Brian Lingle and I discussed tis past Thursday whether and how we might include the intermodal yard movements into our weekly operating sessions. He and I agreed it's probably time and to that end I'll be creating a roster of operational cars and segregating them into operating blocks. We think we can probably get 4 manageable blocks of cars to rotate through the operations cycle. We propose to work the intermodal yard like we do the grain elevator; pickup cars on track 1, move cars from track 2 to track 1, and set out cars to track 1. This work would best be added to the Palestine Turn local in our estimation.
I'll create the car cards and work with Mike Rehling on waybills. Any additional thoughts?
Bob Johnson
Sounds great, we will probably split the Palestine turn into two different jobs. We can discuss Tuesday night.
Mike
Being stuck in the 40s, I don't really have a dog in this hunt but...
If we could hide a stack train or two somewhere between sessions, it would be more prototypical for trains to pick up "platforms" and set out others on the track(s) the pick ups came from. Some cars would remain in the train. The intermodal train would then return to its off layout staging track (don't forget the brake test before leaving).
A variation might be to cut off the power for refueling at Palestine. Or, if the inbound units are due for servicing, they could be replaced by others from the shop.
Note that this would not add work for the yardmaster or the Palestine local. Classifying outbound traffic is the responsibility of the intermodal yard; they're supposed to place boxes on platforms so that no railroad switching is necessary.
Empty platforms could be included if you must but they're typically seen only on transfers from one intermodal yard to another (e.g., from one side of a major city to the other) to balance the need for empties.