shunters and their foibles, sweet. Same with the men on the ground, they learned the habits of the Shunt Enginedrivers, whether he be old and cranky or young, new and learning to adjust just when they changed their signalling to the locomotive.
> We didn't have knuckle couplers but a vertical Hook into centre Buffer and it took some balls to step in and lift the hook when the loco shoved in for an ease-up, 40 or 50 wagons down. You[the Shunter] really wanted to know your man[Driver] then.
> Reverse was the guy's who took several attempts to life(sic)[lift] the hook, the savvy Enginedriver knew who those guys were and moved accordingly careful not to knock the Shunter off his feet.
>Fast runners got waved down earlier than slower Drivers, some just never caught on and bumbled their way through life, applied to both the traffic branch on the ground and the loco branch in the cab.

This is the conversational interplay between crewmembers I mentioned, and I can tell a lot of nearly identical stories (except for the hook couplers, of course).

> I could relate a few instances but you probably wouldn't understand our lingo.

It's pretty much the same here, and I do understand a lot, but not all, of your lingo. Am I to read into your remark that your understanding of US lingo is 100%?

>> You're also conflating the details of control manipulation (throttle and brakes) with the signals the crew give you, which confuses the situation.
> It is apparent you are easily confused. Since it was you who wrote a text book answer that has no variance for anything, like gradient of backshunt, wet/greasy rail condition, wind strength, disproportionate load or other than EMD power....nor clasp brakeblocks vs single brakeblocks.

How about composition and CI shoes (or "blocks" as you in the Brit world call them). Once again, you're going into the intricacies of train handling techniques, which I was not.

>How to kick cars (in the US): switchman gives kick sign, E opens throttle to run 8 and releases engine brakes; switchman gives stop sign, E applies engine brakes (fully) and shuts off throttle. With double and triple cutting, you can switch out on the order of 300 cars per shift using this type of control operation (as they say, BTDT many times, occasionally using the 2686)

That was the simple description for our readers (and it includes Alcos, F-Ms, and GEs, regardless of generator loading curve and brake shoe type, BTW). You're correct that considerations of the cleanliness of the wheel rail interface, grade, etc. must also be taken into account. However indulge in an explanation which is too long-winded, and it tends to numb the readers through processes and/or lower their comprehension.

BTW, what I was describing was kicking cars on the 50 lead at West Oakland on the SP, ask OPRRMS for verification. Since the wheels and rails were always so shiny and clean, adhesion was always good enough that sanding the rails was unnecessary. However, most engineers routinely turned the sanders on with each kick sign, and the crews appreciated it that I didn't because they didn't wind up getting covered by the ground up sand dust by the end of the shift.

>> You're more than welcome to expound on and boast of your train railroading skills, but don't expect me to be impressed because I'm not.

I'll explain it once more, in more starkly clear detail: I don't give a rat's a$$ about your train handling experience or skills, regardless of what they actually might or might not be. I do care that you failed to make it crystal clear to our lay readers that the E ("Driver") may not make moves without the ground crew telling him/her what they want done.

> Changed your tune somewhat eh! Why don't you use your real name huh?

You use your name because you want to. I use a handle because I want to, and there are a lot of other rails, working and retired, on the form who do the same. A professional railroader ("railwayman") can recognize another by what he/she says and the context and diction of how he/she says it. If you can't deal with handles, tough s**t.

> Although you would like to sound like you know what you're talking about, even with inserting pronunciation, you are wrong.

(re Rio TiInto's problems retaining drivers)

I'm not wrong. Read my post again carefully: you jumped to the wrong conclusion by inferring I said it was the case then, which I specifically avoided even trying to imply.

>And another thing. I make up for the fact that I don't have any qualifications to write about how U.S. railway operations actually work by writing longwinded posts to boost my already inflated ego and sense of self-importance,

I assume you intended to say that you don't boast about things you don't know about, but what you actually did say is that you do. It's that English usage and sentence structure thing again.

> but most importantly I found where the boldface, underscore and italics buttons are.

Yes, you do like to shout.