Hello all, Having found no other appropriate forum to post this in, I am posting it here. Being rather new to the railroading world, some things still puzzle me, especially freight operations. The workings of yards in particular I find confusing. Now, I have searched many online articles about these matters, but many of them lack a clear chronological and/or visual representation of what they are talking about, so it all becomes a big mess of arrival/departure tracks, mainlines, sidings, switches, run-arounds, spurs, etc. Does anyone know where I could find a good, clear chronological description of how a freight train arriving in a yard would be broken down an reassembled?
Posted by MPALMER (Member # 125) on :
A couple of years ago Trains magazine ran a series of articles about yards. Your library might have copies....
Posted by Pyroechidna (Member # 3320) on :
A good idea. My town's library is quite small, so I doubt they'll have them, but I could check the larger neighboring towns.
On a side note, I was at Barnes and Noble yesterday and didn't find a single rail-related book anywhere in my wanderings. What's the world coming to?
Posted by MPALMER (Member # 125) on :
That's amazing. Every B&N I've gone to has at least a few books, although it usually isn't all that many. You might check in the "coffee table book" section because there's usually one there, about steam engines, stations, or some other rail topic.
Posted by Pyroechidna (Member # 3320) on :
I ordered (and received) the aforesaid back issues of Trains (June & July 2002) and they were indeed helpful in understanding the layouts and workings of hump and flat yards. But now that I vaguely understand the way that cars arrive, get classified, and leave, nobody's ever told me where they end up and how they're loaded.
Posted by MPALMER (Member # 125) on :
The best way to find out how they're loaded is go to a siding or a rail customer and see how it's done. Many are off limits but there are probably a few you can see from a public street.
You will probably need to travel to a larger town as "local rail sidings" have disappeared in a lot of places across the country.
If there are any lumber yards in your area you might check those out, as several still ship by rail.
[This message has been edited by MPALMER (edited 06-26-2004).]
Posted by EmpireBuilder (Member # 2036) on :
I agree with what you were saying about the lack of train books at Barnes and Noble. I think I only found one shelf that had any on them. And none of the books were particular interesting, with the possible exception of a book on electric engines (from overhead wires) merely because of the pictures.