What is "blocking" and how does work. Don't you still have to have switching yards and still build a train?
Northtowne
NorthtowneWhat is "blocking" and how does work. Don't you still have to have switching yards and still build a train? Northtowne
Not if PSR gets all traffic moving in unit type trains between shipper and consignee.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Not all traffic moves in just one lane, but sizable numbers of cars might run across parts of the network. It makes sense to assemble all the cars that, say, will go to one destination into a 'block' of cars, and instead of humping each one separately into a new ongoing train, just flat-switch the whole block to a track that train is being made up on.
You can also arrange blocks within a given train to simplify how they are taken off at intermediate points to be forwarded on a different route -- this is pre-blocking the consist.
An intriguing 'future' variant on the idea is in Don Oltmann's blog piece on railroading in 2040, still one of the classics from this community.
So blocking is done in switch yards and destination is the main criterion, and not the consignee. And blocking is not done in small yards to be picked up on the way by a scheduled thru train (my first understanding, dumb me). But you have fast freights, unit trains, manifest trains, and locals. Whay more could you need? I thought railroading was doing just fine before all this upheaval.
Traffic is classified or blocked for a destination or a specific destination service yard. Once at the destination service yard, locals will be built in order of set offs that must be made. This is where you drill down to the individual consignee.
NorthtowneSo blocking is done in switch yards and destination is the main criterion, and not the consignee. And blocking is not done in small yards to be picked up on the way by a scheduled thru train (my first understanding, dumb me). But you have fast freights, unit trains, manifest trains, and locals. Whay more could you need? I thought railroading was doing just fine before all this upheaval. Northtowne
Yards that headquarter 'line of road' local freights will perform the grossest form of blocking - East v West; North v South. One way or the other and then after those 'blocks' are picked up by through line of road trains and taken to a larger 'classification' yard those picked up cars will be switched by 'destination classification' along with all the other cars in that train.
The movement of trains is a aggregrating function that works both up and down from loading dock to unloading dock via the line of road and back. Destinations include locations, customers, interchanges with foreign carriers - any form of 'uniqueness' that can cover a number of cars that will all be handled in the same manner.
The Class 1 carriers, over the years, have developed blocking plans to speed cars through the interchange location and in many case speed the cars past the first classification yard and onto the second classification yard. These agreements will also designate which cars should be routed through which interchange gateways. Chicago, St. Louis, Memphis and New Orleans are considered the primary E-W gateways between the carriers that serve these locations.
Small intermediate yards may block cars for pick up by through trains. They won't switch the entire train, but the train will pick up the outbound cars and place them in their proper position within their train.
PSR is not about more unit trains, but less when possible. Instead of waiting 10 days for 100 cars to accumulate, they want to handle 10 cars every day in the manifest network. That only works (?) for those customers who take time to build a unit train. Those that have a high enough volume for unit trains will still have the traditional unit train. In the meantime, those that don't will have their traffic move in smaller blocks in much larger trains.
We run manifests running to different locations in Chicago. We will use Yard A and Yard C as destinations. I've noticed a train going to Yard A will have a block for Yard C that gets set out at an intermediate yard for later pick up by the train going to Yard C. And vice-versa.
Is doing that really more effecient? Not really. You reduce dwell time at individual yards, but a specific car's dwell time isn't really reduced. Instead of sitting 20 hours (all times used for illustration only) at the big, originating yard waiting for the direct connection it sits 10 hours. But it's probably going to sit another 10 hours at the intermediate yard waiting for it's proper connection.
Not to mention that it makes fewer but much longer trains doing more enroute work events. The land barge trains seem to have more than their share of problems, but at least at an acceptable fairlure rate. They also tend to block multiple crossings when working the intermediate yards and for some reason all working trains converge on a yard at the same time. Meaning one, or more, trains will sit waiting for their turn to work. We have a couple that almost daily need to be recrewed because of this.
PSR is a number's game. They control the metrics and which numbers they want to use. It's a house of cards that will eventually implode.
Jeff
jeffhergert Is doing that really more effecient? Not really. You reduce dwell time at individual yards, but a specific car's dwell time isn't really reduced. Instead of sitting 20 hours (all times used for illustration only) at the big, originating yard waiting for the direct connection it sits 10 hours. But it's probably going to sit another 10 hours at the intermediate yard waiting for it's proper connection. Not to mention that it makes fewer but much longer trains doing more enroute work events. The land barge trains seem to have more than their share of problems, but at least at an acceptable fairlure rate. They also tend to block multiple crossings when working the intermediate yards and for some reason all working trains converge on a yard at the same time. Meaning one, or more, trains will sit waiting for their turn to work. We have a couple that almost daily need to be recrewed because of this.
