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Hi, I'm just beginning to understand freight operations. I have a couple newbie questions. If a freight train is traveling to a destination and dropping a string of empty cars to be loaded, does the engine and or engines wait until the process is complete, or does it usually travel back if it is going to take any length of time? I'm trying to apply this to my small model railroad. Second...how do cars of different roadnames end up traveling with each other on different railroads? Ex. Union Pacific cars behind Burlington Northern trains....do the railroads have to some how be related? Thanks for the info ----Rob
Steve Dunham Member # 924
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Through freights generally travel from one yard to another, or in the case of unit trains, directly from a loading point (such as a coal mine) to an unloading point (such as a power plant).
Industries are usually served by local freights that travel up and down the line dropping off and picking up cars. Typically the industry's contract with the railroad specifies how much time is allowed for loading or unloading the car. There probably are exceptions, but normally a train would not wait for a car to be loaded or unloaded.
Materials shipped from one place to another often travel over more than one railroad, so that's how the cars get around. The railroad with another's cars will fill them with a load going in generally the right direction if possible, or otherwise send them back empty.
I'm not an expert on this, but I think this is generally accurate.
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