Interesting video, Sniper297. I would note though, that although flying switches and dutch drops have been against the railroad's rules for a long time, at least from before when I was working for a real US railroad, the rule was often observed in the breach especially when the crew consisted entirely of experienced railroaders. What may make both procedures much less common today, is the fact that to be done safely, they need to be done with a minimum of a 3 man crew: the engineer, a man to throw the switch, and a rider on the car. I'm sure, though, that there are operations where the "flying switch" is done at slower speed than formerly, with two men and a length of log chain.
No, as far as I know in the US, in most cases it is still allowed to cut off cars on the fly; hump yards depend upon this. It is against the rules (and probably Code of Federal regulations, to cut off hazardous materials, and occupied passenger cars "on the fly"; the rules provided, back in my time on the RI, that these were to be "shoved to rest, or to coupling", and usually with air brakes activated. However, all cars in the US (or nearly all cars, I think some scale test cars were exceptions to this) in the US were equipped with automatic train brakes, while most cars in the UK were not. Without brakes on all the cars, it would be easy for an inexperienced, or lightly experienced, crew to misjudge speeds, leading to wagons and vans getting running of the end of a siding, or otherwise getting out of control, causing a hazard on the road.
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