I feel your pain.
To illustrate this I'll use an example from my area. The regular daily through freight from northwestern Alberta to Edmonton (originating at the yard in McLennan, AB, but no one except railroaders know where that is, even out here) will contain Vancouver, Prince George, Winnipeg, and Edmonton blocks. The Edmonton block is the only one that will require heavy switching upon arrival, the other three can simply be doubled over to outbound tracks. This greatly reduces the number of switching moves at Edmonton, a major switching centre that has struggled ever since its hump was shut down in 2011. This train regularly picks up traffic from at least one location enroute (the crew change point of Smith, AB, another middle of nowhere spot with a railyard), and the roadswitcher crew based there is supposed to pre-block its traffic as well, and the through train will pick it up in the best location to keep as many blocks as possible intact.
One supposed goal of "PSR" is to use existing infrastructure more effectively, I believe 'sweating the assets' is the proper term. This sounds logical enough, but can have unintended consequences. Shifting the workload to smaller yards and outlying terminals can overwhelm them, or at minimum cause the supervisors and crews there to prioritize the pre-blocking work over other tasks, like switching the customers who generate all that traffic in the first place.
We also have plenty of long trains that work enroute, for a while it was reliably taking three crews to get one of them over a single subdivision (most of its delays were waiting for track time on a congested mainline or pumping air in the winter).
Spot on about the house of cards and players gaming the system.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
Your comments are helping me understand somewhat. Am I to understand that blocking occurs at intermediate yards along a route (division), originally performed by yard crews, and the thru train stops and cuts his train into at the exact spots (plural) where the cars to be picked up mesh with like cars headed to the same destination and/or consignee? He does this at several stops till he gets to the main yard to be put with a train with all cars headed to correct destination? Does a certain designated train perform this pick up, or most all trains on the route do this to minimize time cars are setting on the siding for pick up? Crazy, if this is so. Where I train watch, a designated train picks up cars about the same time every day; they cut only the engines and put the cars on the head end. They are in and out in as little as an 1hr and a half.
Northtowne Where I train watch, a designated train picks up cars about the same time every day; they cut only the engines and put the cars on the head end. They are in and out in as little as an 1hr and a half.
At it's simplist, blocking is basically for dropping cars. I don't think either of the interchanges I see on occasion put the cars to be picked up in any sort of order. That block of cars would likely go to the next yard where they can be sorted.
I don't know that pre-blocking is down to the customer level (locals notwithstanding). I could be wrong. As has been noted, yard A would sort cars into blocks for yards B, C, and D. The designated train would then drop those blocks at those yards.
It's possible they would also pick up outgoing blocks, which would be dropped at a further yard where they could be sorted. One of the interchanges I'm aware of gets their drops at one end of the yard (from eastbound trains) while outgoing pickups are done at the west end of the yard, by a westbound.
One tenet of PSR is reducing the number of times a car is switched, hence the humps that have been closed.
Back in the day, a car would essentially move from (major) yard to (major) yard, being switched at each location. Trains might well be in random order in the interim.
Pre-blocking/blocking means that the cars leaving Selkirk for Chicago will all be together, meaning they don't have to be touched at intermediate yards. Cars for Chicago might be added at an intermediate yard, but the original block can stay together.
Corrections welcome.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
NorthtowneYour comments are helping me understand somewhat. Am I to understand that blocking occurs at intermediate yards along a route (division), originally performed by yard crews, and the thru train stops and cuts his train into at the exact spots (plural) where the cars to be picked up mesh with like cars headed to the same destination and/or consignee? He does this at several stops till he gets to the main yard to be put with a train with all cars headed to correct destination? Does a certain designated train perform this pick up, or most all trains on the route do this to minimize time cars are setting on the siding for pick up? Crazy, if this is so. Where I train watch, a designated train picks up cars about the same time every day; they cut only the engines and put the cars on the head end. They are in and out in as little as an 1hr and a half. Northtowne
Class 1 carriers have specific Operating Plans that apply to their 'loose car' manifest train network. The plan will define what cars are a part of what block at each location that originates traffic. (Remember the location that terminates a shipment then originates that car after the customer is done with the car).
