When a RR directs an empty car - what is written? Articles about waybills seem to imply a particular yard, but wouldn't the RR's send the car to the closest 'holding yard' or division point!
A class 1 RR with a few large yards would not send a standard boxcar to a paticular yard?
Thanks for any claification. Rob
Taildisk,
Like many things - It all depends. When a freight car is 'Made Empty' - It is normally routed back to the owning railroad. This can be by 'reverse route' or to mutually agreed upon interchange point.
If the freight car is owned by the railroad that just made it empty, it may be routed to a nearby terminal. The car distributor for the railroad will check the terminal lists for 'perspective empties' to be captured and routed for loading. If too many cars wind up at the terminal, they may be routed back to a larger terminal to balance the pool of perspective empties. Many times cars like box cars are moved to terminals in the summer so there is a pool of car available for grain loading at harvest season.
A third possible routing is if the car is in a 'dedicated pool'(like an auto plant for example). Many times the cars will be stenciled 'Route to Agent Anywhere, USA'. Several railroads may have cars in the pool. I have a Swift packing plant in Sinsinawa, WI and the 'car cards' for the SRLX meat reefers have 'Route to Agent Sinsinawa Yard, WI' so that they get routed MTY to the Swift plant even if I do not have a Car Order Waybill to attach to the car. I have a track in the yard just to hold SRLX reefers. This way I always have a pool of bright red Swift reefers available for loading at the packing plant. Most of my car cards just state 'MTY - Return to Home Int(JN)'. All of my 'eastern' road cars normally go through this staging area, and my 'western' railroad cars are routed 'MTY - Return to Home Int(GX)' JN is Janesville,WI and GX is Galena Jct, IL.
I am sure some other folks can give you more detailed info on handling MTY freight cars.
Jim
Modeling BNSF and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin
Home road cars go to the staging area for that type as designated by the railroad's car distribution people. The railroad knows where it uses cars and where demand is, so they send them to those locations, typically by car type. On the old MoPac empty covered hoppers went to Osawatomie, KS, gons went to central Texas, certain boxcars went to Chicago, others to New Orleans, and others to other cities. On the old Reading all empty hopers went to St. Clair, PA. As a matter of fact empty P&R/RDG coal cars didn't even need a waybill, there were standing orders to send them there.
Cars in pools (specially equipped cars) went to the pool location.
Foreign road cars went to home.
Private cars reverse routed or went to the home point for the cars.
Very few cars are actually routed to major yards. Most are routed to industrial areas, not to the yards themselves. Many railroads regulated the number of cars in movement status so that most cars were applied to orders before they got to a "staging" location. Cars that weren't being used would be gathered up and taken to a siding or track out on a branch someplace and "stored" for weeks or months (or years) until needed again.
In recent time the collapse of the building industry caused miles and miles of lumber flats to be stored because they weren't needed.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
Jim and Dave have some great info. Here's a couple of ways I implement things on my layout, which will make it easy to translate prototype info to model ops.
For many home road cars, I just leave the Return To blank on the car card. I'll either direct it via the switchlist or just leave it up to the ops what to do with it.
For free-running foreign and some home road cars, I usually write an appropriate, easily recognizable location to send cars to. For the home road, it's Denver, since I model Rio Grande. The foreign roads will be east or west along the part of the line I model, so which way depends on shortest route (although not simple in real life) if it's not obvious whether it should be east or west to get back.
That said, there are plenty of cars assigned to service from and to various points along my system. Here, the Return To filled in on the car card takes the MT home to load.
Finally, some of my waybills do the same same thing as the filled in Return To. One move shows a load in one direction, then the next move will indicate to return the MT to load. I turn the car card to show the MT when it's ready to move. This works great for temporary assignments or where you want to vary the car, while maintaining the traffic.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
There is a good example of how to handle emtys in one of the Kalmbach books. The Car Service Rules state or used to state (paraphrasing) that each railroad that shared in the profit from the delivery of a loaded car must also share in the cost of returing the empty. This would mean that the car would be returned over the same route from which it arrived. So instead a specific yard to route, route it to a city on another railroad (via hidden staging). This seems like a good idea to me so I plan to incorporate it in my railroad's design (its in the 8th month of redesigning. The book was Realistic Model Railroad Operation by Tony Koester pp 51-57. This explains 4 cycle waybill operation and capturing of foreign road emptys for loading and shipment in direction of home road.
dehusman Home road cars go to the staging area for that type as designated by the railroad's car distribution people. The railroad knows where it uses cars and where demand is, so they send them to those locations, typically by car type. On the old MoPac empty covered hoppers went to Osawatomie, KS, gons went to central Texas, certain boxcars went to Chicago, others to New Orleans, and others to other cities. On the old Reading all empty hopers went to St. Clair, PA. As a matter of fact empty P&R/RDG coal cars didn't even need a waybill, there were standing orders to send them there. Cars in pools (specially equipped cars) went to the pool location. Foreign road cars went to home. Private cars reverse routed or went to the home point for the cars. Very few cars are actually routed to major yards. Most are routed to industrial areas, not to the yards themselves. Many railroads regulated the number of cars in movement status so that most cars were applied to orders before they got to a "staging" location. Cars that weren't being used would be gathered up and taken to a siding or track out on a branch someplace and "stored" for weeks or months (or years) until needed again. In recent time the collapse of the building industry caused miles and miles of lumber flats to be stored because they weren't needed.
The Buckingham Branch had a line of coal hopper parked on an old section of track that was no longer used anymore, the coal cars are used for a power plant, and the cars sat there for the longest time, I am pretty sure they were N&S cars. They probably sat on the track for several years, thought I mostly went past on the weekends in the summer, but I am mostly sure the sat there. The section of track use to be a line, but it is no longer maintained past the point they put the cars.
This was when I lived in NC and we went up to Clarksville, VA on weekends during the summer.
Thanks for all of your replies. Same info written a different way also helps to understand things.
But the real gem was "the railroad's car distribution people". Yes, that is it, some cars could remain at a small yard, but there could be a need to relocate an empty to another location - just in case it may be needed.
Thanks
Rob
taildiskBut the real gem was "the railroad's car distribution people". Yes, that is it, some cars could remain at a small yard, but there could be a need to relocate an empty to another location - just in case it may be needed
Railroads must keep a balance of empties at division terminals this includes hopper cars used in stone service.
Railroads will also expedite empty foreign road cars to the nearest interchange point that leads that car toward its home rails-if they don't the railroad will pay a detention fee to the owning road.
Of course that doesn't include cars in pool service or cars owned by leasing companies.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"