BackshopI didn't know that CSX ran through Egypt.
Just the Bum F area that is on the De-nial
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
I didn't know that CSX ran through Egypt.
NKP guy BaltACD within short order the entire CSX system was codlocked to a relative standstill. This codlocking (great word!) cost me & the Mrs. a Calif. Zephyr trip to San Francisco. Our train from Akron stopped outside of Willard because of yard congestion. Consequently, in a cornfield 50 miles from B.F.E., the crew outlawed. By the time we finally got to Chicago, we missed our connection on #5 with a bedroom. I explained to the Amtrak agent in CUT that giving us coach seats the next day (of course all the bedrooms & roomettes were sold) was a deal breaker; they gave us instead a free night in a nice hotel, a generous dinner allowance, and two seats on an airplane to San Francisco the next day! I'm sorry we missed the ride on #5 through the Rockies & Sierras, but we did get two extra nights in San Francisco. As Ira Gershwin once wrote, "Who could ask for anything more?" And all because CSX, like an over-ambitious python, became codlocked.
BaltACD within short order the entire CSX system was codlocked to a relative standstill.
This codlocking (great word!) cost me & the Mrs. a Calif. Zephyr trip to San Francisco. Our train from Akron stopped outside of Willard because of yard congestion. Consequently, in a cornfield 50 miles from B.F.E., the crew outlawed. By the time we finally got to Chicago, we missed our connection on #5 with a bedroom. I explained to the Amtrak agent in CUT that giving us coach seats the next day (of course all the bedrooms & roomettes were sold) was a deal breaker; they gave us instead a free night in a nice hotel, a generous dinner allowance, and two seats on an airplane to San Francisco the next day! I'm sorry we missed the ride on #5 through the Rockies & Sierras, but we did get two extra nights in San Francisco. As Ira Gershwin once wrote, "Who could ask for anything more?"
And all because CSX, like an over-ambitious python, became codlocked.
Your experience highlights what happens when a line segment melts down. When trains can't, for whatever the reason (yard capacity or crew issues), trains have to be parked outside the terminal or crew change location. With trains being parked that increases the amount of the line that has to be negotiated for trains to meet.
As a Dispatcher, YOU MUST keep one track open for the MOVEMENT of trains. Keeping one track open can mean that 'moveable trains' may have to run 100 and in some cases MORE to get around the parked trains, for whatever reason they got parked.
To empty out the 'parking lot' will require two crews for through trains and maybe even two crews for trains being yarded in a terminal. To bring a through train into the crew change location requires a crew to get the train at its parked location and bring it to the crew change location where the outbound crew will move it to the next crew change/terminal location. Depending upon the crew agreement that is in effect on any particular territory - a crew pulling in parked trains MAY if things time out right, bring in two and sometimes more trains to the crew change/terminal that is codlocked. Digging a codlocked location out of its misery and back to a condition of fluidity is normally a long drawn out affair requiring coordination of crew availability on both sides of the crew change location.
It doesn't do any good to bring a train into a crew change location if there is not an outbound crew available to continue its movement out of the crew change location.
BaltACDwithin short order the entire CSX system was codlocked to a relative standstill.
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SD60MAC9500 Shadow the Cats owner My hubby just laughs and remembers the SP/UP merger where UP decided that all the smaller yards around Houston were not needed besides the main one and the carnage that happened nationwide on their system for about the next 12-18 months. UP tried to move all classification from Strang Yard, in La Porte, to Englewood. Strang was classifying 600 cars/day. I think Englewood was only good for 1800/day and that was pushing it. That caused a cascading effect across the network. Typical execs, trying to save a buck without a system analysis of Strang's closure..
Shadow the Cats owner My hubby just laughs and remembers the SP/UP merger where UP decided that all the smaller yards around Houston were not needed besides the main one and the carnage that happened nationwide on their system for about the next 12-18 months.
My hubby just laughs and remembers the SP/UP merger where UP decided that all the smaller yards around Houston were not needed besides the main one and the carnage that happened nationwide on their system for about the next 12-18 months.
UP tried to move all classification from Strang Yard, in La Porte, to Englewood. Strang was classifying 600 cars/day. I think Englewood was only good for 1800/day and that was pushing it. That caused a cascading effect across the network. Typical execs, trying to save a buck without a system analysis of Strang's closure..
Operating Plans have to take into account the ability of the facilities upon which the plan is implemented. Whatever the plan is - the entirety of the operating organization MUST remain fluid.
Immediately after the ConRail split, a ConRail executive was placed in charge of the CSX Operating Plan and melding it with the remains of the CR plan. The CR plan was for 'fewer bigger trains' as CR had been doing. CR had relatively bloated terminals that had their origins in their PRR & NYC predecessors whose facilites could hold several trains and still have room for inbound trains. CSX terminals did not have excess capacity to hold traffic for the 'bigger' trains and within short order the entire CSX system was codlocked to a relative standstill.
