Our city has a smelly, old packing plant-John Morrell. There is a rail spur to the plant, from the edge of the BNSF yard, about 1/2 mile down a grade that would rival Saluda grade. About 1/2 way down the hill, is a spur that, up until about 10 years ago, lead to a railcar repair company that moved. I’m sure that the upper portion of the spur hasn’t seen a train in 10 years, the lower part in 20 years. The rails are rusty, and would be overgrown with weeds, except for one thing-someone maintains the track. There’s no weeds, and the ballast is always maintained. Whenever we get a big gully-washer rain, more ballast is added, and the ROW groomed. The last time this happened that I’m aware of, was last summer.
Who is responsible for keeping this spur in good, usable condition? Does Morrell keep it usable as a deterrent , to keep trucking prices in line? Does BNSF keep it usable, in case Morrell starts shipping by rail again? For what it’s worth, a mile away, is a refridgerated warehouse that loads out lots of boxed meats on rail. The meat come from-Morrells!
Anybody have thoughts on why an unused spur is kept up? Maybe, this isn’t such a rare occurence in the rail industry?
If it’s being kept well groomed and maiintained, then it’s still in use by someone. As previously mentioned, maybe trains use it at night and you don’t see them coming and going.
I remember seeing that spur when I visited Falls Park. Looks like 3 or 4 % grade. I have seen spurs similar to that, but they were not leading to industry and were flat, so maybe cars were stored sometimes. But yours is a head scratcher.
Not all trains run in the daylight, it might be the plant is serviced at night, as was suggested.
We have several refineries and other customer that require we pull and spot them at night because of the production flow and such…it may simply be that the plant needs to be worked at their off peak time.
Your other guess may also be correct, they keep it maintained…and the spur is most likely owned by the plant, not the railroad.
Most of our customers maintain the tracks inside their facilities…our maintenance ends on average 50 feet past the switch.
This reduces our liability and forces the customer to keep their tracks in fairly good condition, or we refuse to service them, an embargo in fact.
From what you are describing, it sounds like the plant is serviced at night…and rails will surface rust after a rain storm (even dew will leave a light coat)…so if the rails have a light coat of orange or new rust, it only means the tracks haven’t been used in a day or two.
If, on the other hand, the rust is dark and heavy, then that just increases the mystery.
Or, it may be the plant is worked only on a weekly basis, and you just haven’t been there at the right time to see it happen.
Well now, it seems I need to put on my Sherlock Holmes hat now. Without camping out next to a packing plant for the duration, what would be a good way to check if a rail line has had a train over it recently? Would puttin a chaulk “x” on the top of a rail tip me off when a train had gone through? (Wouldn’t be tresspassing-the line goes through a city park. I could just mark it at the crossing.)
It is very easy to determine if the rails to the packing plant have been used. Rail will rust from even a light rain or even heavy dew. When a locomotive and cars subsequently runs over it the rails will re-shine, if ever so slightly. You won’t need to put chalk marks!. Fresh rust is a very bright almost orange color.
The longer rail is not used the rust will darken and darnken. Rails not used for years will get an almost black tone. Hope this helps.
This morning, I took my youngest son hiking. As we passed the Morrell packing plant, there is a PFE refridgerator car sitting at the gate! It’s been so long since a car has been on the siding, that the flanges had to make new trails, where the tracks are surrounded by asphalt parking lot. Because of major expansion and remodeling in the last 10 years, I don’t think there exists a rail loading dock anymore. It looks to me, like they’ll have to load it in the parking lot(?) ’ Hard to figure out what that game plan is all about.
Is there a standard inspection of some sort done, when someone orders a car spotted on a long disused siding ? Who would do it? The switching crew? Would it be done from a maintenance truck on the tracks, or on foot-up close and personal?
Holy ***! A PFE reefer? Haven’t seen one of those in years, and UP pays me to watch for 'em! [;)] (White, ARMN perhaps?)
Can’t imagine what the meat-packing plant would do with a reefer these days, unless it was loaded with packaged meat.
By the way, regardless of whether the spur was used recently or not, what gave you the idea that it was being maintained? You said it was weed-covered. Did the ballast look good?–that could merely indicate that the spur was undisturbed. Have you any knowledge that the ties were replaced, or tamping had taken place, or spikes driven? If nothing is going over the track, nothing is wearing it out, and–if it had good drainage to begin with–it will stay in good shape for a while.
As for what has to be done before the track is used, the crew is responsible, under GCOR Rule 6.28, to stop short of any obstruction–an impassable defect would be considered an obstruction.
On the railroad side of the fence, the railroad track supervisor or some other individual under the roadmaster’s authority inspects any active sidetrack or industry track at least once a month .(more frequently for main tracks and passing sidings based primarilly on tonnage or passenger train frequency) That track inspector’s responsibility ends at the division of ownership, usually determined by a license agreement/ contract that shows who owns / maintains/ operates a given piece of industry track. The track owner/ industry is supposed to do the same thing, but he takes care of the track as well as he takes care of his driveway and parking lot (usually not much). Nothing happens often until something breaks or worse (and then the finger pointing begins - any roadmaster in an urban area sees more than his fair share of this). The contract usually defines the division of ownership as the point where the track crosses the property line or at the clearance point.
Every once in a very great while, an industry will hire a contractor to maintain and repair its track on a regular basis - usually where the track is heavilly used and is the plant’s lifeblood. Otherwise the industry beancounter looks at maintenace of the track as an unwanted expense and somehow fools the plant supervision into believing that track maintenance is the railroad’s responsibility (when is is not). The exception to this comes with some very old (pre-WW2) track agreements that you rarely see anymore.
If a track is left unused for some time, a roadmaster will often take a track out of service by spiking/tagging the switch. When somebody finally howls, he wi
Carl: The reefer says PFE in big bilboard letters, but I realize now, that it probably has different reporting marks.
The spur is unique, in that it goes through a city park, that the city fathers are trying to turn into a city showcase. It runs right next to a very busy bike trail. It would not surprise me to find out that the parks department does the mowing and trimming on the ROW. New ballast has been spread as recently as this spring, and it’s as neat as anyone’s HO layout. It’s stuff like that, that makes me curious.
mudchicken: It sounds like the average railroad management position has about a thousand and one responsibilities.[:O]
The Morrell facility at Sioux Falls is a hog plant with the capacity to process 14,500 head per day. Currently about one of five hogs dispatched in the US is exported. (In 2007 around 106,000,000 hogs were slaughtered in the US. Morrell is part of Smithfield which is the largest US pork processor with a 31% capacity share. Just 13 hog plants slaughter 58% of the hogs.)
From what I understand, there is a reefer container shortage that makes getting a reefer container to an inland point like Sioux Falls difficult. What the plant could be doing is loading a refrigerated rail car with frozen export pork that will be transloaded into a reefer container at the port.
Going back to your original question, a year later:
Assuming the spur is not used, I can’t see any value to keeping it for the purpose of capping trucking prices. Trucking of meat is cutthroat and the threat of rail service isn’t going to make truck rates to a packing plant go down.
I can’t see any reason for maintaining the spur in the fashion you describe. Obviously someone at the plant thinks it’s important. Sometimes people do things that are unusual.
There is a possibility that the spur exists in order to obtain an attracti
Whoa! Those are even rarer (as in extinct, I thought), because that would have been an old SPFE reefer, of which none are supposed to be in revenue service.
Um…[:I] I bet you’re right, and it was WFE. That would make me a [D)]. I’ll have to make it a point to drive by again, and pay attention this time. [B)]