jeffhergertCould there me a rational reason for a routing like that? Sure, but I'm hard pressed to see it. I know since Stagger's a lot of former interchange points were closed, many physically removed. But still, that extra 1000 miles seems out of place when they always are looking for
Just goes to show not everything post-Staggers deregulation is so sensible or efficient.
Well Jeff just like UP and how they are now routinely routing the resins my boss gets. It goes from Houston to Dallas then over to St Louis then backtrack to Little Rock then finally up to North Platte then down to Kansas City where it finally gets interchanged to the BNSF for delivery to my boss at his SIT yard. These are flyers either the last 8 shipments all have gone this way. What should take 3 days maximum is taking between 1 to 2 weeks.
Years ago it was a common practice for lumber brokers to ship commodity lumber (standard items such as 4x8 1/2" plywood, finished 2x4, etc.) to a nominal destinations without having sold the cargo. Often, the would delierately choose a slow route with lots of interchange activity. The broker would eventually find a buyer for that particular carload, then issue a diversion order to have the car pulled off the initial route and sent to the actual buyer. I suspect that practice died out with onset of the Staggers Act and would not be the reason this particlar load was batted back & forth?I unloaded freight cars at a small grocery warehouse in southern Ohio in the late 1970's while I was in high school - i remember getting just such a BN boxcar of canned apple juice that originated in Washington State. The waybill showed the car was orginally consigned to Philadelphia via the following route:BN to Beiber, CA
WP to Salt Lake City
DRGW to Denver
MP to Kansas City
UP to St. Louis
N&W to ToledoConrail to PhillyIt was pulled off that route at Toledo, given to the DT&I there, taken to the town where the grocery wholesaler was located, and then handed to the B&O to move the final 500 yards to the unloading dock. It took over five weeks.
CatFoodFlambe Years ago it was a common practice for lumber brokers to ship commodity lumber (standard items such as 4x8 1/2" plywood, finished 2x4, etc.) to a nominal destinations without having sold the cargo. Often, the would delierately choose a slow route with lots of interchange activity. The broker would eventually find a buyer for that particular carload, then issue a diversion order to have the car pulled off the initial route and sent to the actual buyer. I suspect that practice died out with onset of the Staggers Act and would not be the reason this particlar load was batted back & forth?I unloaded freight cars at a small grocery warehouse in southern Ohio in the late 1970's while I was in high school - i remember getting just such a BN boxcar of canned apple juice that originated in Washington State. The waybill showed the car was orginally consigned to Philadelphia via the following route:BN to Beiber, CA WP to Salt Lake City DRGW to Denver MP to Kansas City UP to St. Louis N&W to ToledoConrail to PhillyIt was pulled off that route at Toledo, given to the DT&I there, taken to the town where the grocery wholesaler was located, and then handed to the B&O to move the final 500 yards to the unloading dock. It took over five weeks.
UP didn't go to St Louis in the 1970s. They didn't gain St. Louis until they got the MP in 1982.
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In my example, UP isn't the only party to the routing. BNSF also has a say where the interchange point is going to be. I almost wonder if they want the longer route to get a better division on the rate.
Jeff
CatFoodFlambewould delierately choose a slow route with lots of interchange activity. The broker would eventually find a buyer for that particular carload
If my memory correctly serves, there was an article in Trains magazine several years back, explaining that Roscoe, Snyder, & Pacific was an especially popular bridge for such routings.
Convicted One CatFoodFlambe would delierately choose a slow route with lots of interchange activity. The broker would eventually find a buyer for that particular carload If my memory correctly serves, there was an article in Trains magazine several years back, explaining that Roscoe, Snyder, & Pacific was an especially popular bridge for such routings.
CatFoodFlambe would delierately choose a slow route with lots of interchange activity. The broker would eventually find a buyer for that particular carload
At one time Circuitous routing, Reconsignment and Diversion were the hallmarks of distribution of agricultural products from the Pacific Northwest. Product was shipped from PNW without a buyer, consigned to the shipper on the East Coast. As the products moved across the country the shippers 'marketing department' would be working on finding buyers at the highest possible price. Once a buyer was secured, the 'marketing department' would contact the appropriate railroad and issue reconsignment and diversion orders to move the car(s) on a direct routing to the ultimate buyer.
With the carrier combinations that have happened since the enactment of Staggers there are no longer all the 'intermediate carriers' to effect circuitous routing, at least not to the extent that existed pre-Staggers.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Those cars used to be called "rollers", didn't they?
If, while switching out a train OR building one we have bad cars and they don't get switched out you get a hearing letter in the mail. If it says 15 track it goes into 15 track. When you pull that track to build that train they better be in the right order! A miss built train will get caught at the first reader, signals go out to TM's and YM's get notified and the switch crew gets called on the carpet. At least that's the way CSX and we did it.
I think with PSR that is called DDT - 'Dynamic Dwell Time'
23 years today on a different railroad. I've never heard of anyone, management or labor, having ever gotten "talked to" over misrouted cars. By the time a train hits the first scanner, the misroute will have been assigned a new block destination, even though it's actual destination is still the same. Unless it's hot, like a car of fence posts*, nobody is going to be to upset.
It's not that uncommon to also have a stray or two that weren't supposed to be in the train. That get's picked up and the info passed on to the crew to update their train lists. Have too many of those types, and then someone will get notified.
I can't say it's happening more with PSR, but with the cuts and changes it's even less likely that they are going to have a switch crew dig out a car that's in track 15 that should've gone to track 14. Unless it's hot and being watched, it's going to take the scenic route.
