What is going on?

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

I was traveling today and saw something odd. I saw a westbound (northbound) UP train, with two blocks of reefers, approximately 144.2 miles from Roseville at about 17:00. Then I saw an eastbound UP train approximately 93.4 from Roseville at about 17:50. At about 22:50, I saw what had been the backend of the westbound on the eastbound train, that I saw earlier, approximately 166.2 miles from Roseville. I know several of the cars from the westbound were on the eastbound because I photographed and wrote the the numbers of some. Any idea why they would transfer a block of cars from a train going one direction onto a train going in the opposite direction? The only reasons I can think of seem unlikely.

2

If I could remember the link, I’d share a story I read about a caboose that was headed from Utica, NY to Maine, and got there via Syracuse, Buffalo, and Selkirk Yard, among others. Its first movement was west because that’s the only way the locals pick up from Utica…

Without knowing how industries are laid out along that line, I can only suspect something similar. The reefers were picked up by the westbound (which was either a local, or the cars were more easily picked up headed west, due to switch configurations), blocked up somewhere into the eastbound manifest, then shipped east toward their eventual destination.

Not all that odd, really.

3

Thanks for the guess. However, being familiar with the locals and industries around here, I am sure that is not what happened. UP has locals that work the mainline. They leave their yard, work a certain distance and return to their yard, so they can switch all the industries. There are also no industries in that area that would have more than one or two reefers.

Also, I was by the eastbound train as it was moving very slowly and noticed the reefers were not running. It is rather rare for one reefer to come to an industry around here loaded (thus leave empty), much less a dozen, so it seems unlikely that the train had picked them up at an industry.

I used westbound and eastbound because that is how the directions are listed in the timetable, but westbound = northbound, and eastbound = southbound.