friscomike said
Howdy folks,

I just finished a wonderful discussion session with a retired Tower 55 operator.  Tower 55 is the intersection of all seven main railroads that operated in Fort Worth.  One of the interesting tidbits that I did not know was that all railroads ran transfers loaded to their destination yard, but light returning from the yard.  The railroads never picked up cars at a destination yard, just dropped them off.

So I am wondering what other folks have done with transfer trains.  I have run the transfer train at Andy's; however, I was not privy to how they were set up.  How do you operate transfer trains.  Do you have any suggestions for running them loaded to a yard and returning them light (no cars)?

Happy rails,

Mike C

Mike,

The return empty is how Andy runs the Nashville Route.

Works great from my aspect of working the Gresham Yard

Howard

Calls as necessary.  For Andy's layout that means when you get to 20 cars, you call a Job Extra.

If your lucky, you will not have more the 25 cars when you get the crew and paper work together.

We have shipped as high as 40 cars from one yard to the other.  But that runs into receiving yard track length problems.

Howard

Mike,

The two-reporting-locations method works fine, from a car-movement point-of-view.  However if the dispatcher/crew caller is using the ProTrak Line-up list for planning "train movements", he "loses sight" of the return light-locomotive hop.

To "keep sight" of the return movement on the Line-up, you could also the three-reporting-point method (making the job a turn) in combination with the "work only at" option.  Set the latter, at the second reporting point, to "setoffs only".

See a) Program options and allow for optional work.  b) For the transfer train, click the (now visible) "work options" button and on the now-visible pane check the allowable work.

Just a thought....

                            Jim