Heck, there's probably some in higher managment who would be happy if a misrouted car led to a customer leaving the railroad.
* We'll see if anyone catches the meaning. I'm afraid too many that would catch on may have departed the forums.
Doktor NoIf, while switching out a train OR building one we have bad cars and they don't get switched out you get a hearing letter in the mail. If it says 15 track it goes into 15 track. When you pull that track to build that train they better be in the right order! A miss built train will get caught at the first reader, signals go out to TM's and YM's get notified and the switch crew gets called on the carpet. At least that's the way CSX and we did it.
Cars get mis-sorted on railroads, containers get mis-handled at the docks, packages get mis-handled by UPS and FedEx, letters get mis-handled by USPS.
Shipping happens and nobody is perfect.
My wife worked for a lumber broker in Portland Oregon a few years ago and one of her tasks was to route cars on roundabout routes so as to give the broker time to sell that carload. That way the car was traveling eastward getting closer to the eastern markets yet wasn't sold when shipped.
jeffhergert 23 years today on a different railroad. I've never heard of anyone, management or labor, having ever gotten "talked to" over misrouted cars. By the time a train hits the first scanner, the misroute will have been assigned a new block destination, even though it's actual destination is still the same. Unless it's hot, like a car of fence posts*, nobody is going to be to upset. Jeff * We'll see if anyone catches the meaning. I'm afraid too many that would catch on may have departed the forums.
There's at least one of us still around. Don't remember all the details, but remember the gist.
Fence posts ? Used cross ties ?
Interesting question I can't answer. But I have to say that it sounds like mail coming to Long Island from some spot 10 miles away on Long Island - goes to New Jersey, then maybe upstate New York, then a few more places, and someday, maybe, makes it the wrong post office on Long Island, then maybe a few days later gets delivered! :-)
jeffhergertlike a car of fence posts*
I have no idea, but I infer from your footnote that it's something that used to be important but has been made obsolete by later technology -- like communication? Utility poles come to mind; in remote territory the railroads had to put in their own poles for telphone or telegraph wires, and they were lined up like fence posts along the track. No?
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"A stranger's just a friend you ain't met yet." --- Dave Gardner
Found it !! (7/5/2012)
jeffhergert In my post about holiday operations, the railroad always says it will slow down operations except for certain lines of business. The exceptions for things that still must move means just about everything except the lowest of the low manifest, locals and yard jobs. Sometimes even they still work, too. In my listing of the business lines, I threw in fence posts for a couple of reasons. One to illustrate how the exceptions render a holiday slow down kind of moot, that we're only going to move "priority" things but everything is a prioritiy. Also to reference an old joke about fence posts. I've heard it told years ago on the Rock Island. I've seen it in print in Trains about 25 or so years ago (IIRC the author, Ken Brovald in his story about an Omaha Road Brasspounder, I know Bruce knows what that is.) and an even older Railroad Magazine story by Peter Josserand, Night Chief Dispatcher on the Western Pacific. I'm sure many old heads on many railroads will claim it happened on their railroads, too. The story goes something like this. A train was overtonnage and had to reduce before leaving the yard. Certain loads are more important than others, like perishable or livestock, high value merchandise etc. Looking over the train list for what could be set out, the yardmaster came across a load of fence posts. Now in the scheme of things, it's hard to imagine fence posts being a hot item. So the load of fence posts, along with other low priority freight was set out. A few days later, the yardmaster got a reprimand for setting out the most important car in the train. It seems the superintendent had personally gauranteed delivery to the consignee on a certain date, and setting out the car it missed that date. So after that, whenever a train had to reduce tonnage, the instructions were to set out anything except fence posts. Jeff
In my post about holiday operations, the railroad always says it will slow down operations except for certain lines of business. The exceptions for things that still must move means just about everything except the lowest of the low manifest, locals and yard jobs. Sometimes even they still work, too.
In my listing of the business lines, I threw in fence posts for a couple of reasons. One to illustrate how the exceptions render a holiday slow down kind of moot, that we're only going to move "priority" things but everything is a prioritiy. Also to reference an old joke about fence posts.
I've heard it told years ago on the Rock Island. I've seen it in print in Trains about 25 or so years ago (IIRC the author, Ken Brovald in his story about an Omaha Road Brasspounder, I know Bruce knows what that is.) and an even older Railroad Magazine story by Peter Josserand, Night Chief Dispatcher on the Western Pacific. I'm sure many old heads on many railroads will claim it happened on their railroads, too. The story goes something like this.
A train was overtonnage and had to reduce before leaving the yard. Certain loads are more important than others, like perishable or livestock, high value merchandise etc. Looking over the train list for what could be set out, the yardmaster came across a load of fence posts. Now in the scheme of things, it's hard to imagine fence posts being a hot item. So the load of fence posts, along with other low priority freight was set out.
A few days later, the yardmaster got a reprimand for setting out the most important car in the train. It seems the superintendent had personally gauranteed delivery to the consignee on a certain date, and setting out the car it missed that date. So after that, whenever a train had to reduce tonnage, the instructions were to set out anything except fence posts.
Made me think of the abuse of X priority in stuff going to Los Alamos in the war years.
If I remember the story correctly (it was embellished over the years) critical material for weapon development was 'bumped' for toilet paper, because the sender of the critical material used the 'Cullinan Diamond' method of hiding the importance of the shipment by giving it lower letter priority, and 'all and sundry' stuff going to secret-project land was routinely eXpedited...
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