Kicking cars

[edblysard]

Yup,
That's it, in track 59.
Any luck on the coke train?
Hint...if tracks 57 to 62 are called the H yards, and 40 thru 48 are the F yard, the coke train is in the B yard.
Most big yards are in fact several smaller yards bundled together.

North Yards is made up of:
From the far left, track 2, which is a run thru track.
(track 1 is the stub track, accessible only from the north end, for bad order light repairs)

A yard, tracks 3 thru 9 where inbounds from ship channel industries are yarded, and hold cars and weigh cars are stored.

B yards, 10 thru 18 where cars from the A yard are switched out into outbound trains for the member lines, BNSF, UP and TexMex.
Track 18, shared by both B yard and C yard, allows access from both yards to this track for member line out bounds from ship channel industries, and use as a run thru track.

C yard, 18 thru 24 where outbound trains to south side ship channel industries are built up and spotted for ground air and initial terminal air test.
Track 25, no longer there, removed to give access to center of yard for emergency response.

D yard, 26 thru 32 where outbound trains for north shore trains are built up.

E yard 33 thru 38 and F yard 40 thru 48. (my yards) where inbound trains from member lines are taken apart and switched / classified/blocked into cuts for the outbound industry trains.
All Shell cars go here, Tenneco and Fina go to track 44, Deer Park fuel cars to 46...then swung over to the C and D yards when full or ordered.
Bad order inbounds to track 47.
High wide shiftable, and high value loads to 48, does double duty as bad order track and a team track.
No track 49 to 56, those are no longer there, were engine service and caboose track, but no longer carry on the number system.
You can see where they used to run back into the yard behind the diesel shop.

H yard, inbound member line trains, where I get my switch cuts from, and where unit trains, coke, coal and grain trains inbound and out are yarded or depart from.
Tracks 61 and 62 are only 8 years old.

Rip tracks are to the south, by the small cluster of buildings near the entrance off of Clinton Drive, across from Gate 8, Port of Houston.

Scale track is second from the left, across from the small building and light tower, B lead switching is done off the right side track next to it.
E and F lead switching is done off the curved track where my MU is parked, directly in front of the lunch room and yard tower and parking lot.

And a switch job works up top, or on the north end, with access to the entire yard, although he stays blocked a lot due to inbound traffic and the fact that just past the road crossing is CTC and UPs north shore main.

We also have a twice daily coke move from the Arco coke unit to the Bulk Materials plant, where it is loaded to barges and sent up the intercostal waterway.
This is a 40 to 50 cars train on average.
Arco is on the south side of the channel, the bulk plant is on the north.
We drag in to north yard, cut off power, run around the train, and take off for the north shore loaded.
Reverse for the empties, back to Arco on the south side.
It has a dedicated pair of SD40-2s, leased from Econrail and a fleet of old, on their last leg coal hoppers.
Think you can find it?

Ed

[blhanel]

Is that it in Track 16? Looks like the SD40-2s on the north end...

[DPD1]

I've watched them kick cars in numerous places, and it's pretty interesting to watch when you can also listen on the radio. You can tell some guys are really good and have done it a long time... Some other guys, not so good.

The one I think would have been crazy, was the 'pole' moves... Back when they would move cars on the next track over, by jamming a pole between the car and loco. There seems to be some confusion on this practice... I was under the impression that it was common place in the old days, but I've heard some guys say it was always against the rules. Maybe it was up to the RR.

Dave
http://www.dpdproductions.com
- Featuring the TrainTenna Railroad Scanner Antennas -

[edblysard]

Well,
It wasn’t a fair question...
I didn’t realize that the coke train had brought a few cars from Manchester Terminal with it...
The coke move is in track 13, with the power on the south (bottom) end...but it is a mixed train so to speak, the north end of track 13 has a bunch of tanks in it...they picked them up out of one of our other yards on the way in, and when the coke train leaves, those cars will stay in track 13...most likely UP’s.
Happens when the coke move is a small train. and a few cars at Manchester are "hot" and need to make an outbound train.

