Send all cars back to the main yard, or leave at industries when empty?

Model Railroader Prototype information for the modeler
1

I’m somewhat new to railroad operations, as I’ve just recently been getting into trying to operate it as a real railroad. I had a simple 4 x 8 oval with a small 6 x 3 yard attached to it for years, until I decided 8 years ago to start over completely. 10 x 13 layout, with another 12 x 4 extension on it. I’m quickly picking up on railroad operations, and how things work, but I could use some help on where to place cars on the layout when they are empty.

I model bits and pieces of 3 towns. In the middle is Altoona, along with Tyrone which is right around the corner. The eastern part of my layout is Lewistown, the western part is Pittsburgh. I’d like to know where I should put specific cars? I’ll list industries and yard sizes below.

Pittsburgh Industries: Iron City Beer, depot (simple drop off point for products from other parts of the railroad), and a small steel mill. I export beer in box cars, a fruit box car to Tyrone, and a chemical tank car to the Tyrone paper mill. I have a very small 2 track yard, which is just being used to store empties until they’re needed.

Altoona: Yard only, with 2 3 stall engine sheds and the McGraw oil company kit I believe. 7 yard tracks with the shortest being 4 feet long. I can fit about 44 cars in my yard. I have an oil building on the outskirts of Altoona, which I use to store oil and ship it to Pittsburgh/Tyrone when needed.

Lewistown Industries: I have an oil loading platform that I use for loading oil, gas, and the Molasses mine for my tank cars. I have a small farm with a grain silo and some cows. The farm is used for their Rye, which is exported to the beer brewery in Pittsburgh. Also have one stock car that I use to take cattle to Tyrone. I have a logging mill that I take a few logging cars from, and take them to the Tyrone paper mill.

Tyrone Industries: I have the paper mill, which is powered by coal. I bring in the logging cars, and have the box cars filled with paper, and exported to Pittsburgh. I have a

2

Here’s the simplest answer:

In general, empties will be reloaded at the industry (if practicable), or returned to the railroad yard. If they can be loaded at a nearby industry, the next step is to deliver them to that industry. If not, then home road cars are kept in storage until needed, and foreign cars are sent home by the same route they traveled to get where they are.

Tom

3

More along the lines of what Tom has concisely stated.

Many industries receive loaded cars, but then distribute or ship products via truck, etc. They rarely ship via RR, so any cars spotted there will be picked-up MT. A grocery distributor or powerplant are examples.

Other industries do nothing but ship via RR. Lots of MTs are provided so they can be loaded. They may rarely receive loaded cars, however these are usually on cars not suitable for shipping. Think quarries and mines, which ship mostly outbound, but which might receive new equipment or supplies via rail, but the cars – flats and boxcars – don’t work well for shipping coal.

Other industries receive a variety of inputs via RR and ship some or all out on the RR. However, the car types and restrictions mean that incoming loaded cars are then pulled as MT and the MTs needed to ship must be delivered along with those incoming loads.

So it’s generally rarely the case that a car unloaded at an industry can then be reloaded to ship out. It does happen, but more likely most of you industries will need both loaded cars and MTs pulled and loaded cars and MTs spotted. An example of when MT cars are directly reused for outbound freight would be RR freight houses, as the boxcars, etc that bring in LCL freight and express are reused to ship the same outbound.

4

A nice detail to include at industries that use tank cars for wet products is a tank car washing facility. Not that they are overly fastidious about clean cars, they want to make sure they get all the product they paid for. A decent amount of stuff can be washed out and recovered by this process.

Robert

5

Robert makes a very good point. Another feature at major yards was a cleanout track, where empty boxcars were cleaned before being sent to the next customer. I remember the cleanout track at AC&Y’s Brittain Yard on Akron’s East side. The ground was always littered with discarded packing materials.

Tom

6

Just this week MR Video Plus released a video where Dave Popp explains how to calculate what and how many cars they need, where they go when full or empty.

So I very pleased with the video subscription.

7

Here’s the basics.

A industry wants a empty car remove as quickly as possible least they pay a detention fee.

A railroad will want those empty foreign road cars off their rails as soon as possible least they pay a detention fee. On the PRR it was not uncommon for us to drop empty C&O cars on the PRR/C&O interchange. The conductor would write a empty waybill for the car(s).

Now if a PRR freight agent didn’t have any empties then through gritted teeth he would load a foreign car over a home car. There were exceptions like:When empty return Agent GTRR Detroit Mich.

On the other hand if a customer wanted a empty and we had the needed empty PRR car we would spot that car for him.The conductor would do the required paper work. If we didn’t have a PRR empty then we could not help him even though we may have 4 or 5 foreign road empties in our train consist.

Now,on the other hand some old line conductors would call the agent and get his permission to drop a foreign road car for load the majority would not because that wasn’t their job and may cause the crew to go into over time-a no, no, unless it can’t be avoid…Conductors had to justify over time.That was a bean counter thing.

