Back From Decatur 11-17-10

[railohio]

I chased the Chicago, Ft. Wayne & Eastern train back from Decatur on Wednesday with dti407. Here are some of the shots:


IORY4036FieldDecaturIN11-17-10 by railohio, on Flickr


IORY4036SignsDecaturIN11-17-10 by railohio, on Flickr


IORY4036CrossingDecaturIN11-17-10 by railohio, on Flickr


IORY4036CoopWilliamsIN11-17-10 by railohio, on Flickr


IORY4036AwayWilliamsIN11-17-10 by railohio, on Flickr

[AARR]

Nice pictures and report. That was a nice paint scheme on the GP40. Wish they would have stayed with it.

[railohio]

Since Don didn't ask, they had 78 loads, 7 tank cars and 71 hoppers.

[AARR]

Since Don didn't ask, they had 78 loads, 7 tank cars and 71 hoppers.

Was that from one or two customers?

[railohio]

Everything is from Bunge/Central Soya.

[AARR]

Everything is from Bunge/Central Soya.

Wow...do they ship often?

[railohio]

Daily. This place is huge.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source= ... 9&t=h&z=16

[That Guy]

Train runs Mon-fri on duty 0700hrs. Avg 30-50 cars in and 40-60 cars out a day. Plus a weekly 90 car unit train out on top of the daily traffic.

[AARR]

Whoa that is huge. We don't have anything like that in MI.

Thanks for train info That Guy.

[railohio]

How do they average more cars out and a weekly unit train? Do they also build freight cars at Central Soya?

[That Guy]

Not to hard to figure out......

The unit trains are dedicated sets, in dedicated service. They load 60 cars of it at Decatur and the remaining 30 at Delphos. Its assembled then taken to Crestline. Then the crew comes back with an empty 90 car train for the next week.
Guess what... the day you shot pictures, 60 of those cars were for the Thursday morning unit train, so they only brought back 11 local traffic cars. But they took 40 down that day.

Read the numbers I posted. In and out can vary. It varies everyday depending what orders Bunge has that morning. Some days they hardly pull anything. Plus Bunge has a small yard called the bowl. They have extra hoppers for orders when cars aren't cycling quick enough. Oh yeah, also Bunge only request certain number of cars from Ft. Wayne each morning due to space confinements in Decatur. So cars are stored there.

But hey your a foamer and already knew all this, so why I'm telling you I have no idea. Put the camera down and quit counting bolts on the locomotives. You know what....instead of taking pictures, why don't you go sit with a trainmaster for a few days. You want to see what railroading is about. You want to see the nasty side....all the crap to just move 1 dam train. Try it sometime. It's not all about blowing the horn and waving to whistle dicks.

[AARR]

But hey your a foamer and already knew all this, so why I'm telling you I have no idea. Put the camera down and quit counting bolts on the locomotives. You know what....instead of taking pictures, why don't you go sit with a trainmaster for a few days. You want to see what railroading is about. You want to see the nasty side....all the crap to just move 1 dam train. Try it sometime. It's not all about blowing the horn and waving to whistle dicks.

Just ignore railohio...that's what the rest of us do (joking railohio - but your post is a bit terse).

I understood the in and out concept. For example...OmniSource gets inbound loads (and empties) and ships out loads as well. But outbounds exceed inbounds.

But I'd sit with a trainmaster in a heartbeat. The logistics that you describe...getting cars here and there and everywhere...is what fascinates me about railroading. It's not like my model layout where I can pick up a car I misplaced and move it by hand

Anyway, thanks for the info That Guy.