Prototype ops question


PMW

Well-Known Member
I apologize if this isn't the right place to post this. My railroad is far enough along now that I'm using JMRI Operations and I have a question about how the prototype works;

I always study the switch list and block the cars (with first cars to be set out closest to the engine, car(s) to be set out at next destination behind the first block etc...) then put the new arrangement back on the staging track and consider it ready to leave staging. Is this prototypical? Is there a circumstance when I should not block at all?

I would like to learn more about how (or when) the prototype blocks cars.

Thanks!
 
I recall cars to be dropped being sorted from the rear forward at times, I believe it was so they didn’t have to uncouple the whole train, drop the air, set brakes, etc.
Of course these were shorter trains so not so much walking, and if the engineer liked you he’d back the train to pick you up.
 
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Two different concepts. One is station order, the other is "blocking". Station order is when you put the cars in a local in the order the train will come to the stations along the route. If the stations are Anna-Bess-Cloy-Dora-Eve and the train runs from Anna to Eve then the train would be blocked CAB-Eve-Dora-Cloy-Bess-Anna-ENG.

For what you are probably doing, modeling local operation, that is correct.

If its a through freight then the cars are "blocked" in groups according to how they are going to be handled. That is a block is a group of cars that will be handled together from a yard, industry or interchange to another yard, industry or interchange. For example on the old UP virtually every major yard made a "N Platte" block. NONE of the cars went to N Platte itself. Its in the middle of nowhere, but every car was switched there. The inbound trains would bring "N Plattes", they would be switched into new blocks and leave N Platte yard in different blocks going to the next yard or destination, Council Bluffs, Fremonts, Kansas City's, Portlands, Salt Lakes, Los Angeles, Green Rivers, Denvers, etc.. Blocks in through freights may or may not be in the order they will be set out or where they are going.
 
I thought about making a new thread for my next prototype ops question but I'm likely to have many so maybe just stick with one thread?

Great replies to my first question and if anyone else would still like to comment that would be great... I love trying to make my railroad operate like the real thing (to the best of my ability anyway). Brings me to my next question;

On an industry with 2 tracks, can tank cars be unloaded from the track farthest from the building (underground pipes beneath the other track and to the building I guess)?

The product in the cars I'm pretty sure is non hazardous and unloaded from the bottom but this is just the result of a beginner's google searches
:)

Any info would be great. Thanks!

Paul
 
Short answer, yes!
I’ve seen piping both under the track and over the track.
In one instance temporarily across the track but I don’t think that’s is a common practice.
 
That's good. I was probably going to do it anyway but I'm glad it's at least somewhat realistic!
 
Hmm...interesting. Crude oil into a refinery? Molasass into ???? Brine for an ice plant? All sorts of possibilities there.

It's the Walthers Magic Pan Bakery but I'm thinking of renaming it C.A. Foods. Hoppers will bring flour and tank cars will bring vegetable oil and corn syrup. Since it has the trackside overhead door I'll send the occasional boxcar with something...packaging materials maybe?
 
It's the Walthers Magic Pan Bakery but I'm thinking of renaming it C.A. Foods. Hoppers will bring flour and tank cars will bring vegetable oil and corn syrup. Since it has the trackside overhead door I'll send the occasional boxcar with something...packaging materials maybe?

Bagged sugar?

I can't see plastic wrap in sufficient volume.
 
It's the Walthers Magic Pan Bakery but I'm thinking of renaming it C.A. Foods. Hoppers will bring flour and tank cars will bring vegetable oil and corn syrup. Since it has the trackside overhead door I'll send the occasional boxcar with something...packaging materials maybe?
I use mine as a large food processor, I expanded it with the optional wall sections. The overhead doors are used to ship bulk boxed product to distributors by boxcar. Incoming vegetable oil, flour, sugar and salt. I added a large storage tank for the vegetable oil. Pipes go under the track.
 
