Questions on Interchange and Rolling stock

TN_Trainman

New Member
Hello unto the Gauge, well it seems I need to Tap the well of knowledge here again, (Lord I am glad I found you guys) as some of you know I am building my Fictional layout the Tennessee & Western that will be based in the time line from 1945 to early 1965.

The T&W will share trackage with the L & N at Tullahoma, TN with an iinterchange yard with the L&N. The fictional part of the RR will run from Tullahoma to Memphis (around 200 miles)

My question is what names would you likely see on such a RR, I mean did UP serve Memphis in this time era? Would you see a Sant Fe box car in the L&N exchange yard?

I guess my real question is "How much inter-mingling was there between railroads in this time period".

I mean I know my RR is fictional, but I do want it to have realistic attitude in operations and time line.

Thanks for any help,

TN Trainman
 

MasonJar

It's not rocket surgery
There's some interesting conversations in the Operations forum on this very topic! But a short answer would be "yes, there would be cars from all over, in the ratio of lots from nearby to few from furthest away". :) :D

Stroll over to the Ops forum and jump right in!

Andrew
 

TN_Trainman

New Member
Thanks Mason, I reposted it to the operations forum, seems I didnt see that forum when I was getting ready to post this questuion, (thats what happens when your at work and thinking trains...one of them doesent get the right attention)
 

railohio

Active Member
MasonJar has it right. You'll have the most cars from direct connections. The more hops a car needs to get to the interchange, the less likely it will be there. That's not to say you'll never see an SP&S or Maine Central car in Tennessee, but they will be less common than an L&N or Southern car. Remember that as a general rule any car from a distant railroad would have been loaded on that road and is being delivered to a customer on your road. If you want to be sure to incorporate distant railroads into your traffic mix then come up with some industries that would recieve loads from those regions.

P.S. - Union Pacific didn't get to Memphis until their acquisition of MoPac in the 1980s.
 

brakie

Active Member
First the UP did not go to Memphis in 1945..That would come later through mega mergers.

As far as UP,SF,WP,NH, PRR,NYC,N&W etc since all freight cars(exception would be hopper cars unless they was loaded with crush stone) would travel coast to coast and into Canada.So yes these cars would be found in Memphis.
 

TN_Trainman

New Member
Thanks Brian, yep Brakie pointed that out to me about the UP, I just used the UP as an example ( a bad one) but again thanks for the info.


Tn
 

brakie

Active Member
liven_letdie said:
Larry,

Can you elaborate more on what you were saying about the crushed rock?

Cory


Let's say a company needs a certain type of lime stone that comes from another state..Then they will order from the stone quarry that has the needed lime stone and that quarry will ship the stone by rail to their customer.
 

brakie

Active Member
liven_letdie said:
Maybe I read it wrong, are you implying hoppers interchanged differently or the same?

Thanks!

Cory

They interchange like any other type of freight car..

Also,if you are wondering about that "edited by brakie" in you reply please pay no attention to it..I oops and hit the edit icon instead of the quote icon.:eek:ops:
Gotta stay off the computer till I have my first cup of coffee.
 
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