The Service Design (or similarly named) organization is the one that is responsible for creating and updating the Operating Plan to account for changing customer traffic as well as accomidating changes in the carriers operating plant because of MofW work or responding to natural disaster. On CSX when I was working the Operating Plan was officiall modified or a weekly basis and sometimes mid-week if something unexpected happened.
Here is a real world example of blocking from the Great Northern in Washington State in the late 1960's. Balmer Yard in Seattle made three eastward trains most days. The first was No. 82. It carrierd Minot (Gavin Yard) and beyond cars to its 3,600 ton limit over the Cascade Mountains. At Everett Junction it usually picked up a Gavin and beyond block on the head end. Straight pickup, quick and easy. At Wenatchee, east of the Cascades, #82 also picked up Gavin and beyond traffic. While the theoretical limit on the 1% climb to the top of the Columbia Plateau was 7,200 tons, Wenatchee never had enough traffic to fill to that limit, so they could make that 20 mile climb at something better than 12 MPH.
The drag west to Wenatchee took all of the traffic for Wenatchee from both Interbay and Everett Jct. and if Hillyard cars were there and space was available they would be added to a limit of 6,500 tons as a helper train over the mountains, but before that happened #88 followed #82 by a couple of hours or so.
#88 carried three blocks, from caboose forward, Gavin and east, Hillyard, and Wenatchee, and picked up those same three blocks at Everett Jct. The pickup was made behind the Hillyard block so the Gavin block and the Hillyard block both fell together in the train, but that left two Wenatchee blocks, one on the head end and one in the train. #88 was also a 6500 ton helper train.
At Wenatchee the west end switch crew plucked off the caboose, doubled it to a cut of fruit and nonperishabe Gavin cars, if there were any, and put all of that back to the Gavin cars in the train. Meanwhile on the other end, the east end switch crew got both Wenatchee blocks out of the train, put the Hillyard cars back together, and added any available Hillyard cars up to the tonnage limit, which was about 6000 tons IIRC.
AT Quincy #88 picked up 20-25 cars of spuds, shotgunned, not blocked by destination. Hillyard switched them out by destination and got most of them on the rear with the other perishables. Since #88 set out at Hillyard, Hillyard filled the train to tonnage limits typically with Gavin cars.
The point is to get cars of like destination together, which limits switching down the line. There were/are operating plans where multiple unblocked trains run to a hump yard where they are switched to create one or more blocked trains. The SP favored this strategy for years. A good example was Eugene OR. In my opinion the SP did not make any significant effort to bypass hump yards. They just switched the whole thing again at Colton. This illustrates the point that to some degree switching work can be moved from one yard to another.
Mac
I love to see the real railroaders throwing cold water on this PSR nonsense.
So I am kind of curious on this topic. Do they have the cars tagged electronicly yet as to lading of the car and shipper and destination as well as current GPS?
If they had that info on each car along with GPS they could estimate crews and locomotives needed probably days in advance at a junction point to handle the spit out of the blocks for each destination and when they needed to make up a train?
Maybe I am getting too futuristic again and the railroads are not there yet.
All rail cars have two AEI tags affixed - one on either side but, that carries the car reporting marks and number - no lading or shipper information. The purpose of the AEI tag is to facilitate electronic tracking of the car.
I know some large shippers - Olin being one - have invested in actual GPS units for their private cars but, that has as much to do with security and safety as it does figuring out where the car is at any given time.
In terms of a railroad having advance notice of a car eventually coming to them at interchange; with the electronic waybilling in use now, all carriers in a route receive an electronic waybill for the car at the time the shipment is created and waybilled. This doesn't mean individual carriers track every shipment coming to them in real time but, they do know a shipment is headed their way.
CMStPnP So I am kind of curious on this topic. Do they have the cars tagged electronicly yet as to lading of the car and shipper and destination as well as current GPS? If they had that info on each car along with GPS they could estimate crews and locomotives needed probably days in advance at a junction point to handle the spit out of the blocks for each destination and when they needed to make up a train? Maybe I am getting too futuristic again and the railroads are not there yet.
The AEI tag is just a fancy CARINO, that is initials and number.
At any given moment a car may have only ONE active waybill. Waybill data changes with each loading and unloading.Waybill data is stored in the corporate mainframe computer in a database file indexed by CARINO and is available to all who need it, but what really counts is what block a car needs to be in when it leaves a yard. Any yardmaster or clerk knows what his blocks are and can assign a car to a block by destination at a glance. If necessary they can go to the computer, but that was rare in my experience. Destination is shown on train consists.
