Question from one of my yard employees- Could a train car of lumber be cut in between the 2nd and 3rd engines of a local train that runs with 10 to 15 cars on a regular basis?
This would allow the car to be spotted on Tuesday to a facing point switch rather than Wednesday when the train is heading back to the destination yard. The local is usually about half and half empties and loaded, mostly tank cars and covered hoppers with the occasional lumber car. Grade is flat as a pancake, out in the country. Power is 3 older Geeps.
Would this type of arrangement be any harder for the switch crew or the local crew?
I know very little of what you ask, but I would assume the three locomotives were MU’d together, with one engineer. If you separated them, would they not then require either a second engineer or the addition of distributed power control systems?
It could be done that way, and the engine could be placed anywhere in the train so long as it was behind the lumber car. However it would need remote control capability to contribute to the rest of the work to be done that day.
As a practical matter I doubt that BNSF engines are so plentiful in the Sioux Falls area that one would be used only to accomplish this delivery in this manner. I’m nearly certain your lumber yard is not willing to pay the premium to speed the delivery by a day.
(edit to add)
I suspect there are major difficulties if the engineer of the whole train is expected to leave his engine to operate the stub engine to do the switching. I think a second man in the crew has to be qualified as an engineer to get this accomplished.
For whatever reason, the local always seems to be quite well powered. I can’t remeber the last time I saw a local that looked like it really needed 3 locomotives, at least not one going south/west to Marion with a fair amount of empties.
The third engine could be shut down and just along for the ride until needed I suppose. The problem might be as you pointed out, needing 2 qualified engineers on the train.
Good option and most of our materials are trucked in. But when you’re dealing with a bulky, low margin product, the little bit of savings afforded by using trains does make a difference. Both modes have their positives and negatives.
Absolutely… all ribbing aside, I refer some of my business to rail as well. The service is getting better all the time, and the pricing often can’t be matched by over the road.
Don’t need two engineers. If it is flat, one engine should easily handle 10-15 cars. Now while it is entirely possible to split the power and put a car in between, I don’t know BNSF or GCOR rules. We normally don’t put single cars between engines unless we are push-pull with ALL the cars in between - which still allows you to serve a facing point switch. I have had to walk back and change ends on a push-pull train a couple times in a night in order to serve an industry out of order because of some operational needs.
Do you have a service window for your industry? Closed gate or open gate status? This a special one-time request?
When Zug mentions open gate or closed gate it has no relationship to if your plant has a physical fence gate that must be opened to access your plant.
Open gate customers have their newly arriving cars at the serving yard placed in their plant in the next regular servicing of that plant. For demurrage purposes the demurrage clock begins running from the 1st