I have been dealing with this issue for several years now in moving private locomotives around the country, and its a pain. I can remember all you had to do is have a railroad or FRA inspector come and look at the unit,or units, and if you were given the go, the railroad grabbed them and away they went. If there was a problem with the unit, you fixed it or got a waver.
This is becoming a real pain lately, and it is a very pricey repair to replace the pocket and drawbar, and placing blocks or modifying the unit is no longer accepted by BNSF or UP. Many locomotives are stranded around the country, and many are being scrapped because of this. Some have resorted to loading the unit on to a flatcar, another expencive method. All that needs to be done is place the unit between two equipped units, and if the train is under 4000 tons there is no issue at all. But the railroads of today are too big to manage properly, so they do anything to eliminate customers instead of improving service. I have been resorting to the change out method and biting the bullet.
Have you folks out there seen any units sitting at an industry or short line??
I would like to know who is dealing with this problem.