I have an opportunity to sit trackside tommorow or lay around the house. My question is how much effect will Memorial Day have on the railroads? My thoughts are that it will be a heavy day due to not many deliveries being made today and tommorow because of companies being closed so the shipments will have to travel tommorow and be delivered Tuesday. Any other thoughts or predictions?
Thanks in advance[:)]
We are going to run full switch crews all three shifts, in all of our yards…so the holiday might not make that much of a difference.
Almost all of our customers down here are going to be open…refineries run 24/7 anyway.
After work, I have a job to do out at the National Cemetary, got a few headstones and grave markers to clean and polish up…
Ed
It’s pretty much business as usual at our yard (I won’t be there–it’s my regular day off). The local industries will be shut down (so our industry jobs won’t work), but the hump jobs and pulldown (trim) jobs will all be working, all three shifts.
As for what you might see on the road, I’d say it would probably be just about like any other Monday–the beginning of the post-weekend slowdown. The change in business levels will be most obvious around Tuesday and Wednesday, when the effects of the longer weekend are realized. Our intermodal business will be pretty much at normal levels. I’m not sure how mines operate over holidays, so there might be a lull in coal traffic. Do ethanol processors have to keep runing like petroleum refiners? That business is really beginning to take hold.
Im working my two trains tomorow. Nothing different.
Well,Life should go on pretty much as Normal tomorrow.
Let all of us Remember why it does.
Same on BNSF train will run as usual. What we all should do is if anybody knows a veteren thank them.
Rodney
Locomotive engineer and U.S. Navy retired
Thank you Ed, Walt, and Rodney, and anyone else here that’s a veteran.
//insert Saluting smiley here
[#ditto][tup]
Yes, thank you to all our veterans!! We have our freedoms because of you working
to protect us all!! [bow][bow][bow][bow]
YMMV, but on the Q racetrack which has a lot of commuter trains, there’s usually a lot of freight trains right before and right after the commuter rush on weekdays, less so on Saturdays, and the freights are more spread out on Sundays and holidays. Long weekends are sometimes used for heavier track maintenance and that can result in traffic being reduced from 3 tracks to 2 or even 1, which can make things really interesting.
Click on the link to see why today means so much to so many…
They miss him, and so do I…
http://werenotafraid.com/images/758/index.html
Second row, third from the left.
Ed
As I’ve seen the flags flying at half-staff (as they should be until noon on Memorial Day), this year I’m especially remembering my father and grandfather (who served in World War II and World War I, respectively). My dad often said military experience would have been good for me, but I didn’t go that route.
Unfortunately, I’m too far away to even view their graves, but I will call relatives who can or have, and assure myself that they have been remembered.
