Where did the delivery come from? The same problem would exist with a north facing switch regardless of the length of the delivering train. Looking at maps it appears they would have to run the special train past you clear to Canton to have a place to put the engines on the other end of the train.
As I recall, that facility is about five years old. Isn't your real problem with whoever it was that designed the north facing switch? Perhaps they thought there was a major sawmill somewhere on the plains to your south?
daveklepper Right, never push a train blind.
Right, never push a train blind.
Unless you're backing up to pick up a crew member in accordance with UP GCOR Rule 6.6 (Back up movements).
Jeff
Dakguy201 Where did the delivery come from? The same problem would exist with a north facing switch regardless of the length of the delivering train. Looking at maps it appears they would have to run the special train past you clear to Canton to have a place to put the engines on the other end of the train. As I recall, that facility is about five years old. Isn't your real problem with whoever it was that designed the north facing switch? Perhaps they thought there was a major sawmill somewhere on the plains to your south?
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
daveklepper Right, never push a train blind. But I can ask the lumber salesman: Look, the siding has been bought, the track is in. If your freight costs are less by rail, by all means you should make every effort to get reliable rail service before moving to trucks. What your getting reliable service does to BNCF's bottom line isn't your worry. The railroad is plenty profitable and won't go out of business subsidizing your timely freight deliveries. Now, does that make sense?
Right, never push a train blind. But I can ask the lumber salesman: Look, the siding has been bought, the track is in. If your freight costs are less by rail, by all means you should make every effort to get reliable rail service before moving to trucks. What your getting reliable service does to BNCF's bottom line isn't your worry. The railroad is plenty profitable and won't go out of business subsidizing your timely freight deliveries. Now, does that make sense?
My experience with the lumber business as it relates to railroads has been that the Shipper consignes the car to themselves at some distant point, as they have not yet sold it's contents to the ultimate buyer. While the car is in transit, the Shipper finds a buyer and contacts the railroad where the car currently locates and initiates a reconsignment and diversion order to send the car to the buyer of the contents.
Such a operation keeps the shipper fluidly loading product as well as creating a shorter delivery time frame for the final buyer of the car load.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
BNSF safety rules, and almost every class one carrier’s rules prohibits “blind shoves” into any stub track, any industry under any circumstance, and any siding where there is a public crossing.
There are exceptions, such as when in CTC, or if the crossings have full automatic protection, but that doesn’t apply here.
Who owns and maintains the track?
Most industries own and maintain their own track; usually from about 50 feet in from the main line switch….and they may, or may not have much in the way of a maintenance budget…even shoving one car with no one on the point is a great way to find a broken rail the hard way.
Riding a shove for a mile or two isn’t that big a deal…I do it every day with 100 plus cars, we drag it out of the receiving yard and shove around into the yard proper, filling up holding tracks with switch cuts, but that also would depend on the local union contract.
The difficulty I see here is getting the car cut out of the inbound and placed so the local can bring it back out to you asap.
The easiest solution I see is to have a short, three or four hundred foot siding installed, which ties in to your track on the north end, and the main on the south end…that way the south bound can stop, cut your car out, shove it north back in the siding, then get back against their train and go to Marion, while your switch crew takes their dingy up and reaches into the siding from your track, drags back onto your track, and shoves the rest of the way to the dock…same can be done with the local, they just cut the car out to the siding, and get out of Dodge!
Not being a jerk here, but blind shoves, even one car movements, gets people hurt and killed all the time…there are endless reports of guys hitting all kinds of stuff, including themselves when doing so.
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Murphy Siding What is that man protecting the lead car from, when it's just one car being pushed through an alfalfa field?
What is that man protecting the lead car from, when it's just one car being pushed through an alfalfa field?
Maybe your 'self proclaimed railroad expert' should trip and fall in the gauge of the track and not be able to get up and see what happens when a blind shove into your track comes his way. Not Pretty!
BNSF may wish to keep the business as a loss leader to entice other customers to locate on the siding.
And if the lumber operation says the cost of the siding won't pay for itself in saved freight charges for many years, then spending more money to make the siding work better doesn't make sense. If BNSF can provide decent service under the present arrangement, keep the status quo. You might also offer to assist them in finding other shippers to relocate on the siding. If there are more shppers, then it will be in BNSF's own interest to modify the siding to make its use more efficient.
