I would like to suggest a counterpoint to Jerry Dziedzic's "On Point" coulmn in the April 2022 MR. Not criticizing anything he wrote, just giving my strategy.
My suggestion, especially for beginners (and when switching an industry for the first time as a visitor) is to pull and spot each track individually rather than pull all the outbounds, then spot all the inbounds.
If you have cars that get respotted (only 2 of the three cars in the track get pulled), pulling all the cars can get complicated. By switching one track at a time it minimizes the number of cars you are handling and you have to plan for. Not only on that track, but overall. If you train is inbound with 12 cars and you have to pull 6 and spot 6, that means if you pull everything first you now have to deal with 18 cars before you can start spotting. If you pull one track at a time, and the most you have to pull out of a track is 2 cars, then the most you will have to deal with is 14 cars at any given time. If its a larger town, that difference can be a lot of cars.
Switching one track at a time also means that you are always "caught up". If you have to take a break or clear up, or just need to catch your breath, you don't have stuff scattered all over. It's easy to regroup and start working again.
While some may think that pull everything is less moves, if you get confused or get bound up handling too many cars, its easy strat doubling handling cars and in the end take longer.
Another thing I like to do is break the industry into two (or four) groups. I would switch all the trailing point switches than all the facing point switches. If there were both industries off the main and the siding, I would have trailing point siding, facing point siding, trailling point main, facing point main. The exact order would depend on the tracka rrangement and how many cars I have to handle. By switching all tracks in order by the way they face, it minimizes the number of run arounds I have to make.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
I've worked industries in real life with lots of different sidings. going back and forth each track individually takes a lot of time. Sometimes you have no choice, but it usually is (or seems) easier to grab as many empties as you can, then go in and spot all your loads.
Holding onto a few extra empties when spotting isn't normally a huge deal (unless there's a space constraint), and having more cars = having more brakes.
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
Yep, Dave.
I agree, especially if like me, you're old and designed your layout with multiple industries on the same spur. It's getting hard to remember all those re-spots.
Charlie
CharlieM Yep, Dave. I agree, especially if like me, you're old and designed your layout with multiple industries on the same spur. It's getting hard to remember all those re-spots. Charlie
That's why many conductors make themselves a little cheat sheet. (small hand-written list of cars to be pulled/placed).
I read that article myself and came up with a question related to the setup of my layout. (Slightly off-topic but related.) How and when would the prototype switch an industry in this situation?: Local headed west out of a yard in caboose era. Printing plant with a spur going the same direction as the engine with no run around available. (Urban area with the spur terminating at a river bank.) It gets inbound box cars with large paper rolls and barrels of ink. It also gets occasional empty RBLs for large outbound print jobs. Paper come from points west of the yard. Would it be switched on the return trip (eastbound) or would something else need to be arranged? Any suggestions would be most welcomed.
I will not see the article you refer to but, this is the way I was taught to do it. When you build your train, you put all the trailing point cars right behind the engine, and all the facing point cars directly ahead of the caboose, with your train headed west. Because local crews usually work the same jobs, day in and, day out, they try to block their train so all of the cars for each industry to be setout, are in order, with the first cars to be setout, coupled directly to the cars bound for what are now facing point spurs. The local goes west to its turnback point, working only the trailing point spurs. Any cars picked up are placed directly ahead of the first facing point car.
At the turn-back, or run-around point, and all trailing point work is done, the train pulls clear of the main. The engine cuts off, pulls clear of the switch and reverses direction, past its train. It then couples onto the caboose and sets it over on the main in the clear. The engine reverses back past the switch and re-enters the siding and, couples to its train. The train is pulled clear of switch on the main and shoved back to pick up the caboose. Brake test. Now you are ready to work the spurs that were once facing point switches as trailing points, and your pickups on the way out, are all neatly gathered ahead of the caboose, out of the way.
Modeling the 1970s, I would presume the power for this train was a bi-directional roadswitcher and did not require turning. Also we did not switch with the caboose. On some roads it was prohibited, others outlawed it if you had a fire in the stove. If you must leave cars offspot, be careful of where you leave them. An industry that owns its own track (THEY paid to have it built) would raise one he-- of a stink if they couldn't get a delivery because somebody else's cars were plugging up THEIR track. No railroad owned trackage available, put 'em with the pickups and take 'em back to the yard. Don't get into trouble.
NHTXWhen you build your train, you put all the trailing point cars right behind the engine, and all the facing point cars directly ahead of the caboose, with your train headed west.
If the crew is building their own train, in other words it is originating at a small yard where there isn't a switch engine on duty, then they might do that. If they are originating out of a major yard and the train is built by a switcher in the yard, the chances of that happening are minimal.
In all the years of all the switching jobs I managed in 4 states, none of my industry jobs lined up cars by industry before they left. Not saying it wasn't done, just I never saw any one of the several dozen jobs do that. They all took the cars out mine run and switched it out on line.
Part of the reason is lead time in the yard. If its a yard with several trains or engines working, if the lead is used to detail switch one local it ends up delaying all the jobs, because they can't switch their trains until the first train finishes. If its a switch engine that has to build multiple trains and switch inbound cuts, detail switching a local delays all the other switching the engine has to do. Locals are allowed to switch cars, take it out of the yard and let them deal with it wen they get to the industries.