Note that blocking is in terms of 'my' railroad. Returning to my example of the Gavin and east block at Minneapolis, the GN interchanged with the Q, CNW, MILW, and RI for Chicago alone. Those cars were sorted at Gavin, 500 miles west of Minneapolis. At Minneapolis those cuts, plus whatever Minneapolis had on hand for each connection were tendered to each connecting line. While the Q could 'see' a car in #88 about three days ahead of time and reasonably predict when they would get the car, that told them nothing usefull about what the interchange offering would be three days hence. Yes they could have seen all cars and made an educated guess about when they would show up, but there was really no point. They would deal with what they got when the got it. If traffic was down, they may or may not annul a train. If traffic was up they may call an extra or bleed off the excess traffic into two or three other trains they would run that day anyway.
CARINO is fixed unless car changes hands or is renumbered. In that case reporting marks and numbers will be restenciled AND AEI tag reprogramed. There is really no point in trying to put waybill data on AEI tag and it would be a major effort to keep current.
In the real world when #88 leaves Balmer and the train has been verified as to standing order, Balmer sends the train consist data to Everett. Everett sends train consist to Wenatchee after the Everett Jct. pick up. Wenatchee gets that list at least 5 hours before the train arrives, which gives the Yardmaster plenty of time to figure out his moves, which will be based on destination blocks rather than specific cars.
Remember, this process has gone on for many decades, and today will be very much like tomorrow was.
Computers have allowed ability to update the operating plan more frequently than in the past, which is very handy if you have a complex network with several route options. With the ability to see out 2-3 days it does help plan number of switch jobs and trains.
Juniata ManAll rail cars have two AEI tags affixed - one on either side but, that carries the car reporting marks and number - no lading or shipper information. The purpose of the AEI tag is to facilitate electronic tracking of the car. I know some large shippers - Olin being one - have invested in actual GPS units for their private cars but, that has as much to do with security and safety as it does figuring out where the car is at any given time. In terms of a railroad having advance notice of a car eventually coming to them at interchange; with the electronic waybilling in use now, all carriers in a route receive an electronic waybill for the car at the time the shipment is created and waybilled. This doesn't mean individual carriers track every shipment coming to them in real time but, they do know a shipment is headed their way.
OK so one follow-up question. So with the data the railroads have can it be fed into a Just In Time inventory system for the reciever of the shipment once the car is shipped or is there still work to do there?
I'm just curious how far along the railroads are in supporting logistics management of the manufacturers in regards to inventory materials management they need to manufacture items. It reads like the trucking industry might be a little ahead in this area but I have no clue.
PNWRMNMThe AEI tag is just a fancy CARINO, that is initials and number. At any given moment a car may have only ONE active waybill. Waybill data changes with each loading and unloading.Waybill data is stored in the corporate mainframe computer in a database file indexed by CARINO and is available to all who need it, but what really counts is what block a car needs to be in when it leaves a yard. Any yardmaster or clerk knows what his blocks are and can assign a car to a block by destination at a glance. If necessary they can go to the computer, but that was rare in my experience. Destination is shown on train consists. Note that blocking is in terms of 'my' railroad. Returning to my example of the Gavin and east block at Minneapolis, the GN interchanged with the Q, CNW, MILW, and RI for Chicago alone. Those cars were sorted at Gavin, 500 miles west of Minneapolis. At Minneapolis those cuts, plus whatever Minneapolis had on hand for each connection were tendered to each connecting line. While the Q could 'see' a car in #88 about three days ahead of time and reasonably predict when they would get the car, that told them nothing usefull about what the interchange offering would be three days hence. Yes they could have seen all cars and made an educated guess about when they would show up, but there was really no point. They would deal with what they got when the got it. If traffic was down, they may or may not annul a train. If traffic was up they may call an extra or bleed off the excess traffic into two or three other trains they would run that day anyway. CARINO is fixed unless car changes hands or is renumbered. In that case reporting marks and numbers will be restenciled AND AEI tag reprogramed. There is really no point in trying to put waybill data on AEI tag and it would be a major effort to keep current. In the real world when #88 leaves Balmer and the train has been verified as to standing order, Balmer sends the train consist data to Everett. Everett sends train consist to Wenatchee after the Everett Jct. pick up. Wenatchee gets that list at least 5 hours before the train arrives, which gives the Yardmaster plenty of time to figure out his moves, which will be based on destination blocks rather than specific cars. Remember, this process has gone on for many decades, and today will be very much like tomorrow was. Computers have allowed ability to update the operating plan more frequently than in the past, which is very handy if you have a complex network with several route options. With the ability to see out 2-3 days it does help plan number of switch jobs and trains. Mac
Long time ago back when JB Hunt had it's love fest with BNSF Railway in full swing (1990's). They were really, really impressed with BNSF's ability to answer the question with high accuracy..........where is such and such a trailer now on your BNSF rail system.....concerning BNSF's intermodal service. JB Hunt was so enamored with it they wanted to integrate BNSF shipment tracking into their own website so that the JB Hunt website would serve as a pass through to JB Hunts clients wanting to know exactly where their shipment was. Geez that was about the late 1990's too. Understood Intermodal is probably different than the regular boxcar type shipments as well. I was just curious how all that has evolved the last 20 years or so. Trucking companies were at leading edge of tracking back then until BNSF came along with their system (BNSF had a marketing name for it but my memory is foggy there).