Test
After working many years as a yard co-ordinator you learn how to be creative. So let's be creative at minimal cost. A good 2nd or third hand track mobile plus a coffee maker could get your "hot" car to your spur in record time. But first, work on building a good rapport by asking the crew for a solution. If they can't suggest a means to help you, you suggest that perhaps the next time they have a car for you they could split their train at your switch and you could send your track mobile to grab your load of lumber. After you clear and the conductor has his train back together, you offer to drive him up to his head end with hot coffees for the crew. I guarantee that on their return trip they will slow down to see if you have unloaded the rail car, and if so they will stop to pick it up. Just make sure that your coffee pot is ready. You will also notice in the future that likely your rail car will arrive right behind the locomotives on a regular basis. The pluses. You get your rail car and the train crew gets an attaboy in the form of a coffee. The lumber company avoids demurrage charges. The quick turnaround of the rail car gets it back to its own railway faster, thus reducing foreign car fees to the receiving railway. Upper railroad management loves that. Will the trainmaster approve of this method. Probably. The less times he receives phone calls from irate customers the better his disposition. He may come to your siding to witness the maneuver to ensure safety protocol is followed. Give him a business card and a coffee and you might find that you will receive a phone call announcing the arrival of your next rail car.
WOW!!
Guelph Junction Will the trainmaster approve of this method. Probably.
More like probably not. No way am I going to let someone take their dinky/trackmobile onto the mainline I am occupying without my bosses right there giving me explicit permission. Sorry, but way too many things can go wrong.
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
Murphy Siding [snipped - PDN] . . . Some time back, Mark W. Hemphill wrote about how there is some business the railroads just don't need. We fit that bill, right down to his telling a story about a receiver seeing his car go by, but never see it spotted. . . .
* http://trn.trains.com/en/Magazine%20Issues/2004/November%202004.aspx
Looks like that issue is still available for $5.99, etc.: http://www.kalmbachstore.com/trn041101.html
- Paul North.
BaltACD My experience with the lumber business as it relates to railroads has been that the Shipper consignes the car to themselves at some distant point, as they have not yet sold it's contents to the ultimate buyer. While the car is in transit, the Shipper finds a buyer and contacts the railroad where the car currently locates and initiates a reconsignment and diversion order to send the car to the buyer of the contents. Such a operation keeps the shipper fluidly loading product as well as creating a shorter delivery time frame for the final buyer of the car load.
zugmann Guelph Junction Will the trainmaster approve of this method. Probably. More like probably not. No way am I going to let someone take their dinky/track mobile onto the mainline I am occupying without my bosses right there giving me explicit permission. Sorry, but way too many things can go wrong.
More like probably not. No way am I going to let someone take their dinky/track mobile onto the mainline I am occupying without my bosses right there giving me explicit permission. Sorry, but way too many things can go wrong.
Who's the comedian who says "There's your sign?................. Our car was released for pick up by noon on the 24th, but has not been picked up yet. Every time a train rolls by, even if it's a rock unit train from the Dakota and Iowa Railroad, the world's smartest forklift operator, who knows everything about railroads because he once worked for a grain elevator has a conniption fit, because the train didn't stop to pick up the car. Yesterday, a unit grain train went by heading south. It had a DPU on the tail end. Mr. Einstein said he now had proof that the railroads don't know what they're doing. "All they have to do, is stop the train, and have the guy in that back engine pull our car out and hook it onto the rest of the train, and the problem would be solved.".............. There's you sign.
(1) Jeff Foxworthy
(2) The minute you notified BNSF that you now had an empty, constructive placement was on your side. Can't do much about the culture of cheap (don't have a problem either with old equipment that is well maintained); can't undo the hard feelings on both sides (so un-necessary & counter-productive), as for ol' Einstein - reality will catch up with him someday.
Murphy Siding Who's the comedian who says "There's your sign?.................
Who's the comedian who says "There's your sign?.................
That would be Bill Engvall.
Paul North: why pay $5.99 for something that I have in my archives? Oh, not everybody keeps back issues, nor has everybody has been subscribing forever. I did buy some back issues (earlier than April 1952), and it was hard to scrape together the 25 cents each cost me. That is an interesting account, in that it points out many important things that one department may be totally unaware of when it makes a commitment.
MC: Now the railroad is responsible for any demurrage charge?
Johnny
No demurrage charges. Once we release the car to the railroad it's theirs. It can sit there as long as they want it to.
PNWRMNM [snipped - PDN] . . . The other issue is your spur. I looked on Google Earth and whoever laid it out to open north should be shot, since there is plenty of open ground to the south. It appears that the spur could have, and certainly should have been, built to open to the south. Had it been you would not have this problem. . . .
Murphy Siding [snipped - PDN] . . . Our new location, built 5 years ago, should never have had a rail spur. But, no one asked me. In 100 years, we will not save enough in freight to pay for the investment. What rubs me the wrong way, is that at nowhere along the planning stages did anyone from the railroad have the gumption to tell our owner that a rail spur was really not a good idea.
All of the above is OK as far as it goes - but the railroad has at least some moral culpability in the Murphy Siding layout. Said railroad had to review and approve the siding layout, and purchase and install the turnout (switch) for this spur, which should have involved both the Operating and Engineering Depts. And no one from either Dept. realized that the traffic to/ from this spur would be coming from the 'wrong' direction most of the time ?
It seems that it is the only 'facing point' spur in the vicinity, such that it's the one that is 'out of step' with the prevailing direction of all the other spurs in the area ? That unusual fact didn't strike anyone from the railroad as odd or a potential future problem ?
