Yard Job Makes Set Out At The Building Supply

On the afternoon of August 1 last year (2010) I was on a photo outing for more documentation and happened upon the yard job returning back to Goulding from the Pensacola Port.  He had six cement hoppers in tow along with a lone boxcar.  Seeing the boxcar on the end of the cut I was wondering if he might make a drop at W.R. Taylor and sure enough he did.  I captured the action in a few photos.



Yard job coming north up Tarragona St. from the port. Today's power is a far cry from the humble MP15s of the era I am modeling.  Modeling note - the siding is completely buried in clean ballast, grass, and weeds.

 

Traffic is stopped on Garden St. just north of the turnout to the building supply.  There are a number of steel plates that need to be opened for the turnout to be lined for the siding and the ground throw is below grade between the rails.



The cut is then backed into the siding to spot the ex-SP boxcar.  The ballast was so high as seen in the first photo above that it crunched as the boxcar was pushed to its spot on the siding.



Once the crewman carefully guided the engineer to align the boxcar with the loading ramp he set the brakes, pulled the pin with the cut lever, and the cement hoppers were pulled off the siding.  The crewman rode the last car to the turnout and then dropped off.  The train continued to a stop clear of traffic just north of Garden St.  Once the crewman had the turnout re-aligned he had to wait on traffic before crossing Garden St. and hopping back on the train for the ride north back to Goulding yard.

Here is the car spotted on the siding.  Note the relative neatness of the area around the siding as well as the many stacks of brick and block adjacent to the track.



This view looks south.  Note the close clearance to the loading dock.  In the shadow you can make out the edge of the metal drop plate that will bridge between the ramp and the car for unloading with a forklift.  Also note the Pensacola News-Journal building in the background.  It is just in the next block and is no longer rail served ...but it was in the era I'm modeling so that will be included as you can see in the Tarragona Module on the track plans page.

Pensacola Port Yard Track Plan

The track plan for the Pensacola Port yard has been added to the Track Plans page. This module will connect to the tracks that cross Main St. on the Tarragona to Port Entrance Module.

This small yard borders the north end of the port property south of Main St.  When being switched the track heading north up Tarragona St. was used as the switching lead.  This line branches off the main line about two miles to the north and only one train occupies this line during normal operation so the only worry is non-rail traffic on both Tarragona and Main St.  Fusees were used so I may look into simulating that for operating realism.

Although the number of tracks on the plan is greatly reduced from what was there during the era I'm modeling it's not far off in length ...and is pretty close to what remains there today in both number of tracks and arrangement.  The plan has the tracks named following the prototype.   The tracks exiting the module on the right side are tracks that enter the port property through gates in a chain link fence.  The arrangement of the turnouts is very close to the prototype and will allow future expansion should I decide to add another module.  It would include another warehouse on the port property and is served by tracks on either side that would connect to the tracks exiting the yard module.

As drawn the yard will easily hold a couple of dozen cars.  Since the interchange yard will hold about a dozen this should work well since the yard job (Y202) always brought a cut of cars down the hill from Goulding Yard to start the evening switching.  On the model a dozen or so cars can come from staging representing Goulding to the north.  Y202 was always a shove using one of the L&N's bay window cabs as a shoving platform.  Following prototype practice the crew will then pull the cars from the Frisco interchange ( a dozen or fewer on the model) back to the Port.  This could easily load the port yard with a couple of dozen cars to sort and make a shove back to the interchange.  Finally the crew will spot the port and Tarragona St. industries before heading back to staging

I am still researching what paperwork I want to drive the operation.  I am considering car cards and waybills although a switch list or work order as used by the prototype would be more realistic in terms of actual paperwork.  I will leave that to cover in a later post once decided.

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.