I will find a better thing to search for, one that doesn’t require the knowledge of our train operations to make sense.

Ok, item one to look for...
Two CN Dash 9s MUed tail to tail.
Item(s) 2, track maintenance equipment (mow)
And a track question...can you find the manual interlocker?
Hint on the interlocker...follow the coke trails...remember, old, leaky hoppers...

Think about what an interlocker is, and what it protects.

If you want a short virtual tour, let me know...if you find the interlocker, we can go from there and look at the docks where the steam engines came in, or head to the south side, and Manchester Terminal, in the Harrisburg area.
History note, Harrisburg was the first capital of Texas, held the first meeting of our state legislature, and was where Sam Houston was elected to be the General of the Army of the Texas Republic…and not that far from where he defeated Santa Anna…we even have a siding beside the creek where Santa Anna was captured, named Santa Anna pass, and a yard next to the San Jacinto Battle Ground, where Houston won independence for Texas.
Remember the Alamo!
If you want, I can scan a copy of the entire Houston area railroads, it is a UP AEI map, with the location of all the AEI scanners, and send it to you…might help you make sense of the many, many miles of track inside Houston and Harris county.
Email me…
Ed

QUOTE: Originally posted by blhanel

Is that it in Track 16? Looks like the SD40-2s on the north end...

[Murphy Siding]

QUOTE: Originally posted by edblysard
the combines had been vandalized en route....some one had shot all the windshields with a pretty big caliber rifle.

this is one of the reasons the car department inspects the inbounds closely, had we handled the cars and then found the damage later, the PTRA would had had to pay for the repairs, as it was UP got the bill instead.

Ed: Presumably, the car department can only inspect the exterior of the cars. In the case of the broken apple juice jars,for example, unless it was dripping juice out in the yard,could they tell anything was wrong inside? Wouldn't such a car, after it's been switched a couple of times, be hard to trace back to the culprit?

[Anonymous]

Who in the hell runs while kicking cars. For one thing BNSF will not let you do that. If you are caught running or anything over a fast walk you will get in trouble. Besides running is to much work that is why the switch man will tell the engineer to bring the train back then when the slack gets bunched he pulls the pin tells the engineer to kick and stand there and wait for the right speed he needs and says stop and watch the car go away. Running is just way to much work.

[rvos1979]

The Job gets a little easier when the yard is on the side of a hill......

I worked for the Wisconsin and Southern for about three years, and the two yards i worked in were drasticly different. In Madison, we were usually working uphill, I only very rarely kicked cars, if they started rolling the other way you were in trouble.

Janesville was a different matter, as we were working on the top end of things. All I needed to ask for was a little pin, and that was enough to keep the cars rolling down to the desired track. Having good handbrakes was a necessity, as it was a continous grade down to the roundhouse. That yard was switched with air on the cars, made it easier and safer to stop the cut.

I usually never let more than one load go at a time here, especially after the Old Main was raised and resurfaced. I once let two loads go into a track on top of a bunch of empty covered hoppers, as soon as they went through the first switch they took off and smacked the empties pretty good, I think the UP yard across town heard that bang.[:-^]

[edblysard]

Murphy,
No, they don’t inspect the inside.
But every yards car department inspects every car at least once, usually when it arrives in train, and every time it is leaving.
So, if it arrived here on our property dripping, we would bad order it, and bill the sending railroad for repairs...in this case, the person who owned the apple juice would file a claim against the forwarding railroad.
And back tracking the movement isn’t hard, just check the billing and waybill system.
If it arrived here ok, but got to the customer dripping juice, well, I handle every inbound that comes in North Yard, and some of those cars get switched again a little later on their way to the customer, backtracking again isn’t a problem.
If on Monday, I switched it out of a inbound, and it was not leaking when it left here, but Thursday, it was, and the switch crew at Penn City yard who reswitched it handled the car Wednesday night....

