Western Railroad Discussion > What’s the stuff on the end?

As we know the UPRR Overland in Nevada is a busy railroad.  

No it isn't the BNSF Transcon down south but this line out here sure does see some heavy tonnage.  

The PSR Monsters can easily reach 170 cars and many times it's all just one type of car.   

All the time you'll see some obviously tacked-on-at-the-last-minute cars on the tail end of the train.  

They can be any type of car and sometimes it's a real mash-up with several tagger-onners.  

What happens in the yard to get these stragglers on the rear end of a train? Seems like an interchange set-up sometimes but other times it looks like each single car got added on individually.   

It's a hoot sometimes what gets put on last.  Is it a Trainmaster barking to get this car out of his yard? 

Chuck 

Can you be more specific about what you are seeing that is odd?

So, seeing a lot of the same trains as RailDawg sees but a little bit farther east, my guess is he's talking about especially the INPOA/IOANP and an auto train who's symbol I don't readily know that both use the old WP east of Wells (Alazon).  Sometimes these are run as separate trains, sometimes they are combined.  It's not uncommon especially if they are split and run as separate trains for there to be a random assortment of general mixed manifest freight added onto the back of the train.  I have also seen this with a few unit grain trains, but that doesn't seem to be nearly as common as the intermodal and auto trains.  And it seems to be from what I see to be unique to the trains on the WP east of Wells, I don't seem to see it as often on the trains using the old SP.  A lot of the specific mix of manifest traffic I see reminds me a lot of what UP once sent west from Salt Lake on the Roper to Roseville manifests, back before they downgraded Roper and shifted the work to Ogden.   

That would be my interpretation. 

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV

JDLX Wrote:
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> So, seeing a lot of the same trains as RailDawg
> sees but a little bit farther east, my guess is
> he's talking about especially the INPOA/IOANP and
> an auto train who's symbol I don't readily know
> that both use the old WP east of Wells (Alazon).

That "auto train" is likely MROMI (Roper, UT to Milpitas, CA). It's a substitute for the AGBMI (Gibson Yard, Indiana) years ago, which has been broken up into whatever that goes to Cheyenne, Wyoming --> ACYRO --> MROMI.

I've been used to trains with cars that doesn't "seem to belong" for almost 6 years now. UP's been playing games with symbols, too, and examples from outside the Overland Route are IKCPX that are mostly manifest, MTUWC with doublestacks, and AMIWC which should have been MMIWC, with plenty of mixed cars besides autoracks.

One oddity I saw on the Nevada Sub was a ZNPOA with tank cars. I should have posted a video of that... just have to find it.

> Sometimes these are run as separate trains,
> sometimes they are combined.  It's not uncommon
> especially if they are split and run as separate
> trains for there to be a random assortment of
> general mixed manifest freight added onto the back
> of the train.
>
> That would be my interpretation. 
 

It was not uncommon for us to add manifest to unit grain trains out of Roseville. 

"If it's going through North Platte, send it!"

portlander Wrote:
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> It was not uncommon for us to add manifest to unit
> grain trains out of Roseville. 
>
> "If it's going through North Platte, send it!"

A unit grain train with a couple of coil cars stuck on the end rolled by yesterday.  

You could tell the coils were put on at the last minute.  

They could have very well been added in Roseville!

Chuck 

RailDawg Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> portlander Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > It was not uncommon for us to add manifest to
> unit
> > grain trains out of Roseville. 
> >
> > "If it's going through North Platte, send it!"
>
> A unit grain train with a couple of coil cars
> stuck on the end rolled by yesterday.  
>
> You could tell the coils were put on at the last
> minute.  
>
> They could have very well been added in
> Roseville!
>
> Chuck 

If there was too much traffic for the pair of North Platte manifests, we'd tack cars on anything moving east. Gotta keep the dwell down. . .

Sometimes you can tell it's cars that spent the last decade on some RIP track.  

In just good enough shape to head east.  

We get a lot of tacker-onners going westbound but this little stretch of The Overland (Nevada Sub) sees mainly eastbounders.  

Chuck