How are trains put together

[railfan619]

Hi I was watching a couple of trains the last few days go by my work one was a train of flat cars another one was all coal cars and. I do know a coal train is what I beleave is a manifest train where is only one type of car but how are other types of trains set up like mixed frieght trains. You know like a train of a couple box cars and flat cars and other types of trains are set up.Are they set up by their orgin of destions or what in other words I really don't know.[#wstupid]

[csxengineer98]

yes...trains are built in blocks of cars by destination... now to refine it a bit more...differnt kinds of rail cars and differnt kinds of cargos have restrictions on them and have a proper location in a train.... such as where a HazMat load can or cant go... where a loaded pipe car with no bulkheads can and cant go... the list can go on and on...the railroads have equipment handleing rules that lay out in detail how a train is to be build... alot of times it gets done right..but sometimes thier are errors that have to be fixed....
csx engineer

[Anonymous]

Railfan,

I believe you have it backwards when it comes to Manifest trains. The coal trains and same car trains you speak of are known as Unit trains. Unit trains carry one commodity such as: coal, ore, coke, grain, etc. And what gets really wacky is how a particular car gets from shipper to consignee. A plastic pellet car owned by Amoco may be loaded in Houston, TX. The customer is in west-central Indiana and takes the plastic pellets and makes them into plastic wrap and shipping containers, etc. The customer is served by CSX, but CSX does not serve Houston directly. This means it has to be shipped by another RR, say UP for example. This is a very general explanation and only a rough example mind you, but it should give some idea of what goes on.

1. UP local picks up loaded pellet car and brings back to yard in Houston.
2. The pellet car is classified in the yard and then put on an outbound train to outlying station.
3. Depending on that particular RR's operations the car could go to Little Rock, AR first and end up being set off there in a block of cars going to a similar destination.
4. Let's say another UP train comes by Little Rock and picks up that block of cars and it heads for St. Louis.
5. St. Louis is a major interchange point for East/West RR's. So the block of cars that the pellet car in ends up being transfered over to CSX.
6. CSX may then bring the cars East to Terre Haute, IN where the pellet car and other cars that go to customers in the same area lie.
7. A local in Terre Haute picks up the pellet car and delivers it to the customer that makes the plastic wrap.
8. The car is emptied by the customer and when ready, it is picked up by the local and the process then goes in reverse over and over and over again.

Remember this is a very basic example and is not really accurate, but I hope it gives you a better idea and didn't confuse you more! [:D]

[edblysard]

Manifest, or mixed freights are the ones where it seems the cars are all mixed up....unit or shuttle trains are the coal drags or the grain trains you see, they work on a point of origin to point of distribution run, direct from the grain elevator to the shipping facility or user, same with coal, direct from the mine to the utility.

Mixed freights are often blocked out in that, while you might see what looks like a jumble of mixed up cars, they are really a series of blocks, or sections of the train headed to another yard, to be reswitched into smaller trains for local distribution, or interchanged with another railroad, or switched into a train with another destination.

So the mixed freight may consist of a locomotive(s), followed by a block of cars destined for yard A, followed by a block of cars for yard B, so forth and so on...on occasion, you will see a big string of the same car, tankers or boxcars, maybe covered hoppers...all headed to the same industry, but there are not enough of them to justify a unit train, so they are included in the mixed freight.

In a yard such as the one I work in, we have assigned tracks for different industries, and tracks assigned to the Class1 members...UP has three tracks, BNSF has three, and TexMex has two...all the cars for, say, South LA on the UP go in one track, all the cars bound for local yards in another, all the BNSFs headed to Okalahoma go here, all the Chicago go here...when the Class1s pull their cars, they double over the tracks in the order they will pass through the points...so the next manifest or mixed freight you see might be picking up more cars at its next stop, and dropping off some also...

In a yard owned by a Class1, they will have tracks assigned to their different destinations..say all the New York cars go here, all the Houston cars go here...

The point is each yard that handles cars forwards them on in the next train headed to the cars final destiantion.
The industry has a computer system, somewhat tied together, that has the information on each car, who the shipper is, where it is destined for, where it is now....which allows the guys who put together the trains you see in the order best suited for that trains route.

Ed

[Anonymous]

Now that's the kind of explanation I'm talking about! Thanks Ed! [^]

[adrianspeeder]

ED RULES!

Adrianspeeder

[Murphy Siding]

Thank You Ed. That was educational![:)]

[csxengineer98]

lol... Adrianspeeder...i love the warning sign...lol
csx engineer

[coborn35]

Usually you put together trains like this:
The driver, sometimes called an "engineer" backs the train "somtimes refered to as a "locomotive" onto some things called "cars" and then does what some people call coupling the two hand (or if you want to get technical, knuckle) couplers together. Then the gopher or "fireman" connects two things called "air hoses" and then the engineer blows air into them. I fthe engineer does not have enough breath, he uses the "locomotives" breath to do it for him. Then the "train" gets pulled places never before seen by humans, for example, the track by the BNSF grain elevators.
Hope this helps. (oh, and Ed is just another crazy person thinking he knows alot about trains)

[edblysard]

You forgot to add...it’s a monopolistic railroad serving a captive shipper...!

Ed[:D]