The car department are not the only folks who can bad order cars...if I find one beat up, or anyone else here for that matter finds a car leaking, damaged, maybe with flat spots on the wheels or a bent handrail...that person can call the yardmaster at North Yard and BO the car right then.
Covers all of our butts, and keeps someone from getting hurt if the damage is to a safety appliance.

This is why inspecting every inbound train carefully is so important, keeps us from having to pay for damage we did not do.

And it is cheaper for each railroad to repair its own damage.
The AAR has a repair billing system that has set billing charges for almost everything you can break on a car, and these charges are always most than actual cost.

Say BN sends us a car with a broken handrail.
The handrail might cost $75.00 and take a 1/2 hour to repair....but our rip track and car department will have to charge BN by the AAR manual...$300.00 for the hand rail and 2 hours labor for repair.
Much cheaper if BN had just fixed the damage themselves, instead of sending it one to us...and vice versa, cheaper to fix it in house than let the railroad we are sending it to do the work.
AAR billing is actually a revenue source, so you can see why car departments are a little zealous when it comes to finding bad orders, both on the trains coming in (to earn us money) and the trains ready to leave, (saves us money).

Same thing for the leaking apple juice...if it came from UP that way, we, the PTRA, don’t want the shipper filing a claim against us for the damage to the contents, and if our car department, or one of the switchmen can find the damage before we handle the car, it covers our fanny.

In the instance of the damaged combines, the top end switch crew was watching the train drag into the receiving yard and saw the busted windshields, called them in to the yardmaster, who had the car department waiting when the train stopped.
(one of the reasons roll by inspections are still part of all of our jobs)
Ed

QUOTE: Originally posted by Murphy Siding

QUOTE: Originally posted by edblysard
the combines had been vandalized en route....some one had shot all the windshields with a pretty big caliber rifle.

this is one of the reasons the car department inspects the inbounds closely, had we handled the cars and then found the damage later, the PTRA would had had to pay for the repairs, as it was UP got the bill instead.

Ed: Presumably, the car department can only inspect the exterior of the cars. In the case of the broken apple juice jars,for example, unless it was dripping juice out in the yard,could they tell anything was wrong inside? Wouldn't such a car, after it's been switched a couple of times, be hard to trace back to the culprit?

[csxengineer98]

also, the coupling speed isnt supost to be more then 4 mph...but you can kick a car as hard as needed..basicly if you need to get it to the other end of a track that is long and there are cars to stop it..you can kick it at 10mph if you realy wanted too...just as long as it is down to about 4mph speed when and if it couples up to another car...
csx engineer

[MP173]

This is really a great thread. Ed ... thanks for all of your input and discussion.

In my previous half life, I worked for an LTL trucking company. It is amazing how similar LTL trucking and railroading are. Same principals for the most part "partial loads" that must be assembled into a full trailer (train) at a terminal (yard) and then line hauled (manifest train) to another terminal and then put on a peddle run (local) for delivery.

We had the same issues with damaged freight. The freight bill or manifest needed to be noted with appropriate damage to place liability with the correct party. One of my responisiblities was a Claim Agent. Not a really pleasant job.

Ed, I assume you keep working during nasty weather, but what do you do when there is a thunderstorm? I dont think I would want to be out in the lightning with all that metal.

ed

[edblysard]

We wear rain gear.
And there is always one guy, who has to wear the rubber work boots, pants, hooded top, rail slicker and a poncho all at once.
And of course, once he gets all his gear on, it quits raining the instant he steps outside...but let him take one piece off and the bottom drops out again.
A lot of the time, I skip the gear if it is just a steady mist or sprinkle...you get so hot and sweaty inside the gear you don’t stay dry anyway, and I would rather stay cool.

