BN/Frisco Interchange Yard Track Plan

The track plan for the BN (former Frisco) interchange yard has been added to the Track Plans page.  This module will connect to the Tarragona to Port Entrance Module at the track that curves into Main St. on that module.

This small yard was located on the south edge (literally) of Main St. about two blocks east of Palafox St. in downtown Pensacola.  CSX reached it on its east end from a track that curved off of the Tarragona St. track and ran down the middle of Main St. for about four blocks until it curved off the south edge of the pavement.  The yard ladder started just off the pavement.  In the late eighties there were 4 tracks in the yard (North, North Middle, South Middle, and South) about 1200-1400 feet in length.  The Frisco/BN  main yard in Pensacola was about a mile to the west of this location.

This module will use three tracks to represent the CSX connection and will allow replication of the interchange operation.  Typical operation would be something similar to the following. CSX yard job Y202 (typically handled by an EMD switcher ...MP15, etc.) would come "down the hill" from its main yard (Goulding - pronounced "Golding") in Pensacola to switch the port and interchange.  Y202 would ready cars in the port yard for a shove to the interchange .  Then it would run light down Main St. to the interchange yard and pull a track or two of cars back to the port yard.  Those cars were set out of the way in the port yard and cars headed offline were shoved back to the interchange yard.  (Most of the port traffic was loads out over the Frisco.)  This activity usually occurred in the late evening so I suppose the transfer could be considered a "Midnight Shove" to get outbound cars off line to avoid another day's per diem.  Y202 would then pull any cars from the remaining 2 interchange tracks back to the port.

A former L&N/CSX employee has shared that more than once Frisco would watch the interchange yard and reload the first two tracks once Y202 made its initial pull.  This would frustrate the CSX/L&N crew because when they made their shove back to the interchange there were no free tracks ...so they would then have to pull the empties plus the new interchange cars back to the port then shove the empties back.   Finally any needed spots at the port and along Tarragona St. were made before heading back to Goulding Yard.

In addition to traffic for the port, CSX received hoppers of coal through the interchange for a Gulf Power Plant at Boykin on the PA Subdivision in northwest Florida.  There was a lumber company, a chemical plant, and a distributor served by the Frisco that received loads from CSX as well as chemicals routed to the paper mill in Cantonment over the Frisco.

The model yard will hold a dozen or so 50' cars.  That should be a sufficient number to keep a crew busy working the port yard and the Tarragona St. spurs, especially when you add in the cars brought "down the hill" from staging that will represent CSX's Goulding Yard and points beyond.