CMStPnP Juniata Man All rail cars have two AEI tags affixed - one on either side but, that carries the car reporting marks and number - no lading or shipper information. The purpose of the AEI tag is to facilitate electronic tracking of the car. I know some large shippers - Olin being one - have invested in actual GPS units for their private cars but, that has as much to do with security and safety as it does figuring out where the car is at any given time. In terms of a railroad having advance notice of a car eventually coming to them at interchange; with the electronic waybilling in use now, all carriers in a route receive an electronic waybill for the car at the time the shipment is created and waybilled. This doesn't mean individual carriers track every shipment coming to them in real time but, they do know a shipment is headed their way. OK so one follow-up question. So with the data the railroads have can it be fed into a Just In Time inventory system for the reciever of the shipment once the car is shipped or is there still work to do there? I'm just curious how far along the railroads are in supporting logistics management of the manufacturers in regards to inventory materials management they need to manufacture items. It reads like the trucking industry might be a little ahead in this area but I have no clue.
Juniata Man All rail cars have two AEI tags affixed - one on either side but, that carries the car reporting marks and number - no lading or shipper information. The purpose of the AEI tag is to facilitate electronic tracking of the car. I know some large shippers - Olin being one - have invested in actual GPS units for their private cars but, that has as much to do with security and safety as it does figuring out where the car is at any given time. In terms of a railroad having advance notice of a car eventually coming to them at interchange; with the electronic waybilling in use now, all carriers in a route receive an electronic waybill for the car at the time the shipment is created and waybilled. This doesn't mean individual carriers track every shipment coming to them in real time but, they do know a shipment is headed their way.
The AAR operates a computer system that is a 'clearing house' for all the participating railroads car movement data and has been since the 1970's from my personal knowledge and probably for a decade or more prior to that.
https://www.aar.org/data-center/
There are a number of 3rd party data logistics companies that process this data for their corporate customers that want the benefit of the data without having to create their own in house organization's to process the data. Organizations such as GM, DuPont and other high volume rail shippers maintain their own in house logistics organizations to manage their shipping and receiving needs.
Wasn't there some private firm trying to put up AEI readers to gather their own data?
BaltACD The AAR operates a computer system that is a 'clearing house' for all the participating railroads carnce the 1970's from my personal knowledge and probably for a decade or more prior to that. https://www.aar.org/data-center/ There are a number of 3rd party data logistics companies that process this data for their corporate customers that want the benefit of the data without having to create their own in house organization's to process the data. Organizations such as GM, DuPont and other high volume rail shippers maintain their own in house logistics organizations to manage their shipping and receiving needs.
The AAR operates a computer system that is a 'clearing house' for all the participating railroads carnce the 1970's from my personal knowledge and probably for a decade or more prior to that.
While I was still working, we contracted with Intellitrans to download our tracking data from the AAR, scrub it for errors then present it to us in our desired format. We also used them to process and transmit all our electronic waybilling to the railroads.
I mentioned Olin earlier. They created their rail fleet management and tracking system from the ground up - similar to what you mention with regard to Dow or GM. Olin even has motion activated cameras on their TIH fleet with the feed tied into the onboard GPS units. An old industry pal at Olin has shared some of the video activity from their tank car mounted cameras ranging from derailments to geese standing on the manway platforms.