Last Monday it rained 10 " in some places down here, but we worked.
There are no set restrictions other than hurricanes!
But if the yardmaster thinks it is too dangerous, he has the authority to stop all work and tell everybody to come inside.
As an engine foreman, I too have the authority to decide for my crew if it is to dangerous.
How limited is sight?
Is lighting striking in the yard?
If I can’t see my helper, or he can’t see me, we call it quits.
Wind plays a lot into the decision...if it blowing hard enough to cause roll outs, we stop...one of us hangs around under the shed to keep a eye on the tracks we know roll back, just in case.
And hail...I don’t work in hail...if that means we don’t go home till the full 12 hours is up, that’s ok with me, I don’t do hail.

For road crews, the GCOR has a rule,
6.21 Precautions Against Unusual Conditions
Protect trains and engines against any known condition that may interfere with their safety.
When conditions restrict visibility, regulate speed to ensure that crew members can observe and comply with signal indications.

In unusually heavy rain, storm, or high water, trains and engines must approach bridges, culverts, and other potentially hazardous points prepared to stop. If they cannot proceed safely, they must stop until it is safe to resume movement.



Advise the train dispatcher of such conditions by the first available means of communication.

6.21.1 Protection Against Defects
If any defect or condition that might cause an accident is discovered on tracks, bridges, or culverts, or if any crew member believes that the train or engine has passed over a dangerous defect, the crew member must immediately notify the train dispatcher and provide protection if necessary.

6.21.2 Water Above Rail
Do not operate trains and engines over tracks submerged in water until the track has been inspected and verified as safe.
Operate engines at 5 MPH or less when water is above the top of the rail. If water is more than 3 inches above the top of the rail, a mechanical department supervisor must authorize the movement.


It still comes down to what you personally will work in.
Except for a declared emergency, no officer of the carrier may order you to work in weather you feel is unsafe.

Rain is no big deal down here, it is raining somewhere in Harris county at almost any time during the summer.
And for some of our guys, if we could find a way to hit them with a squirt of soap during the rain...[:D]

Ed

[Anonymous]

Or look here...again, the server seems to be kaput right now...
http://www.google.com/search?q=Port+Terminal+Railroad+Association+switching+fees&hl=en&lr=&start=0&sa=N

How do you keep track of all that?

Arnie

[edblysard]

AEI tags do most of the keeping track.
And because we do the same basic work every time, about the only thing we, the crew, need to keep track of are the special moves inside plants.
Say customer waits till the last minute to decide he wants us to swap the order of some tank car in his loading rack, and asks the engine foreman to move them around right after we finish dropping off some hold cars.
The foreman has the time to do it, so he will write down all the info, what cars were moved, from where to where, all that, and call it into the clerks when he gets the first chance.

Almost everything we do outside of the yard is customer driven.
There is a computer program the customer logs into, allows them to order cars, release cars from their facility, request special moves, maybe inter plant switching, or they need a car wyed, anything they want.
Because every car has a AEI tag, and there are scanners all over the place, the computer can keep track of cars going and coming out of industries, into and out of the yards, across the scale, where ever they move.

If the foreman does his job right, and walks an the train before he pull it out of a industry, he will check all the cars off against his paper work order, also generated by the computer, and any additional cars will be called in right then, before he moves the train, to confirm they are pulls.
If he is lazy, and trust the plant to have the right cars in the right order, the scanner outside the plant will find the extra car, and red flag it, which means a clerk gets a alert on their computer in the office that something isn’t right.
The foreman will get a radio call from the yardmaster asking about the extra car.
Because the system knows when that car was placed in the plant, it doesn’t take to long to figure out if it comes with us as a pull, or stays in the plant as a spot car.

Or in yard switching, which is what I do most of the time, all I have to keep track of is where I cut up a train.
I have a list, generated by the computer and the scanners, of the train, from the south, (head end) to the north, or rear car.
This list has the tracks that each car is assigned to be switched into alread on it, plus all the hazmat info I need, and is numbered in sequential order, car #1 is the head car, car #90 is the last car.

Say I drag a 90 train out of our receiving yards, shove around and into a yard track.

