RailRoadFan.com

Thank you for the inside info, RDD. What happens to companies that don't have someone like you watching for the cars? Do their cars disappear and never get delivered?

Raildudes dad wrote:First: I don't know who the customer code is...

justalurker66 wrote:If the "Terrorist Recognition" is accurate they should not flag a railfan as a terrorist.
But do stay off private property.

Doktor No wrote:So what does a terrorist vs a railfan look like? Expand your hypothesis please. To the trained and untrained they all look the same.

Much of what railfans do could be considered suspicious. But there are differences...


7:44. Terrorist stealthy


0:32. Railfans not stealthy

LIKE!

AARR wrote:Thank you for the inside info, RDD. What happens to companies that don't have someone like you watching for the cars? Do their cars disappear and never get delivered?

Raildudes dad wrote:First: I don't know who the customer code is...

Hi Don:
First: I track the cars as a service to the customer from our itisy bitsy railroad. Some customers get their own accounts to track cars, some railroads require them to have accounts to do all paperwork, order cars, release cars etc. We do not have any such requirements lol . I do have to report receiving and returning cars on RailInc which is the AAR clearing house.
Second: I have to get a volunteer crew. We do not have regularly scheduled crews. Our guys have to go to C'ville to get the engine and run to Grand Rapids to switch the cars. As volunteers they have lives and somehow the trip needs to fit in their lives. With the shutdown, they have letters from the RR with AASLR approved language to allow them to travel.
Back to my tracking, I have to guess when the cars will get to the GRE and get switched to us. So even if the customer was tracking them I would still need to track them from a crew scheduling basis.
I've been doing this for about 4 years. I have learned that all the mills hire logistic companies to monitor their cars. I will get an email from the logistics company asking when we spotted the car and when it was released empty. Our tariff which is pretty standard gives the customer 24 hours to load a car and 48 hours to unload a car. After that we can charge them demurrage. Our customer usually gets them unloaded in 48 hours.
CN also monitors the cars. If a car sets for 7 days, the customer's RR goes on a "congested RR" basically a do not load list. That gets to our status as a switch carrier for the GRE. As such we get 120 hours to switch the customer, we do not get charged car hire for those 120 hours, the GRE pays it. A very nice lady at G&W corporate suggested they change us to a switch carrier to get us 120 free hours. Trust me , it made a big difference in our freight expenses. As a switch carrier we no longer show on the waybill. It ends at the GRE or NS if it's coming GDLK (I haven't figured that out yet. ) Car hire was at $0.50 / hour for the most part although one of the last TTZX's was $1.39. I think TTZX is parking the older cars and keeping the new ones with less depreciated cost in service but I'm not an accountant, especially with RR freight stuff. In fact there is a lot of freight stuff I don't know. A real babe in the woods so to speak . That's why I give a big shout out to the G&W car hire lady. She could have kept the 120 hours charged to us, not the GRE.
So when the cars show delivery at the GRE, they don't deliver it for 2 days, we take the full 5 days and the GRE takes 2 day to return to CSX, CN says to the mills these destinations are going to a "congested RR, do not load. This is something they send out everyday. Last year the GRE was working as needed and our "delivery times" were getting dragged out. I got pretty good figuring out if we were on "congested" status and helping getting the status changed. Now the GRE is working M-W & F so things are much better. We would be "congested" with 0 cars on line or interchange - go figure The first time this came up I watched a car get released and then disappear on my report. The customer gets an email from the mill, we released your car and CN told us they won't take it and we unloaded it. The mills then started watching to see if we were on the "naughty" list

Any more questions? I'd like to say I have lots of time sitting home to answer but I'm working remote and every thing takes longer . I'm also on the County's Emergency Operations Center team representing the Road Commission / City DPW's (except Grand Rapids ). There nothing for us as Public Works agencies to do at this time but there are daily conference calls. If you didn't know there a 4 Federally designated Emergency Responders Law Enforcement, Fire Service, Emergency Medical Services and last and least known, Public Works. In Michigan, the Road Commissions are the County Public Works agency although some have DPW's for sewer, water, sanitary landfills etc.

GDLK on ELK camera at 12:32.

Thank you RDD for sharing your experience and wisdom!

Raildudes dad wrote:Any more questions?

14:02 - GDLK Northbound with a loaded centerbeam.

Over at Hughart Yard in Grand Rapids, I see they are expanding their trans-load area. Bobcat was smoothing out an area on the south side of the current spot, and saw quite a bit of rail awaiting installation.
Over at L&W Supply, 2 loaded centerbeams parked on their spur.. place doesn't look open the past few days to do any unloading.

Did our wandering centerbeams ever find the C & M yet?

One is unloaded and back to GDLK and 1 is empty at Standard ready to go back. They didn't leave Elkhart together NB

Raildudes dad wrote:One is unloaded and back to GDLK and 1 is empty at Standard ready to go back. They didn't leave Elkhart together NB

Looks like there is 1 at the interchange and 2 ready at Standard. That should be changed here shortly.

Was one of them on the NB reported on the 29th?

Any word when the stone trains might start again in the spring.

At least two more centerbeams came in on 329 today for L&W supply.

justalurker66 wrote:Was one of them on the NB reported on the 29th?

Nope, were here before then.

I was watching the Elkhart live Railcam on Youtube this morning a little after eleven when a grain train came off the GDLK line. It had 2 big 6-axle NS engines with all covered hoppers, 80 or 90 or so cars. It had to have come from White Pigeon. I thought CSX was going to move the grain but apparently not. Guess that explains why we haven't seen any more CSX runs. Anyone know what's up?

GAP wrote:I was watching the Elkhart live Railcam on Youtube this morning a little after eleven when a grain train came off the GDLK line. It had 2 big 6-axle NS engines with all covered hoppers, 80 or 90 or so cars. It had to have come from White Pigeon. I thought CSX was going to move the grain but apparently not. Guess that explains why we haven't seen any more CSX runs. Anyone know what's up?

Some will go via CSX, some via NS. It is not all or nothing, it is based on destination.

Can somebody give an updated diesel roster. I'm not sure what's dead or alive when I go by Hughart Yard.

dave989 wrote:Can somebody give an updated diesel roster. I'm not sure what's dead or alive when I go by Hughart Yard.

7030 and I think 4124 are currently OOS. Are 3534 and 3531 still around, or did one go out for work?

Gp-35 #3534 has been sitting dead next to that old WSOR geep for over a week.