8

None of the model railroads I’ve ever operated on (and that’s been a few) have ever charged themselves or their operating crews any demurrage that I’m aware of. I certainly don’t do that on my layout. So with two exceptions, my experience has been that the empties stay at the industry until the next train that services that industry is run.

The first of those exceptions would be if you ran a sweep at the end of the operating session to pick up all the empties and return them to the yard. But that’s not common, as on many layouts (including mine) all it would do is clog the yard. If that’s NOT the case on your layout, I would opine you need to add more cars.

The other would be if your operating scheme or mechanism allows you to have some sort of delay on a car. For example, I use JMRI’s OperationsPro, which allows you to add a “wait” to specify how many trains will try to service that spur until the car gets picked up. (But I don’t use that option, either. The next time that train runs works well for me.)

9

That’s the way its done. The customer calls his agent and releases the car and within 48 hours that car will be picked up by the local crew.IF the industry didn’t call their agent and release that car a demurrage fee would be charged…The railroad becomes responsible for that car and will do everything possible to speed it on its way back to home rails…

BTW…Since this is a prototype forum I gave a prototype answer based on my railroad experience. I should have mention that.

On my ISL the cars picked up during operation is taken to the N&W interchange and pulled from the layout and may not be seen again for two to three months since I have enough cars for rotation.

10

I feel compelled to point this out because it was the focal point of my previous layout: the Pittsburgh Brewing Company (Iron City) was a B&O customer and none of their products used rye.

The Duquesne Brewery on the South Side was PRR and I’m pretty sure Rolling Rock in Latrobe was too. I’m guessing you’re PRR based on the place names.

11

That’s good since real railroads don’t charge other railroads or crews demurrage either. Demurrage is charged to an industry when an industry holds a car before unloading it or delays unloading or loading a car. If railroad A has a loaded car to be spotted at Acme Co. and it is not a private car, Acme has a day to unload it, if Acme can’t take the car on their track, then the free “day” starts when the railroadhad the car available to spot. After the free day is up the railroad can charge Acme a daily penalty for not unloading the car (plus they get to charge teh company a switching fee). Lets say Acme can take the car on arrival, but it takes them 3 days to unload the car, Acme get one free day then starts to pay demurrage on the 2nd and 3rd day. Acme is going to load a car so they order an empty (not a private car), the railroad spots the empty. Acme gets 2 days to load the car. If it takes them 3 days to load the car, then they get 2 free days and are charged one day demurrage.

As soon as the company releases the car to the railroad or provides billing information the demurrage clock stops. Private cars on privately owned track (or track leased by the industry) do not accrue demurrage.

All railroad owned cars are subject to car hire, which is what the railroads pay each other and the car owners, an hourly charge (daily in the steam era) plus they may have a mileage charge too. Private cars have a mileage charge (but generally no daily rate). Back in the steam era the daily rate was charged against who had control of the car at midnight so railroads wanted to get rid of cars before midnight. Now its an hourly rate so they want t

12

Generally a railroad removes the empties (and loads) until the next time the local train runs. If the empties are not needed for loading, the the railroad will pull them and move them to a yard where they can be reassigned to another company to load. If its a car type that isn’t used frequently then they might let it sit until they have a place for it to load or it gets bumped out by an imbound car.

If its a car to support loading then they will leave it ther until it gets loaded. They may bring in additional empties because they know they will eventually load it there.

Railroads have car distribution bureaus that assign empty general service cars to car orders. Assigned service, specially equipped cars (private cars, covered hoppers, specially equipped boxcars, reefers, etc) have an assigned destination and go back to that destination to be loaded. General service cars (railroad owned plain boxcars, hoppers, gons and flats) will be loaded if there is a load that goes back in the direction of the railroad that owns the car or can be routed over the railroad that owns the car. If I’m the Missouri Pacific and I have a PRR boxcar I can load it east towards or over the PRR, but not west to Los Angeles.

13

From my experiance a home road car first if available if not then a foreign road car in the direction of its home rails… A PRR agent would go out of his way not to load anything but,a PRR car.

One of the many things that doom PC was old NYC agents routing cars over home rails even though a PRR route was shorter and the same applied to the PRR.

Every PRR conductor I worked with on the west side indudtrial switch jobs would drop empty C&O or C&O bound cars off at the interchange this was normal. PRR didn’t want to pay detention fees.

Fast forward to the IPD era and it was like the Railbox slogan-Next Load Any Road. Railroads hated that so,they started buying new or boxcars as fast as they could be built. That’s why the IPD era didn’t last long and after the crash of the IPD era the railroads bought those nearly new boxcars at bargain basement prices… Short lines made their money by renting their names to the boxcar investors.

14

Yeah I kinda figured some of my industries or the materials that come in and out of the industries are inaccurate, but I’m still trying to get some things realistic. I built the layout years ago when I thought I would just keep it small, and instead of starting over from scratch I just added on so I’m more limited in industrial space/sidings than if I started over from scratch. I do have room to add 1 or 2 industries, I’m just not quite sure which I should add. Ultimately I’d like to have Altoona/Tyrone export paper to Pittsburgh, along with some oil or Molasses even though that’s probably not accurate.