Not plastic wrap, boxes. Cardboard packaging, cardboard boxes to put the packaged goods in. Plastic racks for bread products. Pallets for large shipments.

35 years ago I remember we ran a special move from the yard up to a warehouse north of the yard to deliver a boxcar loaded with Burger King French fry holders. I've also served plants that made cardboard for milk cartons, and food grade paper bags.
 
Thanks. I was thinking only a very occasional boxcar but seems like I have the option to send more if I want
 
Hi, everyone. I've been away from my layout and this forum for a while. Life doesn't seem to care that I have a model railroad to build :(.

Anyway, I wish I were posting something in my thread over in the Layout Design and Construction section of this forum but nothing done in a while. This is another prototype ops question.

I think I would like to add a caboose or two to the layout. It's a pretty modern layout so I have learned that it would be used as a shoving platform. It's my understanding that the caboose would be at the rear of the train for longer reversing moves. However, I have often seen the caboose directly behind the locomotive when the train is moving forward, maybe because the work is over? Wouldn't it be easier to leave the caboose at the rear even after the switching is done?

I've spent some time googling this but haven't found the info. Hopefully someone can shed some light on how trains use shoving platforms.

Thanks!
Paul
 
As the name suggests, a "shoving platform" is a car that would be placed at the "front" end of a shoving move to give the brakeman/trainman a safe place to ride, vs. hanging off the side ladder of a car.

There's not much else to google on the topic as the full extent of how it's used is "a place for the trainman to ride when shoving a cut of cars".

When NOT making a shoving move, it's just another piece of equipment to haul around so it wouldn't matter where it ended up in relation to the rest of the consist. So depending on what switching the crew is doing it'll either just end up wherever is most convenient, or placed so that it's in the right place when needed. Depending on the train's operating pattern, and where the shoving platform is actually needed, there could very well be much of the run where it's beside the engines, where they can do runarounds on the main part of their route, but there's that one spur where a long shove is needed.

For a really simple example, let's say I'm operating a local train that runs out of the yard at A let's say about 10-20 miles to B, where there's a runaround on the main track, and a facing point (meaning I have to run around at B to shove into it) spur that requires a platform due to length or other safety concerns. In the yard at A, I'd build my train with the shoving platform (SP) next to the engines. Run A to B. Runaround the train and shove down the spur SP first. Complete switching. Run back to A with the SP on the rear. If I left A with the SP on the rear, it'd be at the wrong end when I got to B, and I'd have to use the runaround track to move it to the other end. Six to eight extra moves just to move that one car.

If this was the caboose era, yeah, that's just the natural moves you'd make to keep the caboose on the rear. But for a shoving platform, you only need it for the shove move, so you marshall the SP so it's in the right place for the shove and you don't have to juggle it to the other end at B. It doesn't need to be on the rear of the train any other time.

The other potential curveball is that a few railroads have also converted old cabooses to remote control/robot cars, which would be coupled and electrically connected to the power in order to make any engine a belt-pack remote-controlled unit without having R/C equipment installed in the engine itself.
 
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The other other thing that cabooses may still occasionally be used for is as a "rider" car for special movements, usually of extremely heavy and oversize load moves.
 
Thanks! Between the time I posted this question and your reply I saw another video on YouTube in which I saw a caboose (shoving platform) in about the middle of a train which was switching an industry. I was confused but your reply explains it.

Looking forward to going caboose shopping!
 
When NOT making a shoving move, it's just another piece of equipment to haul around so it wouldn't matter where it ended up in relation to the rest of the consist.

Sorta.

Since shoving platforms are normally associated with locals, and they tend to be on small trains, its normally not a problem, and the fact it can be anywhere is 100% right. However a caboose or a shoving platform tends to be a very light, and often relatively short, car, so there are restrictions on having it next to the engine if its on a heavier train. For example, if it was going up a branch to pull a loaded coal, rock or grain train.
 



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