Balloon track vs siding/spur

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jeaton

If the train must be clear of the main track during loading operations, a unit train loadout that is a straight siding must be a little more than twice the length of the train.

On the other hand, a loop with the correct design will require just a little more than one train length of track.

I think both need to be roughly 2 x train length. I'm visualizing the schematic of the Ritzville shuttle loader. The actual loop itself needs to be just a little more than train length, plus the approaches from the main, so that the lead engine can re-access the approach track just as the last car/engine has cleared.

Assuming both examples require a clear main, they're both double long.

[edblysard]

As a counter point, BNSF is building two new sidings at the Cargil elevator here at Jacintoport, one for an empty, and one for a loaded unit train, on PTRA (Port of Houston) property.
Building cost is all BNSF's, and the track are exclusivly for BNSF unit train use.
PTRA will supply the crews as we do now...BNSF will deliver the train to our North Yard, we do the rest.

Cargil studied the posibilities of installing a loop, just like the one at the Bulk Materials (coke loadout) facility, but the cost of buying or leasing long term the amount of real estate needed on the ship channel was prohibitive.

The elevator here was built in the 1920s, with several silos added as time passed, and the facility is now so closely crowded by other plants that a loop or ballon track just wasn't possible.

Cargil, not BNSF, wanted the loop track, it is faster.

BNSF worked a deal with Cargil...they will guarentee two 100 to 125 car unit grain trains every 8 hours, and provide the road crews at North Yard if Cargil will promise to turn at least one entire unit train every eight hours...so they will always be one loaded train on site waiting to spot in the elevator, and one empty ready to return every eight hours...PTRA will provide the logistics and the crews to pull and spot the elevator, Cargil will provide the crews and locomotive to do the actual load out.

When Cargil has emptied the cars, PTRA will use BNSF road power(that came in on the last load) to pull the empties, do a inital terminal air test, hang the fred, and return the empty to North Yard and the BNSF crew waiting there.

Oh, and as Mudchicken pointed out, you do not want the elevators "railoraders" touching your locomotive, unless you like having new dents and missing handrails, bent plows, by passed knuckles and flat spots on the wheels...

Ed

[jeaton]

If the train must be clear of the main track during loading operations, a unit train loadout that is a straight siding must be a little more than twice the length of the train.

On the other hand, a loop with the correct design will require just a little more than one train length of track.

[mudchicken]

(1) New track needs to be placed (In Kanseese: needs placed[:D]) at a minimum of 25 feet over from the main line.

(2) Unless you are using your own locomotives, you need a railroad QUALIFIED crew to operate the thing.

(3) Properly placed, loop tracks can minimize the amount of storage track needed.

(4) The more you run off in a straight line, the more you run into drainage related problems (i.e. bridges)

(5) You build it on railroad R/W, you pay railroad labor to build it . [ From personal experience - grain elevator operators tend to be some of the cheapest, most reckless , unsafe and grossly irresponsible track owners you have ever seen. They prefer to break the law if it saves them a few pennies. (you tend to believe that these noble people can do no wrong - We coined a word for them : "Agridummies".]

(6) BNSF and UP Shuttle train minimum track engineering specification do not require balloon tracks. Those spec.s do have requirements for minimum load/empty storage capacity lengths plus clearances around switches and roadcrossings, etc.

(The last three shuttle train facilities I worked last year were not loops.)

(7) Distributed power out on the flatlands is FAR from a given.

(8) You do NOT allow these people to operate anywhere near the main track of an operating company.

Quit trying to read something into what is not there.

[tree68]

Given the opportunity would you prefer to have a straight driveway you had to back either into or out of or a circular driveway you could simply drive around?

Given that most of the facilities you speak of are flood loaders, it is far easier for all involved if the crew can simply drive in, set the train to run at X mph (literally a crawl) and ride it around. If you have to change crews, you can likely do it on the move (assuming that's not a huge rules violation).

A 100 car train is a mile long, more or less. That's a long way to walk in the middle of the night or during inclement weather, especially considering that they probably aren't going to install a nice lighted walkway for the crew's convenience.

So if you have to lay a mile+ of track anyhow, and have the real estate available (as many of these concerns probably do based on pictures I've seen), why not lay it in a loop?

[Anonymous]

One thing that occured to me while mulling over grain shuttle elevators, is this seeming inherent need for all new shuttle facilties to be constructed with a balloon track rather than the classic adjacent siding or spur. Look at all the new shuttle facilities, grain or coal, and every one has a balloon track.

I can see the convience of such loop tracks if the consist has only head end power, but most if not all such shuttle trains employ distributed power, with units at both ends of the consist. For all intents and purposes, shuttle trains with power on both ends can operate in bi-directional push/pull mode, ergo there is no real need for a loop track for the sake of convience.

Since balloon tracks take up so much more real estate than sidings and spurs, why do we even need them? Seems that the elevator owner is the one that has to pay for the rail layout, and what seems to be happening is that brand new shuttle loader elevators are being built soley for the sake of constructing the balloon track, when there are perfectly good elevators with sidings of sufficient length trackside that could easily be converted to the rapid discharge loaders the railroads seem to covet (and at far lesser cost than a brand new facility).

Are the railroads forcing grain and coal companies to build unnecessary brand new facilities with balloon tracks, just because some head case at corporate headquarters thinks balloon tracks are essential to railroad profitability?