CAR BLOCKING

[Anonymous]

I WOULD LIKE SOME INFRO ON THE BASICS OF BLOCKING
OF CAR IN A TRAIN?

[Anonymous]

First, do not yell.
Second, cars are blocked acording to destination.

[edblysard]

Third, dont yell.
In all seriousness, I can tell you how we block cars at the PTRA. We are a terminal railroad, so we have outbounds to UP and BNSF from the industries we spot and pull, and we block out the inbound trains we switch and then take to the industries we spot/service.
As to the first, it depends on if its a local, yard to yard transfer or yard to yards. If its all going to englewood, where UP is going to switch it over their hump into their trains, the only thing we worry about is having cover cars on the head end. If its going to several yards, we switch each yard into a diffrent track, then double them up in the order the yards are. Lets say the train goes to these yards in this order. Englewood, setagast, dayton, then on to Chicago.
You would think we would put it together in that order, but..Chicage head out, then englewood, then setagast, and last dayton, because the train will drag into englewood, the conductor will drop off, drag the cut between the cars for englewood and seteagast up to where he is, make the cut, and shove back into englewood, cut off his cars, drag himself back out, and couple into the remaining cars, then he only has to walk the Chicago portion of the tran to get back to the loco. The rest of the train is handled the same. But, for BNSF, they have New South Yard, and Old south yard, and their Hub. They handle it a little diffrent, they drag up to the lead of the yard, cut away from the cars that are not being left in that yard, leaving them on the main, and then drag into the yard, cut away, find a clear backtrack, back through the yard and couple into their train and on to the next yard.. So each road has a diffrent requirement, but the basic idea is to block out all cars for a certain destination into one track, the fold them up however the recieving railroad wants them. If we are makeing up a outbound to another city or state, we block the train however the road wants depending on its route. Up may want all the South LA cars in the middle of their train, because they are going to drop them off in El Paso for another train to take to LA, so forth and so on, you get the idea.
Ed

[PaulWWoodring]

Cars are also blocked within their destination blocks according to such things as restrictions on number of empty cars allowed in a row on the head end, trailing tonnage restrictions on empty long flats, short car/long car next to each other, open top loads of coal, etc. not being ahead of loaded auto racks (well, duh) and many other restrictions, not to mention hazmat placements.

[BRAKIE]

Please don't yell we are not hard of hearing.Typing in all caps is considered as "yelling".

Now I will try to answer your question base on my experince as a brakeman some time ago.

A train out of Russell Ky bound for Chicago would look like this:

Maysville transfer(if any) these cars would be on the front(head end) of the train and dropped off at the Yard in Maysville Ky and all west bound cars picked up(if any).Not all trains would do this work...

Cincinnati cars,these cars would be behind the Maysville cut,including the the Maysville pick ups (if any).

Chicago cars would be on the rear of the train.The Cicinnati terminal man would switch the train out and rebuild the train with cars bound for Chicago or add these inbound Chicago cars to a already made up Chicago bound train if tonnage of that Chicago train permits.If not then he will start building the 2nd Chicago train..You would have empties and loads mixed together in no given order except blocked for the terminal they are heading to..I am not all that keen on how todays railroads work with all of the run throughs and unit trains.I understand some trains are no longer switched enroute like the days I worked on the railroad,of course,coal,grain,auto parts,reefer blocks,TTX trains wasn't switch enroute except perhaps to add more TTX cars.

Note: Terminal dwell time for loose car shipments could and would eat into the tranist time it took a car to get from point A to point B.Now,with alot of the older bottle necks being by passed and closing of some yards I suspect the transit times may have picked up from what they use to be..

[Anonymous]

Thanks Larry for schooling me yelling in my orginal text. dg

[BRAKIE]

dg,Been there done that,got schooled for yelling.I was new to computers then...

[Anonymous]

Hey guys, I've been lurking for a while but this is my first post.
Around here we keep the short stuff on head end,i.e. trafic that will be set off first, keeping hasmat properly buried. Something that makes a HUGE diferance but is often ignored is (when practical)keeping the loads ahead of the emptys. A 60 car train with 50 MTs ahead of 10 loads will require a LOT of attention to slack action, greatly increasing in train forces. Put the loads ahead and you'll forget you're pulling a train at all. Happy New Year!

[Anonymous]

Sir, Correct me if I'm wrong. I thought the yard crews built the trains and the road crews drove them to there next destination. Do some road crews build there own trains? If a road crew gets assigned to a train and they do not like how it was built, can they refuse to drive it? Is it possible to make two trains for one destination. One empty train and one full one?
TIM A

[wabash1]

First thing is we dont drive trains. and the trains are made of blocks done by the yard master. if you refuse to do your job its the same thing as quiting. the way the ns puts it is we dont build trains for engineers we make engineers for trains. some trains are a joy to run and some well i rather not say not polite.

