We now switch over to the local crew who will be pulling loaded cars from both the West and East sides of Chicago and delivering all the cars that were dropped off yesterday.
We start the action on the West side. The first thing we have to deal with is pulling a long string of cars from the Collin & Brown Printing facility. We had one leftover that there wasn't room for yesterday, so we also have to drop it off after we pull the string out of the way. There are two carloads of boxes and two car loads of specialty labels, all headed for various industries.
After we pull the cars and drop off the leftover, we push the string out of the way for now and head for our other pickups -- a gondola and two box cars, which are all empty and headed back home after being unloaded at American Appliance.
We take those three cars and runaround the other string, tack them onto it, then runaround the string again to head to the storage siding to pick up today's deliveries.
Here's a shot of the crew right after they've attached to the deliveries.
We have eight cars to deliver today -- a pretty busy day (10 is the maximum for this side of town). We do a quick check of the paperwork and find that the yard crew has done a great job of putting everything in order for us. The two gondolas are both facing point spurs and they are together, and there are four reefers -- two each for Delta Foods and Windy City Biscuit, also facing-point deliveries. Delta and Windy City share a spur, and the reefers are even in the correct order. Good job yard crew! (The other two deliveries go to the Collin & Brown plant and are easy to make when we are done). The challenging part of the West side is depending on where you are going, it can require a triple switchback. You have to carefully plan your moves and position your engine right to avoid a lot of extra work.
The first thing we do is runaround the gondolas to get them in front of the engine, then make our way to Chicago tool (represented by a Post-It Note -- what can I say, the layout is under construction) and American Appliance to drop them off.
With the gons out of the way, we go back and grab the reefers and deliver them onto the common siding.
We make our way back to the main, pick up all the cars we pulled today and place them on the storage track. Another train will be through later on to pick up this string to take back to the yard and drop off tomorrow's deliveries. In the meantime, we have to head East to switch out the industries on that side of town to complete our job.
Next up: The East side.
We start the action on the West side. The first thing we have to deal with is pulling a long string of cars from the Collin & Brown Printing facility. We had one leftover that there wasn't room for yesterday, so we also have to drop it off after we pull the string out of the way. There are two carloads of boxes and two car loads of specialty labels, all headed for various industries.
After we pull the cars and drop off the leftover, we push the string out of the way for now and head for our other pickups -- a gondola and two box cars, which are all empty and headed back home after being unloaded at American Appliance.
We take those three cars and runaround the other string, tack them onto it, then runaround the string again to head to the storage siding to pick up today's deliveries.
Here's a shot of the crew right after they've attached to the deliveries.
We have eight cars to deliver today -- a pretty busy day (10 is the maximum for this side of town). We do a quick check of the paperwork and find that the yard crew has done a great job of putting everything in order for us. The two gondolas are both facing point spurs and they are together, and there are four reefers -- two each for Delta Foods and Windy City Biscuit, also facing-point deliveries. Delta and Windy City share a spur, and the reefers are even in the correct order. Good job yard crew! (The other two deliveries go to the Collin & Brown plant and are easy to make when we are done). The challenging part of the West side is depending on where you are going, it can require a triple switchback. You have to carefully plan your moves and position your engine right to avoid a lot of extra work.
The first thing we do is runaround the gondolas to get them in front of the engine, then make our way to Chicago tool (represented by a Post-It Note -- what can I say, the layout is under construction) and American Appliance to drop them off.
With the gons out of the way, we go back and grab the reefers and deliver them onto the common siding.
We make our way back to the main, pick up all the cars we pulled today and place them on the storage track. Another train will be through later on to pick up this string to take back to the yard and drop off tomorrow's deliveries. In the meantime, we have to head East to switch out the industries on that side of town to complete our job.
Next up: The East side.
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