Cars spotted at The Terminal Corporation’s logistics warehouse in Baltimore on a very rainy day in May. The photo above, taken yesterday in Baltimore, illustrates how just a single turnout and judicious industry selection can provide a platform for an interesting operating scenario. Because this is a logistics facility, you can’t just dump cars anywhere. […]
Category: Operations
Where Does the Time Go?
In the above video clip, The Downtown Spur job works Miami Iron and Metal. Let’s take a pause in our day (pun intended) and talk about switching operations. Looking at a crew’s shift, where does the bulk of the time go? Moving cars? Nope? Travel time? A little but not that much. Where then? Last […]
Some Ops. Questions Answered
Setting the brakes is an integral part of operations as seen in the YouTube video above (go to the 1:20 mark). A reader recently contacted me asking for some clarification on operational practices centered on setting brakes while switching. For the answer I reached out to my buddy and ops. guru Tom Klimoski for the […]
The Lowly Shuttle
My first encounter with The Downtown Spur was in February of 2006 where I caught GP38-2 #2639 (above) heading light back to Hialeah Yard. Clearly it was a shuttle of some sort, the details of which I have no clue. I think it’s safe to assume he had a car (or several) that needed to […]
Sungas Ops. Trial Run
Having made the trip down to the run around to get on the correct side of the train, the local has pulled the empties and is getting ready to cut off the loads and spot them. The two loaded cars are by the locomotive. Since I hadn’t built out the structures for Sungas until recently, […]