After a couple of months, the CR individual was relieved of responsibilities and a CSX individual was placed in charge and implement a new plan that had terminals performing what they were actually able to do the fluidity was restored to the entire network.
It doesn't take much to throw an operating network into situation it can take weeks or months to dig out of.
From an operating perspective, the easiest way to bring a network to its knees is in not having a sufficient number of crews working. Trains don't run without crews, a train that is no running requires track space for it to be parked until a crew becomes available, as more trains get into the situation of needing crews - more track parking space is required and the trains start getting parked further and further from the crew change location and the situation snowballs. Digging line segments out of crew shortage is HELL.
croteauddOne thing unrecognized is a pendulum swinging of sorts. There is an advantage in doing something a certain way under a certain condition, and when a pendulum swings the other way, it is advantageous to do it the other way. A SORTING FACILITY eliminates that and makes a constant flow of freight cars in various directions practical. Until such is adopted (a model train layout, or a computer similation, would prove the concept), the pendulum switching will be eternal.
Through 50+ years of railroad employment - I watch the pendulum swing both ways many times. Management #1 operates a specific physical plant. Management #2 comes along and states they can save $X millions by closing Facility #14, and they close it - sending its traffic and employees elsewhere. After a period of time Management #3 comes into control and states they can save $Y millions by reopening Facility #14 and they change the operating plan and bring manpower back to Facility #14. Rinse & Repeat multiple times during my career.
On one Division, a major terminal had supervision to close one of the yards in the terminal - that 'plan' lasted about 48 hours and resulted in the terminal being codlocked and unable to move ANY traffic. That 'plan' was stopped and things reverted to the prior plan.
One thing unrecognized is a pendulum swinging of sorts. There is an advantage in doing something a certain way under a certain condition, and when a pendulum swings the other way, it is advantageous to do it the other way. A SORTING FACILITY eliminates that and makes a constant flow of freight cars in various directions practical. Until such is adopted (a model train layout, or a computer similation, would prove the concept), the pendulum switching will be eternal.
Now the TRAINS forum won't allow cutting and pasting!
I give up
MidlandMike What is an automated ladder track?
What Overmod said. The power switches are electronically controlled. Options depend on the vendor and CSX. Towers are replaced with a kiosk containing a control panel and multi-camera feeds to line up the moves, which are done by a RCO.
JoeBlowIs it possible for a different design of a hump to eliminate or greatly reduce the use of retarders which are expensive to maintain?
The whole premise of a hump yard is to add potential energy 'enough' that each of the cars in a cut will roll itself all the way to an assured coupling with its standing cut of cars (or to the skate or whatever in an as-yet-unoccupied track). The only real alternative to retarders is to go back to the original method: station a brakeman on each car and have him 'eyeball' just how much brake he has to wind on, and how fast to wind it on, to get the car to a guaranteed pin-drop coupling. In a world where boarding moving equipment is already deprecated, the idea that you'd stop the hump cut every time someone gets on board a car, and having the necessary number of strong backs ready to get on the cars you want to classify... well, let's just chuckle and move on.
This would be an ideal thing for a Boston Dynamics robot brakeman, with full HA-NDGPS and other sensors to get it as 'just right' (and then of course wind off the brake and check that the foundation has released, etc.). They might even be equipped with high-speed ability to do parkour or whatever to get back up to the top of the hump in ™mely fashion to reduce that expensive capital requirement. Now, in a world where a cockamamie non-starting idea like the Parallel Systems original concept can get $50 million of investment... who am I to say you couldn't finance this or make good grant money ringing the changes on how to build it (and yes, I think you could build and perhaps even maintain it)? And yes, wouldn't these eventually make nifty 'superconductors' or engine crew?
But not as good as a good proportional retarder setup with scale and sensors to measure rolling characteristics, weather, etc. One of the 'keys' to this is that both the uncoupling of cuts at the top of the hump and the programming of the retarder action has to be coordinated to allow the equivalent of block switching -- perhaps up to 40 cars in a given block -- for blocks distributed randomly in a given hump cut. If you can't assure that, you might be better off with the automated ladder, and switcher power with LOTS of hybrid energy storage and the equivalent of Ludicrous++ acceleration using it. Plus really good continuous monitoring and maintenance of the now faster-wearing parts of your approach ladder... something you can bet the PSR dolts haven't quite yet realized is going to be a concern.
MidlandMikeWhat is an automated ladder track?
Likewise, the 'departure' ladder can be power-switched as a departing train is made up by repeated backing and coupling onto standing cuts.
SD70Dude tree68 The return of a hump yard may signal recognition that loose car railroading isn't going away any time soon. We keep hearing that carload freight is dying and will one day disappear. Yet new boxcars, flats, tanks and hoppers continue to be built, and out here in western Canada there is still a huge amount of chemical, forestry, oilfield and farming related freight that moves long distances and in amounts that are too large and heavy for trucking yet are not enough to make a 100 car unit train.
tree68 The return of a hump yard may signal recognition that loose car railroading isn't going away any time soon.
