Unusual US Track Layouts

[Glorious NSE]

I reckon the shot is from a neighboring travelling crane, and the tracks that go off to the left are between two docks - the two huts and the track arrangement effectively mirrors itself.

[Glorious NSE]

those rails with the wheelstops do not appear to be laid on any ties or spiked down... also the tracks either side appear to be a narrower gauge than the "main line"track and spiked to half round ties ....and if you follow them to the right they peter out halfway through forming a crossing and Y point .....most intriguing !!!

 

I think the gauge thing is perspective, and where they stop is a turntable for their own trolleys (like the one near the diamonds) with the curved tracks onto the docks there for "proper" freightcars?

[sunshine coast]

Travelling crane for the dock on the left?

 

Yup .....fair guess ,with the state of construction that is going on it is a fair assumption that some stuff is temporary ,even the lattice tower could only be supplying power during building works ...without a later photo we will never know ...but it is fun guessing and trying to work it out ...

 

the piles of twisted (spiral) steel over to the right ,are bugging me ,I am sure I have seen something similar when I was on sites,but cannot remember what it was used for ?? .....

 

Regards Trevor ....

[trisonic]

We know it is a shipyard so some (most) steel laying around is for that. My guess is that a new ship has just been commissioned - maybe that accounts for the large group of people either standing around or signing on (and why the photographer is there at all).

Best, Pete.

[Glorious NSE]

Sorry - just twigged! Where the lattice tower is between the stops, the two stops are for different travelling cranes, one over each pair of tracks, the other rail for each one is the other side of the "proper" railway tracks by the little huts. So the lattice tower is between the two crane tracks, not in the way at all.

 

That would put the location of the photo as on board a ship in the second dock, rather than on the crane?

[trisonic]

Yes, I think you may be right. Each set of duplicate rail sets must represent a potential ship (and there could be more behind the photographer).

 

Best, Pete.

[sunshine coast]

Sorry - just twigged! Where the lattice tower is between the stops, the two stops are for different travelling cranes, one over each pair of tracks, the other rail for each one is the other side of the "proper" railway tracks by the little huts. So the lattice tower is between the two crane tracks, not in the way at all.

 

That would put the location of the photo as on board a ship in the second dock, rather than on the crane?

 

 

Well done Sherlock!!

 

Yes ...agreed ...if you look towards the hut closer to the water ,you can see the stop block,and the hut nearest the bottom of the picture has a single rail just in front of it ,the stop block obscured by the group of workers ??

 

Regards Trevor

[trisonic]

Look what I found!

 

http://www2.boatnerd.com/glswr/GLEW-YardHistory-45.pdf

 

There's an engraving of the GLEW works c.1904 which explains a lot. It looks like the ships were built two by two (behind each other) and then launched sideways.

 

Best, Pete.

[Glorious NSE]

Are we way off topic yet?

 

In that shot of the dredging you can see one of the travelling cranes which I reckon is the furthest of the two in the first photo, the ship being constructed is in about the right place to be the kind of place the first photo was shot from as well!

[trisonic]

Did you see the next picture down from the dredging one?

 

In any event we can get back on track and retrieve Prof. Klyzer's interest.....otherwise the next we'll know a micro of Vernon will appear on Carl's site.

 

Best, Pete

[JWB]

the location with the silo's receiving covered hoppers (cars are a bit big for cement, any idea's?)

 

Gettng back to the LAJ and related stuff, larger covered hoppers also commonly ship plastic pellets. Walthers did a plastic pellet car maybe 15 years ago (and never re-ran it for some reason), and the old standby Athearn Centerflow with 4 discharge bays is actually a plastic pellet car. Not sure if some of the newer boutique makers also do plastic pellet cars.

[Glorious NSE]

The ones there on the google views look to be grain-style cars, as they are railroad owned and 3 bay trough hatch types.

 

Looking at the street view it's all gravity-style handling at that terminal like a grain elavator, and the trucks look to be covered hopper styles, maybe it's receiving/transhipping some kind of animal feed?

 

Looking at Bing it's not there at all!

