I am from Holland and though i am reading RR’ing stuff for more then 50 yrs, i still have to learn a lot of words. I had a thread on reefers, i assumed they were “coolers” only and so there had to be a nick for “freezers” as well, was my thinking. I learned much about ice and salt along the way; didn’t know anything about the grand size of the ice trade and the sheer volume of salt needed.
But back to the yard; when a switcher is pushing cars over the lead- or drilltrack into the yard he puts them to tracks for different destinations. The procedure is called drilling but does a specific name exist for these tracks? It’s so easy to talk about a&d tracks or storage or runaround tracks; for the tracks so important for building a train, there must be a special nick?
Howdy from Nebraska, smack dab in the middle of the US.
No, reefers or refrigerator cars were for frozen as well as refrigerated food. The caveat is that before the advent of mechanical refrigeration, the ice cooled cars were difficult to keep cold enough for frozen foods. Once mechanical systems were perfected, the shipment of frozen foods was possible. So cooled or frozen, the cars are called “reefers”.
Bowl is not specific enough to my taste. So classtracks it will be. Just with reefers the nick(name) is that close you don’t have to explain. thx again,
In my fifty years of modeling and studying the prototype, I’ve never heard/read the terms “bowl tracks” or “classtracks.” (Perhaps I’ve lived a sheltered life, protected from most wayward influences.) Besides, the terms aren’t descriptive. Better to use the common term “classification tracks” for those tracks where cars are accumulated as a result of sorting cars.
The classification yard of a hump yard is generally called the “bowl” and the tracks in it are “bowl tracks”. I have never found a prototype hump yard that didn’t call the class yard a “bowl”. Maybe its a regional thing.
Really the whole naming tracks by a specific purpose thing gets a little overthought in many model yards because they are so small. Unless a yard is big enough to have separate leads for the different yards its probably better to just say they are all “yard” tracks and let the operators figure out what to do with them as they need them. That’s what they do in 99% of the smaller yards I’ve seen.
Allow me to recommend my book, The Model Railroader’s Guide to Freight Yards. Chapter Two, “Track by Track,” goes through the functions of tracks in a flat switching (not hump) yard in detail, and the book includes many examples of prototype and model yards where the track functions are called out and named.
to make it a little clearer, the “classification” of cars is by destination rather than by content. Since most yards had the same trains every day or every weekday the tracks were usually dealt the cars for the same train, i.e.: Cars for train 231 go on track 4 on first shift, cars for train 408 go on track 4 on late second, and early third shift. This practice multiplies the use and efficiency of the track. Sometimes during the shift a whole track load would be pulled and re-sorted for blocking such as shorts, locals, and throughs for the train’s next division point yard. Everything was done to improve efficiency is moving cars toward their final destination, which is the real purpose of the yard, rarely for storing cars except maybe in anticipation of a rush of specific cars, such as grain cars or reefers for an impending harvest, or auto cars for a new model release. I hope this helps. John
When I was in Galesburg the tracks were all named and or numbered. We called it a bowl and had tracks 1 through 48. We never said " Go to bowl track 36" it was always just 36 cause those jobs knew they were in the bowl.To make a pull out you were told which tracks to couple and then double,36 to 38 to 34 and then up Rat 2 out of town.Our “rat” tracks was slang for RT as the technical term was running track. Most of the bowl tracks did have a set theme,but I never worked the trimmer so I have no idea. I just know 48 was the BO track and 47 was its over flow.Reason being there was a switch at the head of 48 that took you through the departure yard and up the Middle to the Tuff yard (TOFC yard not used) and it set you up to the RIP yards.
New guys would be all kinds of confused when youd say " Take the City yard to the middle up the ramp and in on Tuff 2"Once you figured out the New pocket was next to the other pocket ( which was the new pocket until they made the new new one next to it) and that Oleys Pocket was in the railyard,you were lost.Not to mention some old heads had different names for things!
Actually if you want to create a 'real" railroad feel name the yard, many class yards or industry support yards have a local name such as the mud yard, the brick yard, the swamp yard, the back yard, the van yard, etc. Real railroads use such local names all the time, " Come out the Runner, through the Wheeler and go to Pedro 1."
Take the goat to the meadows, was railroad slang in Amsterdam. The goat was a little two axel diesel and the meadows the nickname for the classification part of the former main yard, called “the Reetlands”. (Rietlanden)
But sometimes you have to explain the function of certain tracks. I’ve read some postings on this forum were the words storage, staging and classification tracks were not properly used or understood. No offending meant, it’s happening every where and often too.
I must have heard the name classification tracks a zillion times, somehow it slipped out of my mind. Tnx to this forum there are two new books on my wishlist (Droege’s and Andy’s) and even more about the ice and salt trade thanks to another thread.
Well maybe. I have heard of some overseas modelers being unable to download books from Google Books. So Paul will have to try it and see if he can download a book. If a person is interested in Pre-Depression railroading Google Books is a treasure trove of info. Even though I model a relatively obscure branch, I found a volume of annual reports from that railroad when it was an independent line. All sorts of cool tidbits. Like one of the towns I model had a engine house but it blew down in a winter storm several years before the era I model and the board of directors decided not to rebuild it. So no engine house there.
Another way cool site site is the Historic American building Survey:
Thousands of pictures and drawing of buildings and industries across America from all sorts of eras. If I was researching a particular industry, that site would be one of my first stops.