You guys who work as actual “over the road” locomotive crews, how common is it for you to stop in route for the purposes of setting cars out, along the way?
The impression I’ve gotten is that the over the road crews primarily shuttle trains between yards, and then local crews take the cars to the actual customer.
Is this the way it works? or do over the road conductors get involved in setting out cars at customer destination, from time to time?
There are some areas where there isn’t enough business to warrant a regularly assigned local freight. In those places it would be a thru freight crew, most likely on the lowest priority manifest, doing the work.
Jeff
Anti:
Here on the NKP line, NS runs a local west from Wayne to Valpo just about daily.
However, you will hear the dispatcher instruct trains such as 177, 323, 306/307, etc to stop at Argos to make a pickup or setout. My guess is that often Argos yard will have a couple of cars available after the local proceeds back to Wayne. Thus the pickup is made to improve the car movement by a day.
On the CN, there are certain trains such as 390/391 and 348 that are instructed to work at South Bend or beyond. They have no locals running.
ed
Thanks for the extra info, couple more questions If you don’t mind?
A. You say there is a yard remaining at Argos. I was under the impression that the intersecting line there was gone. (I know it is down by Peru). How much of that michigan city line is still in operation? (curious)
And
B. The Argos yard example matches the general impression I’ve got for over the road crews having primarily yard to yard responsibility. The curiousity driving my original question was one of wondering just how familiar over the road conductors have to be with lineside customers, as in making deliveries.
For example (just to illustrate) Suppose in Knox there was siding serving a large, multi tenant, warehouse building, where tenant “A” has doors 1 and 2, tenant “B” has door 3, tenant “C” has doors 4 and 5, etc
Is an ‘over the road’ conductor going to have to know as much about each building along his way JUST IN CASE he is ever expected to set a car out at one of them?
Or is most of this location specific info usually the dominion of the local crews?
I know that’s a lot, and I appreciate your taking the time to read it all, I’m just really curious about that aspect.
On CP between Bensenville and St Paul the “Thru freights” are interdivisional (ID)runs, which means the crews run thru the crew change points of Milwaukee and LaCrosse. Only crew change is Portage.
The ID crews on many different trains will pick up and/or set out at Milwaukee or La Crosse, and this is about all the work they do as Rondout-St Paul is covered by various road switchers and locals.
The exceptions are an ID crew sometimes will p/u a repaired bad order car that goes with their train if instructed. For example 185 will pick up a Ford car or 183 will pick up a Shoreham intermodal car. Eastward ID crews may have 25+ car blocks of grain to set out at Hastings, Red Wing, Lake City or Winona on trains that have not come out of St Paul Yard. Of course any crew will have to s/o a bad order from their train enroute.
Other than the above the CP ID crews seldom do any work enroute.
AG:
Cant say I am very familiar with the Argos operations. The line from Argos north to Michigan City is still in operation. This summer I saw an NS local switching at Plymouth. The State of Indiana 2005 Rail System Map, available on line at the INDOT…shows the line being NS from Argos up to Stillwell, which is the junction with the CN (GTW). From Stillwell north it is South Shore.
I have been in Kingsbury (old ordinance plant) and have seen South Shore train in there. It was a pretty healthy train. There is a steel processor in there. I would guess, and it is only a guess that SS picks up steel from one of the mills and delivers to this plant for slitting or processing. The train had quite a few coil cars.
When I hear the dispatcher instruct one of the road trains to pickup at Argos, it is usually one or two cars. So there is not much there. The same INDOT map shows the line south of ARgos to Rochester being served by FCRR (Fulton County Railroad?). No info on them.
Take a look on the Google aerial view at Argos and you will see it is a pretty good sized yard, with about 5 tracks, each a mile long or so.
ed
Through freight conductors seldom service customers, with the main exceptions being spotting entire trains into grain elevators for loading or pulling them out for transporting. Another exception is moving blocks of cars from point A to point B, a la Argos. Another exception is servicing a intermodal facility enroute, such as the one in Columbus, OH, on NS. One last exception is servicing a automotive facility, such as the Ford Mixing Centers in Fostoria, OH, and Shelbyville, KY, which receive and ship large blocks of autoracks.
I have seen, when times are slow, through freights service customers and the locals taken off, but business wasn’t what it is today.
rrboomer, MP173, and especially ValleyX, thanks for the info.
Trains on the CSX Montreal Secondary regularly drop and pick up cars at Watertown, where there are a couple of locals to do the work. I don’t normally hear traffic on the south end of the line, but I suspect that due to the proximity to Syracuse, they don’t do so at Woodard…
Out this way, local crews do the majority of the local work.
Through crews drop and pick up cars at intermediate yards for the locals. The only customer through trains service, recieves 20 or so cars a day, and has it’s own switch crew. The through crews simply sets or picks the cars up from the interchange track and the company switcher does the rest.
Nick