Trains Mag Rail Car Origins/Destinations Article

Posts that don't fit in the other train categories. Off Subject Chit Chat I tell you. :)
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AARR
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Trains Mag Rail Car Origins/Destinations Article

Unread post by AARR »

From the other board https://members4.boardhost.com/OtherMic ... 70179.html .

In June's issue Trains again published an entire mixed freight train and each car's origin and destination. It also provided information about the railroad of each cars origin and destination. Next to Train's articles about short line railroads this is my favorite topic. It's too bad they only publish this topic once every 25 years :(
Posted by jim on 5/25/2021, 3:16 pm, in reply to "Re: Loose car railroading"
Does anyone remember the 1995 issue of Trains that was devoted exclusively to the UP? It showed the entire consist of a 95 car train. Almost none of the cars had graffiti on them at the time.

It's just disappointing - most of the time all I see is empty track. I finally catch one and it's a one car train. Oh well, timing is everything.
PatC created a monster, 'cause nobody wants to see Don Simon no more they want AARR I'm chopped liver, well if you want AARR this is what I'll give ya, bad humor mixed with irrelevant info that'll make you roll your eyes quicker than a ~Z~ banhammer...

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C&O Dispatcher
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Re: Trains Mag Rail Car Origins/Destinations Article

Unread post by C&O Dispatcher »

Naturally, I saw hundreds of train consist print-outs over my railroad career. Mostly, these were prepared by clerks at major terminals back then. When I first started in 1970, they were still using that yellow teletype tape. If the office had both clerks and operators (they were separate "crafts"), a clerk could make the consist tape, but an operator had to put it in the reader to send it! I did have the opportunity to "build" the Saginaw train those times I worked the operator's job at Port Huron. For cars originating at PH or interchanged from the PH&D you would cut a tape for that car and stick it inside the waybill for later. Cars floated from Sarnia were already "in the system" and you would receive from Sarnia a tape for each boatload we were receiving. These tapes (along with the single-car tapes for originating traffic) would be used to make the final consist to be sent when the train departed for Saginaw. (We also sent tapes for the cars as they were floated across to Sarnia). Since the info for each car took about 12 inches of tape, you can do the math to determine how long that tape would be for a 100-car train! To keep it from getting tangled and snagging when going through the reader for transmission, we would gently spiral the tape into a metal wastebasket so it could feed from there. To your point, it was interesting to see all of the information pertaining to each car! By the mid-70's, they had "graduated" from tape to punch cards, and then of course to computers. The 10pm to 6am shift at PH was chop chop as the inbound train arrived, cars floated to and from Sarnia, outbound train built and readied for departure back to Saginaw. The Saginaw crew was sent to the hotel for 4 or more hours, and then called back to handle the train.

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AARR
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Joined: Wed Dec 22, 2004 7:39 pm
Location: Washington, MI

Re: Trains Mag Rail Car Origins/Destinations Article

Unread post by AARR »

Thank you for the information C&O Dispatcher
PatC created a monster, 'cause nobody wants to see Don Simon no more they want AARR I'm chopped liver, well if you want AARR this is what I'll give ya, bad humor mixed with irrelevant info that'll make you roll your eyes quicker than a ~Z~ banhammer...

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