A lot of it can also depend on whether the industries are "spot on arrival" or "order in" types of operations. If its spot on arrival (usually smaller industries, with low volume), it make sense because any car just gets spotted. For the order in industries (usually larger industries using multiple commodities or processes), they give the crew a switch list of which cars they want spotted and everything else goes off spot. Since the crew is going to be switching the cars around when they get there to conform to the spot list the industry gives them, there isn't a need to spend a lot of time switching stuff in the yard.
YMMV
zugmann I've worked industries in real life with lots of different sidings. going back and forth each track individually takes a lot of time. Sometimes you have no choice, but it usually is (or seems) easier to grab as many empties as you can, then go in and spot all your loads. Holding onto a few extra empties when spotting isn't normally a huge deal (unless there's a space constraint), and having more cars = having more brakes.
I agree, and I'll also add a couple more stories from the 1:1 world.
Just like a yard lead, track time on a busy mainline is at a premium and hard to get. You want the local do as much pre-switching as they can before going out there.
Some customers will throw unexpected flies into the ointment. One warehouse here will sometimes release only one or two boxcars but leave the doors open and walkways down on the other cars they haven't finished with yet, blocking access to the ones you want.
In addition to the open flame issue some structures are not tall enough for locomotives and cabooses to enter, and some other types of cars may not fit either. So watch out what you are holding onto while switching older warehouses or tank car racks.
I remember leaving some extra spotters on an adjacent customer track we thought was abandoned, only to come back the next day to find a large concrete block on the track. Turns out that site wasn't abandoned, and the owner had decided to hold the cars hostage until CN paid him a storage fee.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
FRRYKid I read that article myself and came up with a question related to the setup of my layout. (Slightly off-topic but related.) How and when would the prototype switch an industry in this situation?: Local headed west out of a yard in caboose era. Printing plant with a spur going the same direction as the engine with no run around available. (Urban area with the spur terminating at a river bank.) It gets inbound box cars with large paper rolls and barrels of ink. It also gets occasional empty RBLs for large outbound print jobs. Paper come from points west of the yard. Would it be switched on the return trip (eastbound) or would something else need to be arranged? Any suggestions would be most welcomed.
How would a local back in the days of a caboose, and a 4 or 5 man crew, have switched a facing point spur? They probably would've "dropped"* the cars into the spur, room permitting, then once the cars were on the spur they could switch out the inbounds for the outbounds. Likely spotting the outbounds for pickup on the return trip. Which for an out one day, back the next day local would've been the next working trip in the opposite direction.
*-AKA, flying switch and other local/regional railroad slang terms.
Against the rules? Maybe yes, maybe no. Many rule books allowed it "when practicable." I found in an old Railroad Magazine item a retired, veteran railroader said about the practice, "If everything went well, it was practicable. If something went wrong, then it wasn't practicable." It's mostly outlawed now, but it lasted long enough that I participated in dropping cars when a student trainman. It was because I was the third man on a normally two man ground crew that they did it. The more people available, the easier it is to do. However, I know of now retired old head conductors, working alone - no brakeman, on a local who regularly dropped cars at one location.
It would be kind of hard to replicate on a model railroad.
Jeff
NHTX I will not see the article you refer to but, this is the way I was taught to do it. When you build your train, you put all the trailing point cars right behind the engine, and all the facing point cars directly ahead of the caboose, with your train headed west. Because local crews usually work the same jobs, day in and, day out, they try to block their train so all of the cars for each industry to be setout, are in order, with the first cars to be setout, coupled directly to the cars bound for what are now facing point spurs. The local goes west to its turnback point, working only the trailing point spurs. Any cars picked up are placed directly ahead of the first facing point car. At the turn-back, or run-around point, and all trailing point work is done, the train pulls clear of the main. The engine cuts off, pulls clear of the switch and reverses direction, past its train. It then couples onto the caboose and sets it over on the main in the clear. The engine reverses back past the switch and re-enters the siding and, couples to its train. The train is pulled clear of switch on the main and shoved back to pick up the caboose. Brake test. Now you are ready to work the spurs that were once facing point switches as trailing points, and your pickups on the way out, are all neatly gathered ahead of the caboose, out of the way. Modeling the 1970s, I would presume the power for this train was a bi-directional roadswitcher and did not require turning. Also we did not switch with the caboose. On some roads it was prohibited, others outlawed it if you had a fire in the stove. If you must leave cars offspot, be careful of where you leave them. An industry that owns its own track (THEY paid to have it built) would raise one he-- of a stink if they couldn't get a delivery because somebody else's cars were plugging up THEIR track. No railroad owned trackage available, put 'em with the pickups and take 'em back to the yard. Don't get into trouble.
Then, in theory, if the siding in question had an outbound and the local had an inbound, could the outbound be used as a "buffer" to spot the inbound if there were no other place to put the outbound?
Yes, you can switch with the pull. The idea is to tailor your moves to best suit the location, the needs of the customer, and if possible, save as much work as possible for your crew. Railroading, including switching takes place outdoors, in all kinds of weather. Your crew will certainly let you know if you are working them needlessly. The goal is to do the job safely, so that everyone goes home at end of the day. This means rules compliance first and foremost, then comes customer needs, then energy conservation-your crew's.
Disclaimer: I know nothing of railroading after 1986, reduced crew sizes, no cabooses etc, so much of what I know, is irrelevant in today's world but, because he is modeling the 1970s, was still applicable.