Yesterday, driving through western Minnesota, I saw something odd. A long siding on the BNSF had 2, somewhat short trains in it. Each had a crew waiting in the cab. They were seperated by a couple hundred yard. The odd part was, one was facing north, the other facing south.
It seems to me, that one or the other of the trains would have had to pass up the siding, then back into it. Are moves like this common on a somewhat busy line? I never did see the train they were waiting on.
Murphy,
Unless there was a crossover in the middle of the siding, rare, and without knowing train denisty and dispatching method, I would call it rare; say 1 in 1000 to 1 in 10000 meets. First rarity is two short trains. Second is that the time and effort involved in backing one of them into an occupied siding are such that one or the other would usually be run by the siding you observed. Something unusual caused the dispatcher to come up with that move. A contributing factor could be that sidings are spaced so far apart that this was the least delay option available, or perhaps some red hot train like a Z train, passenger train, or worst of all an officer’s special was the third train that you did not see.
Mac
Two more ideas:
One of the short trains could have been a wayfreight/ Roadswitcher that the dispatcher had back in for a meet/paas so they could hold the main at the next spot where they had work.
One of the trains was about to expire on their hours and dispatcher took advantage of room on other end of siding and had that train back in.
With short trains it’s not that much of a deal to back into a siding.
On the W/B Missouri Mule, we entered an occupied siding while an e/b Z-train blasted by on the main. Then we backed out of the siding, and continued on our way. The E/B coal train still had not moved as we passed by.
Where did you see this? What was the consist of the two trains-were they manifest, or intermodal, or what? I’m curious, never have seen something like this myself.
Jim
Maybe dispatch had a really really high priority train to get around them. It might have just happened that the 2 trains were short?
Just an idea.
Justin
This was on the BNSF Wilmer to Sioux City line, between Pipestone and Ihlen, Minnesota. They both were mixed trains, a little of everything.
Murphy, it is a shame you didn’t have a camera to record this. As they say, there is nothing new under the sun, and I recall when my father was a train dispatcher 30+ years ago, talking about doing this. It’s not that you will never get a chance to record something like this again, it is just really unlikely.
I think the odds fall somewhere between getting hit by lightning and winning the lottery. It could happen.[(-D]
AgentKid
I don’t believe there is anything radically unusual in this event. A meet and an overtake. As long as the siding is long enough and the trains short enough, and everyone is in proper communication and rules, he can and will do what he has to to keep his railroad fluid. It probably happens many times day all across the rail system in this country alone.
I think Mac has the number right – about 1:10,000 train meet/pass events might be something like this. By no means a common event, but if you’re a train dispatcher making 100 meet/pass events daily, you might do this about once every 4 months. It’s much more common in a hard-pressed territory with too many trains and not enough siding. It’s not a very attractive way to meet trains due to the possibility of things going wrong (like a conductor trip-and-fall), especially at night or inclement weather, and because the amount of time it takes can easily hog out a crew.
I do know one territory where this type of event was occurring daily in recent years (prior to the business downturn), but that territory is rather unusual.
RWM
Thanks. I get down that way once in a while, the Marshall Sub north of Pipestone is a pretty stretch of railroad. Not that that has anything to do with what you saw, which was very interesting. I’ll be on the lookout for something similar.
Jim
Just the other day I saw something odd like this but it very quickly made sense. I saw a freight train pull into a siding around the time for Amtrak to pass. But when Amtrak approached a few minutes later, it didn’t pass but to my surprise it went into the siding behind the freight train. I thought it was real odd to see that happen. A few more moments, another Amtrak passed by going in the other direction. The first Amtrak then backed out and continued. There’s nothing odd about that now that I see the whole picture.
In CTC the head in - back out move can be faster than going through the siding, since the Amtrak is short and all the moves can be made on signal indication.
For once I have to slightly disagree with you. I’d place it more in the line of 1:1,000 meets. Just a short drive from my house is the last siding on NS’s New Castle District before the line gets to Fort Wayne. (Which also makes it the first siding out of town) It was a regular occurance to do the “Kingsland Shuffle” with 3 or 4 trains meeting. The New Castle must have a lower priority to the Chief Dispatcher as the other districts “dump” the connecting trains out of order to get them off of their territory. The NCD dispatcher then sorts them out and gets the drags behind the intermodals for the trip to Cincinnati. Sometimes the Triple Crown trains would wait for their turn at the yard at this siding, which made for some interesting meets.
Most, if not all of the time, the train doing the back-in manuver was one of the locals or the Muncie Turn, rarely it’s a unit train that has to do this. One helpful feature is both the main and siding are CTC, so the first train in can get an approach into the siding, while the following train and the train backing in have to be talked past the signals at restricted speed.&nb
Your local experience may vary. Nationally, you will find many corridors with very high train volumes that virtually never do this. I’m speaking from my experience with four different Class 1s.
RWM