The return of a hump yard may signal recognition that loose car railroading isn't going away any time soon.
We keep hearing that carload freight is dying and will one day disappear. Yet new boxcars, flats, tanks and hoppers continue to be built, and out here in western Canada there is still a huge amount of chemical, forestry, oilfield and farming related freight that moves long distances and in amounts that are too large and heavy for trucking yet are not enough to make a 100 car unit train.
Carload growth has been little to flat. The majority of these are replacements for cars currently reaching the AAR 50 year rule.
OWTXHump and tower are getting bulldozed. Reworking the track layout and adding automated ladder tracks at each end. ...
What is an automated ladder track?
EDIT: Is it possible for a different design of a hump to eliminate or greatly reduce the use of retarders which are expensive to maintain?
Trains news-wire
Hump and tower are getting bulldozed. Reworking the track layout and adding automated ladder tracks at each end. Hindsight being 20/20, could they have flattened Cumberland in '94 and shifted westbound builds to Gateway? It had a better footprint (more acreage and longer).
n012944 That sounds like it came form a hopeful employee more than anything else.
That sounds like it came form a hopeful employee more than anything else.
blue streak 1 EDIT: Is it possible for a different design of a hump to eliminate or greatly reduce the use of retarders which are expensive to maintain?
CP sort of tried this in Calgary. Kicking cars with power switches, not much of a hump and fewer retarders. The new yard design had several accidents over its first year or so of operation.
https://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-reports/rail/2019/r19c0002/r19c0002.html
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
Replacing Hump Yards would be the application of the various autonomous operating cars - they become autonomous when released at the crest and insure a safe low impact coupling in the ultimate class track.
Not really. In a hump yard, each car starts at the top of the hump going more or less the same speed, accelerates due to gravity, and (ideally) passes the last retarder at a speed such that it will be at a safe coupling speed when it reaches the coupling spot. The retarders are the only way to make that happen.
All cars are see the same acceleration due to gravity, but the deceleration due to air resistance is radically different for, say, a covered sand hopper versus an empty bulkhead flat. Without retarders, loaded cars would wind up going much faster than empties. Either the empties would stall out early, or the loads would couple at damaging speeds.
The only way to work around this would be to release different cars with different initial speeds, or at different spots on the hump. Either of those would eliminate the efficiency of humping in the first place - you would basically be flat-switching on a hill.
Maybe some day we'll have microprocessor-controlled brakes on each car, and the car can just be programmed to use the car's brakes to maintain a desired speed profilr. But we're pretty far from that (and not really heading in that direction at the moment).
One thing to note is that hump yards all have automated electronic switching systems setting the routes for each cut of cars down into the bowl, while most flat-switching yards use hand-throw switches. This is a somewhat separate issue from the hump itself. You can install an automatic routing system on a flat yard (and in fact Conrail has a yard where they did just that). But, if you are classifying enough cars to justify that kind of investment, there's a good chance that you can justify the expense of maintaining a hump and retarders as well. Once you've physically removed the hump - or, if your need is in a place that never has a hump - maybe the equation would be different. It's not a stretch to think we might see some more "automated flat yards" in the next couple decades.
Dan
"That has cost CSX across the country millions of dollards and several other yards are also abandoning the idea"
An "expensive model collector"
From the article in the opening post:
"plans are to remove the exisiting hump terminal and install new switching capabilities allowing more cars to be trafficked through the yard"
it sounded to me like they were going to replace the hump with a flat-switching facility, but they claimed that it would allow more cars to be handled. Are they going to install a "new, improved" hump?
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"A stranger's just a friend you ain't met yet." --- Dave Gardner
Psychot wjstix blue streak 1 EDIT: Is it possible for a different design of a hump to eliminate or greatly reduce the use of retarders which are expensive to maintain? Interesting idea, but not sure how that would work? In the earliest hump yards, each car had a yard worker riding it to apply the brakes manually. I'd think retarders, especially modern computer controlled ones, would be much cheaper and efficient than that. Not to mention safer.
wjstix blue streak 1 EDIT: Is it possible for a different design of a hump to eliminate or greatly reduce the use of retarders which are expensive to maintain? Interesting idea, but not sure how that would work? In the earliest hump yards, each car had a yard worker riding it to apply the brakes manually. I'd think retarders, especially modern computer controlled ones, would be much cheaper and efficient than that.
Interesting idea, but not sure how that would work?
In the earliest hump yards, each car had a yard worker riding it to apply the brakes manually. I'd think retarders, especially modern computer controlled ones, would be much cheaper and efficient than that.
Not to mention safer.
Back in the day - many non-retarder humps used track skates to define the far end of the tracks being humped into and let the skate stop the first car into the track and then continue to hump against the cars that were stopped by the skates.
I recall that UP tried to idle one of the humps at North Platte a few years ago. I think that lasted about a week.
Recall that Carl (cshaverr) was a retarder operator at a Chicago area yard.
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...
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