I will leave 30 cars in that track, and shove 30 into another track, but hold onto and switch the rest.
Somewhere during this, I will call the yard master, and tell him I shoved, say track 33 and track 34 with switch cuts.
I will tell him I shoved lines 90 thru 61 in track 33, lines 60 thru 31 in track 34, and switched lines 30 thru line 1.
All he does is pull that trains list up on his computer, put cut marks between the cars I gave him, assign the cut to the track and hit enter.
He will take the cut I have switched, lines 30 thru 1, and mark them as switched.
The computer will then change the cars status from inbound train into a yarded train, and will switch the cars I have handled into their respective tracks, along will adding the switch fees to that cars billing.
Because all of this is already in the computer, and the status of the cars is a known, in other words, it is already switched out, or is in a hold status waiting to be switched, the computer will generate switching list when ever you need them, and it will keep track of the oldest cars or switch cuts, and remind the yardmaster that they need to be switched first.
We try and work on the concept of oldest track first, so the dwell time of cars stays low.
If I go home with out switching the other two tracks, the crew that replaces me will get those two tracks as the first moves to make, all the yardmaster has to do is look at his reminder screen, and those two tracks will be at the top, and he can generate new switching list for the new crew.

The system even keeps track of which way the car is facing, B end north or south, because quite a few of our customers require cars to be placed in their facility facing a certain way.

When I first came out here, I had to carry a paper pad, about the size of a legal pad, and hand write a list, car reporting marks and numbers, note any thing we did to them, switching, spotting, turning on a wye, all of that, and at the end of my shift, it wasn’t uncommon to make a hour overtime just talking on the phone to the clerks giving them all that info.
We had yard clerks whose job was to walk each track, listing the cars in that track on a ruled card, and then going to their office and hand typing a train sheet or switch list.
When I started, switching 70 cars a shift was a busy shift, due to the time it took to create all that paperwork.
Today, I will switch at least 150 to 200 cars and then swing and spot at least two, maybe four of those track over to the outbound yards for ground air and initial terminal air test, all with out writing a single thing down.
Ed

[UPTRAIN]

It's fun driving the locomotive doing that though, pretty much notch it out good if ya have a good cut, wake everybody in town up with those non-turbo GP38-2's.

[rrandb]

Ed, thank you very much for some awsome indepth info that i have never seen as complete even in Trains. This thread would make a great article. [2c]

[blhanel]

[#ditto][#ditto][#ditto]

[Murphy Siding]

Ed: With AEI tags, and scanners all over the place, is it still possible to *lose* a car in the yard?

[muskrat720]

after reading this I'm curious....is that how CSX moves cars in the Seneca Yard? If anybody knows temme know.

Mike

[MP173]

Ed:

If you could change one thing about your yard...what would it be?

ed

[edblysard]

Murphy,
Yes, cars can lose their tags...and like any system, there is a function to over ride the automated part...say a customer changed his mind, called the yard master and refused a car today...they yardmaster calls me, says "kick line 6 back to track 33 for right now”...and forgets to manually move the car in the computer system, from the "in train" status back to "to be switched" or "hold" status.

When the train leaves the yard, the system is checking AEI tags against the train sheet it built from the switch cuts it shows as done...and suddenly the 12th car in the train isn’t there...but no one knows where it is, until the next shifts crew pulls track 33 and finds a "stranger".
Or, no one touches track 33 till the next day, and I find the car that next morning....I know where it came from, so I call the yardmaster, clue him in, and he adjust the cars status in the system.
Until that happens, the cars is lost for those 24 hours.
The most common reason is the missing tag.
Nothing is perfect, and some guys just don’t care, or are tired, or simply make a mistake and don’t follow through.

Most lost cars are not "lost" very long, once we find one, and figure out who it belongs to, it gets a new AEI tags, and is sent on its way.