This is a lot to wrap around. Here is one problem of the many possible I can see. Train #1 has left A with blocks for B,C,D,E. At B the front locos pull bloc B off and backs the block onto B's receiving track. Backs onto C's block and connects to rest of train and then leaves after full brake test. But C's block at B contains a lot of empty cars and lumber carriers that then derail such as NS has done at Horse Shoe curve.
Required car placements can wreck ( sorry ) any pre blocking plans unless each yard take extra effort to prevent conflicts. When they don't or forget ?
Another way is for train #1 to have his blocks as C,B, D, E. Then at B pulls C and B out backs B onto receiving track then backs onto track with C , D connected and connects to rest of train. Meanwhile B yard crew connects E and F cars to rear of train. Brake check away #1 goes. If too much weight on rear of train now with epties up front ? ? ?. What about if DPU on rear of original #1 and B's E consists of haz mat ?
What happens if B's yard crew runs out of time due to #1 late ?
at
rdamonWasn't there some private firm trying to put up AEI readers to gather their own data?
The key was not that they 'couldn't get the data', it was that they hadn't cleared the radio use with the Feds. Whether or not there was lobbying from sources like individual railroads and the AAR to take that Federal action might be difficult to substantiate, but to say railroads were unhappy with some aspects of private AEI data harvesting and peddling would be an understatement.
blue streak 1This is a lot to wrap around. Here is one problem of the many possible I can see. Train #1 has left A with blocks for B,C,D,E. At B the front locos pull bloc B off and backs the block onto B's receiving track. Backs onto C's block and connects to rest of train and then leaves after full brake test. But C's block at B contains a lot of empty cars and lumber carriers that then derail such as NS has done at Horse Shoe curve. Required car placements can wreck ( sorry ) any pre blocking plans unless each yard take extra effort to prevent conflicts. When they don't or forget ? Another way is for train #1 to have his blocks as C,B, D, E. Then at B pulls C and B out backs B onto receiving track then backs onto track with C , D connected and connects to rest of train. Meanwhile B yard crew connects E and F cars to rear of train. Brake check away #1 goes. If too much weight on rear of train now with epties up front ? ? ?. What about if DPU on rear of original #1 and B's E consists of haz mat ? What happens if B's yard crew runs out of time due to #1 late ?
Welcome to the world of a Yardmaster - complying with the Operating Plan while also complying with the various car placement restrictions.
blue streak 1 This is a lot to wrap around. Here is one problem of the many possible I can see. Train #1 has left A with blocks for B,C,D,E. At B the front locos pull bloc B off and backs the block onto B's receiving track. Backs onto C's block and connects to rest of train and then leaves after full brake test. But C's block at B contains a lot of empty cars and lumber carriers that then derail such as NS has done at Horse Shoe curve. Required car placements can wreck ( sorry ) any pre blocking plans unless each yard take extra effort to prevent conflicts. When they don't or forget ? Another way is for train #1 to have his blocks as C,B, D, E. Then at B pulls C and B out backs B onto receiving track then backs onto track with C , D connected and connects to rest of train. Meanwhile B yard crew connects E and F cars to rear of train. Brake check away #1 goes. If too much weight on rear of train now with epties up front ? ? ?. What about if DPU on rear of original #1 and B's E consists of haz mat ? What happens if B's yard crew runs out of time due to #1 late ? at
Whenever we do intermediate work, we get new paperwork. The computer would flag any placement errors and require correction. (Or time and initials if the error isn't hazmat and some one in management wants to take a chance.) Often, if the setout creates an error, they change the setout. Either leave some of B's cars on the train (using the example given) and have them set out at C. Or if taking some of C's cars off, they'll do that.
Anymore, most of our blocks to be set out at intermediate points are placed on the rear of the train. Just pull through a yard track and whack off the setout and move the eot. Now sometimes there is a pickup for the next block, so you cut off, go to the other track(s) and back onto them. Unless the pickup is for the headend block, then you first have to do the pick up.
The rear end setout came about to remove the need for the conductor to ride a shove when making a head end setout. Some of our set outs are big sometimes. This works out well, until something happens and you can't pull through the yard but have to work off the main. One time I had to pull by and shove the setout in because one end of the yard lead was out of service due to a derailment. Had to shove over 2 miles of train with the conductor riding the point.
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