 

Ref plastics, Walthers has an upcoming run of their pellet hopper catalogued, and Atlas has also done one fairly recently. Lots of what looks like plastic pellet hoppers on some of those spurs!

[dave1905]

107 "units" X average 60' long = 6420 (not including the extra/missing/unconfirmed cars and the loco consist)

 

or approx 1.2+ miles...

So its a short train then. 8-)

 

Dave H.

[dave1905]

Those US locos certainly earn their keep. I wonder what the average annual mileage is for them.

10,000-15,000 miles a month wouldn't be out of the box. Component maintenance/rebuilding schedules are built around millions of miles traveled (5 or 6 years).

[trisonic]

10,000-15,000 miles a month wouldn't be out of the box. Component maintenance/rebuilding schedules are built around millions of miles traveled (5 or 6 years).

 

And the rest! I drove 600 miles in one day following the BNSF mainline - that was a 9 hour drive for me; x 7 that's 4,200 miles a week BUT:

 

1, The locos don't take a break when the crews do, they work 24/7 until service.

2. The 600 miles I did was but a tiny fraction of the BNSF mainline.

3. They were pulling 70 miles per hour outside of towns with those 1.2+ mile trains (the limit seems to be about 1.4 miles). Let's say they average 45 mph, that's over a 1000 miles per day or a possible 30,000 miles per month.

 

What's really interesting that they pass through Flagstaff almost ten times an hour at peak.

 

Best, Pete.

[JWB]

For grain-style covered hoppers, animal feed might be a bet, as there is considerable dairying as well as chicken ranches in Southern California, although it is concentrated more toward Riverside County.

[dave1905]

The ones there on the google views look to be grain-style cars, as they are railroad owned and 3 bay trough hatch types.

 

Looking at the street view it's all gravity-style handling at that terminal like a grain elavator, and the trucks look to be covered hopper styles, maybe it's receiving/transhipping some kind of animal feed?

 

Based on the you tube video, of the ATSF GP38 switching the reefer and covered hopper, that's a soda ash covered hopper. So the covered hopper could be handling soda ash, used in everything from glass to cleaners to toothpaste.

[JWB]

The covered hoppers in this LAJ Youtube appear to be plastic pellets:

 

The problem with photographing the LAJ is that its main orientation is east-west, which can be problematic for lighting except maybe in the winter, when there's more light from the south (but the days are shorter). These are interesting videos, but the camera is cheap (maybe a cell phone?) and the lighting is awful. I can't read any reporting marks!

 

But this also reminds me that I live about a dozen miles from the LAJ and haven't been down there in a couple of years. It doesn't help that operations aren't too predictable.

 

What this does suggest is that you could certainly get away with having a micro with industries that take "covered hoppers", without worrying too much about exactly which kind. I've been told by railroaders that the crews largely don't know and don't care what's in the cars anyhow (unless they're hazmat, of course).

 

Another thing that the LAJ videos suggest is that model track in such industrial areas is way, way too neat.

[298]

Those US locos certainly earn their keep. I wonder what the average annual mileage is for them.

 

Probably not as high as some fleets in the UK. There is a Pendolino diagram that does two London-Glasgow round trips in a day (approx 1600+ miles), by comparison it takes a week for a loco to do a Seattle-Powder River round trip, approx 2000 miles. That's probably not a fair comparison (passenger vs freight), but I bet the 59's on Mendip stone trains and the Freightliner electric diagrams certainly put some mileage in.

[trisonic]

Another essential component (of those 1 mile+ trains) is their cost in terms fuel consumption x weight carried - that's really impressive. Of course, I thought I had the figures here with me......

 

When I was in the Painted Desert, the first time, I literally stumbled over the BNSF mainline after cresting a rise where I was apparently being chased by the biggest "Dust-Devil" I'd seen. Here I was in this surreal location and in front on me was this beautiful double track mainline complete with concrete sleepers and well maintained ballast - as good as any in Europe - I turned to the left and in the clear desert air I could make out about three huge trains coming my way from the West, that's when I became a fan.

Everyone should visit this area if they get a chance.

 

Best, Pete.