When UP sends us a train, we get an advance list...from their systems AEI system and their computer...our system checks what our scanners get when the train is yarded against the list UP sent ahead, and it usually matches.
When the scanner finds a car with no tag, it makes that slot in the list with a error code, and alerts us to look for the car...it shows up on my switch list as a car in 99 or 999 status, AEI error.
99 or 999 means "lost" car, in that the computer has no record of it moving through the system.
We find it during our normal duties, call it in to the yardmaster, he researches it back as far as he can, and then determines what we do with it.

Most of the computer systems on each railroad can "talk" to each other, but it seems from what I have seen that it is on a limited basis.

There is something like 3 or four common system, each with its own priorities, depending on the carrier’s preference.

The AEI system is pretty much nation wide...lots better than the old colored barcode you can still see on some older cars, and worlds better than the paper trail cars used to have.
Imagine having to watch a TV monitor, and trying to write down every cars reporting mark as a train goes by, even at the slow speeds they travel when entering yards.
What to you think the odds are of someone making a mistake?

I just counted the AEI sites on the UP map for the metroplex area, (Houston) and on UP alone, there are 75 scanners not counting the ones in their yards.
The PTRA has 17 scanners on the south side of the ship channel, 16 on the north side, and at least 4 per yard, and we have 7 yards.

For Muskrat...Most railroads have a system very similar to this one, again, each is tailored to that particular railroad wants and needs...for us, switching is the number one item, we are the end point or terminal for BNSF and UP at the Houston Ship Channel and all of the industries along both sides of it.

Check the “Where is the steam engines?” thread, and you can see how they are using the system to trace the cars movements.

Ed

[edblysard]

That’s a tough one, but I think I would want control of the CTC signal at the north, or top end...about two blocks worth.
That would allow the top end job a lot more room to work, swing tracks and switch cars.
As it is right now, we have to ask, and ask and ask the dispatcher at Spring for the signal to get headroom, don’t often get it, and that forces the top end crew to have to short switch, come out with ten car cuts, and makes swinging a 40 car track, which should take 5, maybe ten minutes into a hour long chore.

The only thing that pair of signals protects is the UP north shore, which sees five trains a day, maybe.
We could run them through at a moments notice, not affect the traffic at all, and get a lot more done in our yard.

Barring that, I would like to see four dedicated 130 car receiving tracks next to the ones we have, for the bigger unit grain trains and coke train we get...that traffic, although bulk, is fantastic profit for us, all we do it provide a crew.
As it is right now, we have to stage the empties from the elevator or bulk materials plant out on our main, use crossovers to zig zag around the empties, just so we have a place to park or stage the loads inbound...it cost us two crews to move them...if we had the tracks, we could do it with one crew, freeing up the "second" crew to perform other duties.
BNSF built two 125 car sidings at the elevator last year, it was mentioned in Trains I think which allows us to stage both a load and empty at the elevator, but there is enough traffic right now that we are still short of space at the yard.

Plug up your yards, plug up your railroad.
Yards, no matter how big, are the choke point for any railroad.
Keep them fluid, and your railroad runs better.

Look at a yard this way...
It is nothing more than a warehouse for boxes….big boxes.
And not any more complicated than stocking shelves in a store, except these boxes roll.
But you still have to take boxes out of the stock room, and put them on the shelf...then get them out the door as sales...I still have to take the cars out of the receiving track, switch them into holding tracks, and get them out of the yard as trains.
Anything that interrupts that process slows everyone down.

What if I don’t get the train built for Shell and we can’t get it out of the yard on its way to the refinery, Shell has to wait...and they get a train a shift.
The loads, which come in from the Shell refinery on a different train than the one that takes the empties out, will still show up...and now we have the 100 loads from Shell in the yard, plus the 100 empties that should have already left to Shell...plus the 100 cars that just came in from the UP and the BNSF on their inbounds.
Now we are 200 Shell cars "overstocked".
Call an extra to take the train?
You just used a crew you might need elsewhere.
And the train is still late into Shell, which means their product has built up, they have a backlog, and now need even more empty cars, which you haven’t delivered yet, and so forth and so on…you can see where it leads.
Do that once or twice, and you can see the mess it makes.