[BRAKIE]

While I am sure that would be a ideal train to run,it just doesn't work like that.If you pick up or set out cars enroute there will be empties mixed into the loads.Same for pre blocking.You have no choice where to put the empties.

[Anonymous]

First of all, thanks for yelling---I've been railroading for 30 years and am more than a little hard of hearing from switching all that time.
Back when I was employed by Simply Pathetic, they had restrictions on where loads and empties could be entrained. Problem is, now that it's become Unusually Pathetic, there doesn't seem to be any of those type of restrictions. Last year we had a train go in the ditch East of Phoenix and the Company tried to blame the Hoghead. Said it was "Poor train handling techniques". When it was pointed out to them that there was a rather large number of loaded cement hoppers behind partially loaded pigs (articulated and otherwise) and auto racks, and the tapes showed that the correct amount of air was set, it became "Defective rail". Curiouser and curiouser.

[Anonymous]

But it can work like that, and sometimes you do have a choice. This may be a unique situation but I once held a job that would switch a paper mill and then make up a southbound. The southbound would go from point A to D with pick up and or set off at point B and C. (D is a switching yard) Trafic for B and C was made up on head end but the remainder of the train was for points beyond D. Lets say E, F, & G.(still with me here?!). E,F,&G trafic had to be blocked but the blocks could be interchanged because the train would be torn apart at point D and the blocks for E,F,&G added to thier respective trains. So, if block E & F were, say, MT chip and rock cars and block G was loaded paper cars, then G went ahead today. Tomorrow it might be the other way around. I stated,"where practical" in my earlier post because I wouldn't make more work for myself to get it this way, but if it wasn't any harder I did. But you are right, out of point D the blocks were station order with no regard for loads or MTs. Clear as mud right?! I'm not arguing, just expaining myself. Have a good day. Slofr8.

[Anonymous]

Hi tim, I'm on a road job but we also make up the southbound. I've also been on road jobs where you make you're own train, it depends on the jobs purpose. Whatever the boss feels will work best I guess. It's a pretty fluid environment.
I've never seen anyone refuse to take a train because they didn't like the way it was marshaled (sp?) If it is a hasmat issue than you would have to correct it but to take the time to shuffle MTs and loads wouldn't be very cost efective, nether would two trains for the same destination.
When I was a fairly green brakeman I was on a road job and our 90 car train was made up by a yard crew via the yard office. Along our route we had to pick up 5 loaded lumber flats but our MTs for set off were about 30 cars back. Well the head brakeman (we had those then) didn't like the way THAT train was made up so he stormed into the yard office and wanted them moved up on head pin. The yard master didn't want us tying up the yard with that but would pay us "intermideit switching" (we had that then also)or some such thing to make the switch at a siding enroute. The headbrakeman was pretty proud of himself because he had no intention of making the switch and we were going to do the lumber hangin' on to 30 cars. Not THAT big a deal but the shorter the better. After setting up the lumber warf he told the engineer to "go ahead" but the pin got hung up. "HOLD IT, HOLD IT!!" By the time things stoped he had been rolled between the car and cement warf. He lost 2 feet of his large intestine on that one. Would a shorter train have prevented this? It might not have hurt. Slofr8.

[edblysard]

Hi Tim,
Ok, lets practice our railroad trems first, so the "hoggers" here dont get too bent.
In England, you can "drive" a train. In America, you "run" it, as in "whos running for you tonight, Ed?". Or "handle" it, as in "You handled that coal drag real good, Rick." But you never ever "drive" a train. Engineers are "hoggers, hog heads, or piglets, (trainees), never throttle jerks or jerkers. And yes, depending on the job, some road crews build their own train. Here at the port, all the road crew have to do is double over their tracks, pull track 1 out, couple to track 2, pull it all out and couple to track 3, you get the picture. Thats due to the size of the yard, we dont have hugh departure tracks. As to refuse a train, no, you would get fired, but if the train has a hazardous car error, like a shiftable load next to a tank car full of lpg, or incorrect cover cars on the head end, (rules say at least five non hazardous cars on the head) you can refuse to move it until the error is corrected, or, if you have to correct it yourself, you can file a time claim against the carrier. For the empty and load question, no, two trains wouldnt make economical sense. The only time you would see that is with unit trains, like coal or coke trains, or grain trains. Loads in, empties out. Most road trains will have empties and loads scattered through out its consist. The perfect train would have all the loads at the head end, and all the empites at the rear, as the brakes on a train set from the head end backwards. But due to the volume of cars, and the varied destinations each road train delivers to, putting all of one type at either end is almost impossible, although it does happen on occasion, but only by chance.
Ed

[wabash1]

The first person they want to blame for anything going wrong is the engineer. the tapes can be your friend and your foe. you can run loads on the rear and empties on the front. just haft to know your terrain so you dont get hit every time your rear crest a hill.