As a model railroader, I’ve been curious for some time about how trains order their cars in the consist when making pickups.
Take a local job, for example. The train leaves the yard to service some local industries, making pickups and set-outs along the way. Is it left to the engineer and conductor to decide how to organize the cars in the consist that have been picked-up for the return leg? I’ve been assuming they have the authority to make the decision based on safety and expediency.
On the Wisconsin & Iowa (WIAR) layout, I try to order the heaviest cars at the front of the train.
There are restrictions on where some cars can be placed, similar to your “heaviest cars at the front of the train”. Usually these are hazardous cars that must be separated from the locomotive (if steam) and other hazardous cars.
Allowing for that, the crew will try to arrange for any setouts to be at the front or back of the train, depending on siding location.
If there are time constraints, they may put the train together as fast as they can and do the shunting as required.
I heard of one yard crew that had it in for a certain train crew and arranged the cars in the most awkward manner possible for them.
In addition to the Hazmat restrictions, some railroads also have restrictions on placement depending on the size of the train. The one I’m on has restrictions of not having 20 empties ahead of 20 loads or placement of empty flats over 85 feet long on trains over a certain tonnage. Placing high value loads or dimensional (High-Wide) loads is also restricted to certain positions in a train.
Most of these type restrictions will be in the Special Instructions part of the employee timetable or in a separately issued System Special Instructions.
Ed-does the 5 car rule apply everywhere? Shipping out a lot of chemicals and such, it would seem like you’d almost have 5 cars semi-permanently attatched to your switcher?
Switching is different from road operations. I know Ed handles a lot more exotic chemicals down there, but without looking up in my Form 8620, generally you can handle most hazmat next to the engine for switching purposes.
The type of car and the type of hazmat also can make a difference in the buffer car requirements.
On road trains, the 5 cars is when “train length permits.” If your local is shorter, you’ld place the car normally requiring 5 buffers, back as far as possible. Hopefully you won’t have different types of hazmat requiring buffers placed between them. Gets interesting fast. This car can go there, but not there. This car can go next to this car but not that car.
Don’t place that radioactive next to that undeveloped film. I haven’t gone digital yet.
As Jeff pointed out, when switching in a yard, the five car rule dosnt apply.
Out on the road, it does, and there are exceptions.
If the only avaibly cover is say, two non placard cars, then you can run with that, but only to the point where you can pick up three more non placard cars.
If no cover cars are avaiable, then you may move, but only at restirced speed to the first point where you can pick up five cover cars.
The GCOR dosnt say to the nearest terminal or yard, all it say is to the nearest location where cover cars are available…which means if you pass a siding with cover cars, you should grab five of them, no matter if they are customer cars waiting to be spotted.
High wides, shiftable and high value loads, on my railroad, should be with in ten cars of the locomotive, so the crew can keep an eye on them.
We move a lot of big transformers, refinery reactor vesseles and big “Cat” equipment, plus a lot of 4 foot diameter pipe on 89 foot flats, so sometimes it is a real pain to assemble a train.
I would like to add only one thing to this discussion.
The answers here are all pointed at real railroad operations. That is a good thing, because part of the original question directly pointed that way.
However, when operating with model trains, particularly the smaller scales such as HO, N, TT and so on, the weight of the car is very important. That is why such a fuss is made about the weight of each model car, and no matter the “scale size”, the actual weight of each car should be the same. WIAR hints at this in his comment about putting all the heavy cars up front. With a model, to do otherwise will cause the head end to be pulled off the track. Or pushed off if the locomotive is pushing the cut.
Regarding the cover car issues in the messages just above, I have had the unpleasant experience of a road crew reaching into a shippers track and taking his cars - loads, empties and part loads - even once taking the unloading crew along – a couple of hundred miles down the pike so they could have the FRA required cover. [banghead]OK, so keep laughing, but if you are the customer and the person on the RR that he is talking to -[:(!]-- it ain’t funny.
Long, yes. Loud? I still have hearing damage. Do I remember what was said? Vividly. And if you stood in front of that Super’s operating plan, you were looking for a new job.
There were not many of us who cried at his promotion to the next level of incompetance.
And do so with such precision that not even an atom of air can locate a crack to get through!
And then, if you can, sit there and laugh, but also, you just may be hiding behind the log - the one that’s thick enough to protec you from the incomming.
Along with cover cars you also have to worry about open loads, i.e. pipe,rail wood, a loaded flatcar with rail next to a flammable is less than ideal placement, I was actually told once, well it came from Amarillo that way!, needless to say we switched it out and put it into compliance, something about going through populated areas with a rfeally big bomb with a trigger next to it did not appeal to me.
I always thought you only had to have five cover cars if you had them, the railroad runs ethanol trains with 100 loads ethanol and one cover car, passes many a place with cover cars. I don’t know if that train is exempted possibly from certain hazmat rules.
As for loads and not loads, most locals are exempt from train makeup rules, as far as weight ditribution, buit we try not to put long drawbar cars on the head end, i.e. empty bulkhead flats with a lot of tonnage behind.