Both of my wants, on the surface, look like capacity issues...more tacks...
But they are not.
Capacity for railroads means the ability of the infrastructure to handle a given traffic flow...what I am asking for is storage and working room.
What a pair of other posters wants you to believe is that the tracks that were abandoned, if still here, would increase the capacity of, say, UP, to handle traffic.
It would, if UP was still running peddler freights to every small town in the country and the REA was still here..
But UP and BN are running big, fast trains.
Coal and freight.
Big…fast.
Imagine if every single one of the old Rock Island lines were still there.
How in the world does having a bunch of routes that run to every wide spot in the road help UP move coal out of Wyoming?
You cant run the coal trains over them, they didn’t go where the coal needs to go, and on their best days, couldn’t handle the load…can you see a coal train running at 70 mph on the Rock?
You might squeak by one of them, but the next train would cru***he tracks.
And for the most part, the abandoned lines didn’t go where today’s rail traffic needs to go.
No, you would not be running the freights that are in the way of the coal trains on these routes, the freights run just as fast as the coal trains, and it would mean thousands of extra miles traveled to get to the same place.

But, if you took the money that would have been spent on the” abandoned” routes, and built a third transcon, or a third set of tracks out of the basin, or just increased the “working room” of the current coal routes by building bigger passing sidings, you just increased your routes capacity…it can now handle a larger volume of traffic on the same basic structure.


From another thread about team tracks, if you get the chance, and have one near you, go look at a SIT yard.(Storage In Transit)
Imaging it not as a rail yard, but as a huge warehouse, where all the boxes are on wheels...and think about the massive amount of plastic, or raw material there...all produced by refineries that run 24/7, 365 a year.
Then think about what it really takes to move that much "stuff" from one place to another, the logistics of getting 50 cars out of there, and delivered to any other point you choose.
It will stagger you, when you realize the scale it really works on.
Ed

QUOTE: Originally posted by MP173

Ed:

If you could change one thing about your yard...what would it be?

ed

[Kozzie]

QUOTE: Originally posted by rrandb

Ed, thank you very much for some awsome indepth info that i have never seen as complete even in Trains. This thread would make a great article. [2c]

Ed, I would like to back up rrandb's comments [:)] - would you be interested in submitting an article to Trains Mag, based on your comments in this thread? Add a few informative photos inserted to illustrate a few of your main points, and there would be a fine article to read. Especially for folk like me [:I] that have little insight into the comlexeties of yard work.

Dave [:)]

[rrandb]

Ed. Even if it were coalated/edited by some one who writes for a living with you receaving full credit? [?] I know you are a busy man but you have a wealth of working knowledge. I in no way mean to imply you could not write it. Thanks again.

[Murphy Siding]

Ed: You talk about SIT yards being used for storage. Does anyone use your particular yard for *storage*, so to speak, by juggling car departures, etc....? Or,does each car have a departure date already planned when it enters the yard? Thinking in terms of my industry,everybody ends up as an unintended warehouse for somebody else at some point. Are you able to just send everything on down the road?

[edblysard]

Murphy,
Dayton and Casey SIT yards are on the BNSF and UP main lines with a few miles of us, so using the North Yard for storage in not necessary...
Besides, our yard isn’t big enough to use as a SIT.
Trains had a photo of Dayton; from the air...it is the size of some small towns.

Now, we do "store" car in that if a customer needs a larger then normal number of cars for a product run, we will build up a track or two.

And UP sometimes "forgets" to come and get their outbounds for a day of two, so we do sometimes get "used" as a storage facility, albeit not on a voluntary basis.
Plus, we have a storage yard...that’s what it is called, the Storage Yard, were we keep cars in captive service when they are not needed, and build up the ordered cars when the amount of cars wanted by a customer would cause a problem in our other yards.

