Loading & Unloading from the Mainline?

[dricketts]

While working on my KC prototype route over the last 8 months I've realized I need grow my knowledge base of real day to day railroad operations. This is a great forum for that. So a couple of questions:

1) Do railroads ever load or unload from the mainline without a siding?

2) Why do I see so many industrial buildings clustered in one area close to the mainline that do not use the railroad services. In fact there are no sidings just mainline. See below.

 

[Klinger]

Ill give you an observation I have seen here in Denver.

It is very possible that if these buildings have existed for a long time (lets say 50 years), that at one point, they had access to the railroads via a siding.

The reason I say this, is here in Denver along the Santa Fe corridor, there are only about 5 or so industrial outlets that actively move freight to their complexes. However, along the corridor, I have seen countless warehouses with box car level side doors for unloading box cars. Many have been boarded up with windows, or bricked over, but what is most curious is that the side track itself is gone. With only a few exceptions. In fact near the Littleton/Downtown station on the light rail, right where the Light Rail crosses over the UP main line, there is a building that has freight track in the front yard, complete with a bumper, but the track does not connect to the main line anymore, its only a few hundred feet long.

So, chances are, at one time, yes, these builds had access to freight cars. Over the years however, the business has dropped to trucks, and the doors have all been boarded up, and the side tracks themselves have all been removed.

So thats why you don't see side tracks near these buildings, they were torn up years ago. At least thats my theory based on my observations.

 

[bl4882]

Klinger is right on. If I might just add, the profound change in railroading in the United States occurred in 1980 with "deregulation" of the trucking industry. This was when railroads abandoned the single carloading and LCL business, which they never really did very well anyhow, and and started to move to intermodal and bulk transportation.

For an entertaining look at one man's railroading experience in the era just before the big 1980 transition, you might like to try Dome O' Foam at

http://www.wx4.org/to/foam/a_rrcontents.html.

Bernie

 

[ColPrice2002]

Hi,

Similar situation here in the UK.

Some industries still have their own sidings to the main (or goods) lines, but in many cases the railway sidings (actually the marshalling yards where the individual wagons were assembled into sensible consists) have been sold off and are now new industrial complexes in their right - but with road access only.

Colin

 

[dricketts]

I thought about the older building possibility but I've noticed newer buildings less than 20 years old like the ones in the picture.

What would be the incentive for a business to locate a newer structure close to the mainline with no siding? Maybe local zoning rules play a factor.

That goes back to my original question. Would a railroad ever load or unload from the mainline?

The line in the picture is a KCS mainline. About 15 miles south of Kansas City, Mo. I'm guessing it sees close to 20 -25 trains in a 24 hour period.

 

[Klinger]

If the buildings are newer, its simply because the area is zoned for industrial use. Older buildings may have had access to the railroad, but the area zoning never changed once they were torn down

 

[leeferr]

I would guess that Klinger is right again. Industrial areas naturally have grown up around rail lines through the years. Also through the years, some of these industries have hit hard times and gone out of business. A new business may have bought the land at a bargain price, demolished the older industry and built a new building that doesn't necessarily need rail service.
Zoning and real estate values have a large part in development. Availabilty of rail service is not something that these new industries are always looking for. Most of the time, the siding will be removed or at least, its connection with the main line is removed. No need to maintain a turnout if there's no need for it.

Mike

 

[Klinger]

Not always, UP maitains a Turnout, a long passing siding, and even a spur that leads further away from the main. Its near where Evans crosses Santa Fe Drive, they occasionally use the track for storage, and the most recent use I saw was a place to scrap the wrecked molten sulfur cars that wrecked last year down in Littleton.

None of the businesses use the rail car service anymore, but the siding remains connected. Just another thought to the story I guess. So you can have industry sidings that do not have clients

 

[leeferr]

Klinger, that's a good observation, but those sidings are being used. My point was that if there's a siding that's not going to be used by an industry or the railroad, then most of the time, the turnout will be removed.

Mike

 

[LoudTrain]

Park 100, Park Fletcher In Indianapolis

In Indianapolis, Park 100 (northwest side) and Park Fletcher (southwest side) were both built in the 1960s-70s. At the time rails served almost every building. By the close of the 1990s, all of the rails at Park Fletcher were gone (even the spur off the mainline). I'm not sure if they are ALL gone at Park 100, but most of them are.

-- Russ

 

[bassist118]

Hi,

Similar situation here in the UK.

Some industries still have their own sidings to the main (or goods) lines, but in many cases the railway sidings (actually the marshalling yards where the individual wagons were assembled into sensible consists) have been sold off and are now new industrial complexes in their right - but with road access only.

Colin

There are now places in the Highlands that load logs streight onto trains on the mainline. I believe that one company even won an award for its Ideas. As the highlands are barely used for passenger traffic anyway log trains load up after the last passenger service has completed it's run.

I've tried to dig out the report but I can't find it



Andy

 

[magickmaker]

Major railroads typically won't load/unload from the main, but shortlines and even some regional railroads aren't beyond doing it.

When I lived in NE Georgia, the "Elberton" railroad (known for having kept the paint schemes of all its locomotives in their original states. CNW, Rio Grande, SP, and SOU, all in their original states) used to service a handful of granite companies when you got closer and closer to Elberton. It wasn't uncommon to see gondola cars right on the main line in storage for some of the larger monument and granite cutting companies. I remember one actually had a lift that went out over the main where they would load and unload from the gondolas. I asked one of the railroad crews while railfanning how it worked, and he explained it thus:

The railroad only ever had (at that time) one train a day which would travel in a round trip from Elberton to Toccoa and back to Elberton. On the way back, they would drop the gondola cars beside the facing point siding (if it was full) and continue on. Since the siding actually would be trailing point if you were heading to Toccoa, the company had a curious method for dealing with the cars. Once a granite car was loaded, the company would use a John Deer tractor to pull that car out onto the main line and down several hundred yards to this area where the track was depressed. This was to keep them from rolling off. They'd then pull the next string up, with the empties under the loading area. Over the course of a day or so they could load five or six gondolas, all which were left on the main line ahead of the switch. When the train arrived the next day, the locomotive would simply couple to these gondolas (ideally all empties were off the main) and push them about a mile till they could reach an old siding which was used to hold the cars. The siding was one ended though, so the cars would be pushed into it and left to be picked back up when the train returned. Since all the granite cars were exchanged with the CSX (and not NS) in Elberton, the fact that they were left in the middle of no where didn't matter.

On a heavy day, it wasn't uncommon to see six cars in the siding being loaded, and another ten waiting on the main line to be moved into place, with three or four loads waiting where the tractor had pulled them to.