Another seldom-mentioned reality is that changes in the railroad's operating plan can render a spur or even an extensive industry track layout as obsolete even overnight. A spur that works well in one direction with the present-day "operating plan" may quickly become a hindrance or even an encumbrance when another operating plan is implemented, such as one that has the local freight coming from the other direction to serve customers in the vicinity. Several years ago I saw the plans for a rail yard to serve a proposed quarry load-out at a local junction between a branch line and a main line. I questioned the direction of the tracks, and was told that the local operating folks had requested them to be that way. That sounded good then, but there was nothing compelling or obviously logical about that direction. I could instead equally well envision another superintendent reversing the operating pattern and directions to serve that end of the branch in a more logical and efficient manner (at least in his view). What result for the yard layout ? It would be mostly backwards then ! So a shipper/ receiver - who believed in good faith what the railroad said when the spur was built - may come to grief when the railroad changes its mind about that. All it takes is a new operating plan or blocking pattern, merger, sale, or abandonment of an 'upstream' connection, a new route or pattern for the local freight, etc. and "the best laid plans o' mice and men, Aft gang a-gley" (from Scottish poet Robert Burns).
Murphy: Nevertheless, I see a possible revolution in loose car railroading for private owner siding shippers and receivers that may such railroading profitable and assure prompt handling:
The railroad does mass purchasing of new trackmobiles for this type of service and leases them to siding owners.
Trains both shippers and crews for their operation.
All operations from a few feet of the switch through the coupling of the delivered car or the uncoupling of the outgoing car (either one empty or loaded) is handled by railroad people.
Siding-owner's side from the switch everything is the shipper's/receiver's responsibility, and it is his to use for any other functions as well.
Leasing comes with a maintenance contract , maintenance with the railroad's other highway equipment. Railroad expects proper care, just as rental truck and car companies expect.
s
daveklepperLeasing comes with a maintenance contract , maintenance with the railroad's other highway equipment. Railroad expects proper care, just as rental truck and car companies expect.
If you're going out on the rail system (mainline), wouldn't the trackmobile need a FRA blue card (And all associated maintenance/inspection costs)?
Seems like a costly proposition.
While it's a pain for the customer, Murphy's lumber yard in this case, the BNSF may still be making money off this car load. At least for maybe the first couple of times it goes past without being spotted.
Since the local is an out and back type operation, no one probably thought too much about the hassle of spotting the lumber yard. In a perfect world, there should be no trouble with the local spotting it on the return trip. What they don't take into consideration is that often things aren't perfect. The local is delayed on the outward leg to the point that they are either close to running out of time (HOS) or just going on over time. I know on our company, local instructions often say that all overtime on industry jobs must be approved by the officer on duty. I could see a local trainmaster, considering how few cars the lumber yard gets, telling the crew to high ball the work. They save money in the short run, but alienate customers and lose business in the long run.
Railroading is rife with things that look good on paper, but don't work out so well in actual practice.
(1) Liability out the roof
(2) Union agreement
(3) Blue Cards
(4) Operating rules tests & FRA requirements (Bubba, the so-called expert probably has a snowball's chance in Hades of ever passing one of those. He'll be busy lookin' for phantom DPU trainmen to complain to)
(5) New O/O/M agreements for the track.
(And I agree on the BN/BNSF culpability issue. It smells more of BN than BNSF. Industrial development people shoulda caught that.)
Again, the shipper/receiver people do not enter onto the railroad's track. only operate on the private siding itself.
daveklepper Again, the shipper/receiver people do not enter onto the railroad's track. only operate on the private siding itself.
Dave,
To solve Murphy's problem, a facing point switch for the southward local, the trackmobile would have to enter the railroad's main track to get the car. Your proposed cure is worse than the disease.
Mac
One of the train crew (one of the three) would operate the trackmobile while on railroad property. I thought I had made that clear and apologize if I did not. Without that condition, I would agree with you. Remember that the railroad owns the trackmobile. It is leased to the shipper/receiver. When you rent a car from Hertz, and the car needs servicing for one reason or another before you drive off, it is the Hertz person that drives through the car wash or to the gas pumps, not you.
If I read the rest of the post correctly, Murphy only receives around 12 cars a year?
Why would the railroad own a trackmobile just for one customer?
Why lease one for just one customer who only gets 1 car a month?
Makes no sense dollar wise.
And it has been explained before, it would have to be FRA compliant, go through a 92 day inspection, and be crewed by a certified engineer, which I can promise you the railroad will not supply.
Crew consist agreements on Class 1 roads prohibits any other crew member acting as an engineer, (even if they have a current license)
If you start on duty as a conductor, you have to finish as a conductor, (engineer, brakeman) by national contract.
With a carrier without a union presence, your idea could work, but the railroad would still not lease or buy a trackmobile just to service a customer who gets so few cars.
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