This is a over head of Dayton SIT, scroll up a little and you can see the yard is almost half the size of the town.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=Dayton,+Texas&ie=UTF8&ll=30.016713,-94.902477&spn=0.029505,0.073385&t=k&om=1
The slash down the middle of the yard are the leads, it is a double sided stub ended yard.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=TX-249+%26+Champion+Forest+Dr,+Houston,+TX+77086&ie=UTF8&t=k&om=1&ll=29.913802,-95.501404&spn=0.014768,0.036693
Scroll down a little and you can see Casey Yard...it is a stub end yard on the BNSF main.
Note it is almost solid hopper cars...that is almost all plastic pellets or PVC powder.
Most are loads, but some are also empty...the refineries need empty cars to put their product in also...so the cars are stored here till needed, then BNSF will pull them when ordered, and send them to us.
We have a every other day train from here to us, called the Casey Turn, I love switching it out, because the cars are already blocked, all the loads for each customer are on the head end of the blocks, empties on the rear.
All you do is bring it around form the receiving yard, and shove it into the outbound tracks, all the Fina cars here, Phillips here, Solvay cars here, and boom your done.
Looks great on paper too, you can switch out over 100 cars in thirty minutes!

We have a somewhat different type of SIT yard of our own, known as the Marshaling yard, out in San Jacinto.
We use it to store and stage cars that are on order but not yet requested to be spotted in the refineries.
As the name implies, we "marshal" up or round up the cars from the refineries that are released, but not headed back to one of our member lines, or cars that are in captive service, used for intra plant moves.
No need to drag them back to one of our major yards, that uses track space better used to switch cars.
Most of the cars are empty, but some of the refineries need a steady supply of specialty chemicals in small, or single tank car loads, and they need quick access.
So they order a few extra cars of this stuff, we park it in the Marshaling yard, and when they need a load, instead of having to wait days or weeks for it to come for some other city, they order it up out of their "back stock" in the Marshaling yard and we pull the car and deliver the next day.
There is a private contractor that leases two tracks and cleans and repairs tank cars for the refineries located there too.


And yes, I am working on an article I plan to submit...who knows, I might get lucky!
Ed

[Murphy Siding]

As a neutral switching yard, PTRA doesn't have to deal with per diem charges, then?

[techguy57]

Murphy and Ed,
This is an awesome thread! Thank you guys for getting the ball rolling with this topic as I have learned a ton from it.

But Ed, please no more holding up the Shell trains! At $3.15/gallon here in Chicago I can't afford it![:D][:o)]

[rrandb]

I can not say for certain but most car owners will be looking for perdiem no matter who delays there car whether the customer or RR. Nuetral or otherwise. Unless the time is part of normal delivery or return they will want the daily charge for that car not being released for revenue service. On the other side of the coin the railroad wants there storage fee if the car is not routed out. There are exceptions to both the perdiem and storage charges.

[edblysard]

Neutral in this instance means we show no preference towards any one of our member lines cars.
Not "non profit" but neutral.
Per Diem is a big part of any terminal railroads money.
And it is cheaper for these guys to pay it than find another way to hold their product.

And sorry, techguy, but Shell Deer Park, the biggest refinery on the Gulf Coast, doesn’t refine gasoline at all.
Their major product are solvents, additives for gasoline, (the no-knock stuff) lubricating oils, plastics, LPGs and the artificial stink in natural gas.
And the real stink in the air, come to think about it!

British Petroleum, La Port is the one you’re thinking about, and they are an exclusive customer of UP, blame the guys in armor yellow!
Ed

Ed

[techguy57]

QUOTE: Originally posted by edblysard
British Petroleum, La Port is the one you’re thinking about, and they are an exclusive customer of UP, blame the guys in armor yellow!
Ed

I knew it had to be "armor" yellow for a reason. It probably helps keeps the rocks your average Joe wishes to throw at the gasoline companies from doing any damage.[:o)][}:)]

Dang it![;)]