I don’t have much in Pittsburgh so I’m probably going to build 1-2 staging tracks and just send a train back to Altoona that has steel, beer, maybe chemicals for the paper mill and another few cars if I can figure out what else Pittsburgh would ship out that a town like Tyrone or Altoona would need. I’d like to have realistic industries for the specific cities on my layout, but I sneak some in just to give me more trains to build up and switching to do.

I don’t have much scenery done and I have to finish part of the track laying in the Pittsburgh area, so if I could get some small buildings, even background buildings I could use that are more prototypical, I’d love to.

I’m actually from New York, but my dad is from the Altoona area, and his dad was a welder in the Juniata shops for 42 years.

15

I guess I have little problems with what to do with the empty cars. As in real life the tropicana juice cars are sent back to Florida on the back of other trains (in my world that means container loads). Somewhere in Fl they are stripped off and hauled back to Bradenton for cleaning and reloading. Unlike the prototype my container yard is adjacent to the Tropicana yard which makes attaching the empty cars easy.

16

Pikesburgh -

First off, [#welcome] to the forums.

Secondly…

Surprised no one has mentioned this, but…

Add an interchange track (or two.) into the mix. (Or a east/west staging yard representing “elsewhere” not modeled.)

(It is also possible that you already do this, and I am just not getting that point, in which case, please excuse my ignorance.)

Say your papermill - Sure, send some to Pittsburgh, but also some to the Pittsburgh interchange track - which could represent any other “off layout town” destination west of Pittsburgh. (Cleveland, Youngstown, all the way to Chicago on the PRR.) And, that allows you to bring in materials for the steel mill from elsewhere. Or material for the papermill from a chemical plant located in, say, Youngstown, or Cleveland. You could also have a interchange track (or staging yard) at the east end, to allow steel, beer, or paper to go east, “off layout”. (Harrisburg, New York City, etc… All on PRR.) And, you could bring in material for the steel mill, papermill or beer processing plant from, say, Ports in New York, or wood from Maine and Canada, and any variety possible thereof.

This will also allow you to more accurately model foriegn road cars, say a load of hops from the Midwest, came in a ATSF covered hopper car, via a ATSF/PRR routing, handed off in Chicago, you could then, logically, route the foreign car empty back west, towards the ATSF railway. Or that load of wood, on a CP car, send the empty CP car back east, towards CP. (Therefore, you could send loads or receive loads, and empties for/from these, to/from any railroad that interchanged directly, or indirectly, with the PRR.)

If you wanted, you could include “run-through” freights, east or west bound, that originate, and terminate, “off layout”, and simply “pass through” the area you have modeled.

Even have a boxcar of metal machine parts come from a manufacture

17

Here’s a thought…Back in the day railroad employees was very loyal and why would they would they even think of loading a UP car when they have empty home road cars? You see empty home cars lose money for the road and they would fill them first.If my Aunt was still alive and in good mind(if alive she would be in the mid 90s) she could explain how that works far better then I.

Railroads wasn’t exactly lovey dovey and holding hands with each other anyway back then.

Trains Magazine has covered the railroad industry quite well and every modeler would be light years ahead if he read Trains on a monthly bases. I highly recommend buying back issues of Trains from the 60/70s and read every John G. Kneiling(The Professional Iconoclast) column.

In one of Trains special short line issues it was mention a short line could not get enough empty covered hoppers for grain shipments from their connecting road because their wasn’t enough empties so,grain was stored on the ground or trucked to wait for it,wait for it---------- to their connecting road! Funny how that road had the empties that could have been loaded on the short line instead of the grain being rubbered to a transload track…

I can imagine the shipper pulling his hair out while cussing the railroads…

=============================================

Simply having industries in Pitts

18

My personal system, based on play value of an operating session is to move emties back to the local yard by the next local freight switching that town.

This means picking up a car that otherwise might sit for a couple of sessions.

As owner/setup man for sessions/etc. I order foreign cars to be set out for laoding when going in the direction of there home road. Local to local shipments are home road, and in my fictional world, trucks are severely limited in size, and therefore utility to shippers.

My off line staging is just that, not a place for rotating cars, as I don’t have enough to need to rotate.

I know this is not close to prototype practice, but my operating crew doesn’t care.

If you enjoy your system, it is a good system.

Dave

19

Just for information…Railroads do not make money on the short haul and has turn away that type of loose freight traffic. There may be a few exceptions but,I suspect the big railroads would rather not. While short lines will take any freight but,they may frown on the short haul again because there’s no money in it and a contract shuttle truck company can do it faster.

20

When I worked in car distribution for a midwestern road back in the 1979 and there were several situations where we did not use system cars and loaded foreign cars in preference.

At that time mill gons were in short supply so any foreign mill gons were loaded back to the east coast in preference to system gons. Also we loaded foreign empty boxcars to Mexico in preference to system where we could. IPD boxcars were loaded off line to get them off IPD.