Interchange / Operations

[brakie]

Cory,Cars being STORED by another railroad comes under different rules and would usually result in a "storage fee" being paid to the railroad storing the cars.Many short line make extra money by storing larger railroads or private owner cars.

I read with interest in R&R that M&ET has acquired 2 Vancouver Wharves SW1500s.
While I like SW1500s I always thought the M&ET was unique having a all GE 70 Tonner roster for such a large industrial park operation..

 

[Gary S.]

Cory:

Does your railroad move cars from the UP interchange to the BNSF interchange without the car going to your local industries? Or does UP and BNSF interchange their cars somewhere else so as to avoid paying your railroad a fee?

Also, how is the job going so far?

 

[Gary S.]

Alternatively, does anyone know of any shortline that transfers cars from one major RR to another?

 

[doctorwayne]

Alternatively, does anyone know of any shortline that transfers cars from one major RR to another?

I believe that was the sole function of the Belt Railway of Chicago, although I'm not sure if they'd be classified as a short line.

Wayne

 

[liven_letdie]

Gary,

No interchanges between the big guys on our soil, also no run throughs which I was surprised to find out.

Brakie,

Yeah the 1500's are here. You just cant get parts for the little guys any more plus it takes 5 units sometimes to pull big cuts. The 70 tonners originally had like 600 HP but are now down to 300 HP each.

As far as the job goes, it wasn't the right fit for me. Learned a lot, put in a lot of effort, but just wasn't my thing. I was encouraged to pursue a class 1 RR that actually has a training program instead of being thrown to the sharks . Ah well.

 

[brakie]

I believe that was the sole function of the Belt Railway of Chicago, although I'm not sure if they'd be classified as a short line.

Wayne

Wayne,The BRC is a switching road and not a true short line..

http://www.beltrailway.com/

 

[Gary S.]

The reason for my question is this: I plan on having interchange yards at each end of my point-to-point, one for the Santa Fe and one for the Southern Pacific.

Would it be prototypical to have cuts of cars go from one interchange to the other?

Could my shortline be a subsidiary or whatever of Santa Fe and use Santa Fe power?

 

[shortliner]

Gary - why not pick a city that both serviced and set up your own Ficticious city-owned belt-line? I have a 44-tonner loco that is lettered for the Urban Belt & Terminal - or Urban Bellt & Transit - which just happen to be my SWMBO's initials

 

[Gary S.]

That is sort of my intent, a freelanced shortline or beltline. I definitely need to do more research. So a beltline would transfer from one major railroad to another? I'm planning on modeling a locale around Houston in the late 60s early 70s, and both the ATSF and SP came through here.

 

[shortliner]

Well - my beltline would service industrial tracks within the city and handle transfers between the mainline operators - might need a few city ordnances to keep the big players out - but ain't that what poly-ticking is all about?
Shortliner(Jack)away up here in the Highlands

 

[jetrock]

Sometimes a short line that does a lot of transfer business is actually owned by a larger Class 1 railroad. Belt lines often did a lot of transfer business: one of the more informative bits I found in researching the Sacramento Northern's belt line here in Sacramento was a chart showing major traffic directions by number of cars received in a typical week--the busiest traffic was on the interchange tracks between SP and WP, which implies that transfers between mainline operators (as well as SN's own mainline traffic) was the bulk of activity, at least in the 1950s. Any place where two major railroads met, but for some reason couldn't directly interchange, a beltline that handles the through traffic is a logical answer.

 

[Gary S.]

Thank you for the information. I am feeling that my layout operational ideas are fairly well grounded in prototypical behavior. I'm thinking that mine will be owned by the Santa Fe.

 

[60103]

Gary: You could also have a line jointly owned by both railroads. That would let you run SP and SF locos on it, or have its own dedicated power. Or have 3 locos lettered for the Gary Belt and one ATSF which is "temporary" while the fourth loco is in the shops.

 

[brakie]

The reason for my question is this: I plan on having interchange yards at each end of my point-to-point, one for the Santa Fe and one for the Southern Pacific.

Would it be prototypical to have cuts of cars go from one interchange to the other?

Could my shortline be a subsidiary or whatever of Santa Fe and use Santa Fe power?

Your short line could be a "paper" short line that uses the owning road(s) locos..If more then one road owns your short line you can rotate the owning roads motive power on a equal bases.

However,I prefer not to model "paper" short lines in any form..You see IMHO one is not really modeling a short line but,a given railroad under the guise of said short line and he/she would be better off to model a given railroad or shared assets agreement between 2 railroads.

 

[Gary S.]

Thank you all for the comments, I do appreciate your efforts to enligthen me.

Back to an earlier thought, I ran across this statement on a layout website: "I realized that it is not prototypical to route an empty car from one industry directly to another for loading. I should use one cycle to route it to an empty car yard. It means doubling the switching moves while the car is on the visible section (i.e. not in staging) but I need extra tracks for those yards."

Is this true?

 

[brakie]

Thank you all for the comments, I do appreciate your efforts to enligthen me.

Back to an earlier thought, I ran across this statement on a layout website: "I realized that it is not prototypical to route an empty car from one industry directly to another for loading. I should use one cycle to route it to an empty car yard. It means doubling the switching moves while the car is on the visible section (i.e. not in staging) but I need extra tracks for those yards."

Is this true?

A very deep sigh emits from Brakie..
No its not true you will need a extra yard track.Just kick it on any available yard track designated as a empty holding track..
As far as NOT sending a empty car from industry A to Industry B that would depend on the locals switch list.A empty car could be delivered for load IF the customer service department routed that car AFTER they was notified the car was empty and they knew a load was available for that car..Now if that was a foreign road car then of course that would be depend if the load was heading toward the owning roads home rails.

 

[Gary S.]

Okay, that makes sense. Thanks!

Over the holidays, I've done a considerable amount of thinking and designing my trackwork. I've got much of it temporarily pinned down on the shelves, will get some more done this weekend. I sort of like what I have done, but am not totally happy with some things. Later this weekend, I'll post some diagrams and photos over in the Track Planning forum, hopefully I can get comments and corrections/additions/suggestions from you guys.

And I reaaly do appreciate all the information you guys have given me.