Western Railroad Discussion > Train Inspections: Average Time Differences?

Fred Frailey's interesting thread below brought up the topic of train inspections being one of the catalysts for train delays, so thought I would add a couple of points/questions...

The BNSF does their thousand-mile train inspections at Belen, NM, while the UP does theirs at Ogden/SLC UT, depending which way the trains are routed. So why is it that the BNSF trains normally can pull into Belen, fuel, get the train inspected, and be out of there in 20-30 minutes or so, while a comparable UP train at Salt Lake City or Ogden can take much, much longer, especially at UP's North Yard? I've always wondered about this since you can watch a double stack train on the main track there (North Yard) and it sits...and sits...and sits...sometimes taking as much as 2 hours or more to be ready to go. Since I've worked at both North Yard and Belen, I can attest to this from personal experience. Plus you have to figure in the fact that the units don't fuel at either Ogden or North Yards.

As far as comparisons between UP's Ogden/North Yards, the Ogden Yard usually does a better job of getting trains out and running, usually in 30-45 minutes or so, depending on length of train and whether or not they have to set out bad order cars, however North Yard is something else - way too slow! As I have mentioned numerous times before, the continuing congestion at UP's SLC area facilites can be partly attributed to the slow pace of the inspections at the yards there, but the problem never seems to go away. You would think that after so many years of delays there, somebody in upper management would have figured it out by now! I think another problem that some of the UP's yards have is not having enough carmen to do the inspections, as I've heard trains coming into Ogden or North Yard and the carmen will tell them that they are busy on other projects and won't we able to get to that train for a while, so not having enough available carmen on each shift could also be factored in.

Now as far as other yards go, like El Paso, etc, I can't say for sure, but it sure sounds like El Paso is having some of the comparable problems as North Yard in SLC, which is why I was wondering about average times to do the thousand-mile train inspections at the various terminals. Seems like there is a huge discrepancy in times allowed, depending on which terminal it is, and also on the railroad involved.

As a Conductor, I have been in Belen and..waited..waited..waited. A lot of it has to do with what's going on down line. I had a nice "Q" train the other day and was told to do 45 MPH all the way from Belen to Winslow.

Brian, you are suffering from a common virus, called Good Old Days. I can assure you that BNSF trains sit and sit and sit in Belen, yes, hours on end. The railroad keeps adding fueling/inspection tracks so that more trains can sit and sit. Very few trains get out of there in an hour. BTW, a lot of the inspections have moved to Clovis. Not sure what determines which trains gets done where. I think Clovis inspects the stack trains it works on, among others.

You mentioned El Paso (after I mentioned El Paso), so I commissioned a study (hee hee). Yesterday, the average time for a train to be fueled and inspected there was 104 minutes eastbound and 126 minutes westbound. Note this: They got in and out a lot more quickly during the middle of the night than the middle of the day. Go figure that one out.

Fred

Since I work in Clovis I think I can help out here. Normally in Clovis we inspect everything we originate and most of the trains that have to yard to do work. A lot of the trains that have to do a lot of work at Clovis will roll Belen, just adding fuel if needed. The terminal instructions list about a dozen trains going west that must have full tanks when leaving Clovis because they are now rolling Belen.

The problem with inspecting trains at Clovis is that we don't have the facilities to do it on the mainline. Trains being inspected have to be brought into the yard which inevitably eats up more and more yard track. Last summer three new R&D tracks were added at each end of the yard, three east and three west, so that trains can be pulled out and inspected instead of having to hold them up in yard trackage. The problem with the east end tracks are that when they were put in nobody thought to add a crossover off the mainline so that trains can simply pull of main two and pull right in. Instead trains have to be pulled out passed Cooks, then shoved back in.

For those who are curious yes Clovis does indeed have RCO. Fortunately only one job per shift that handles mainly manifest freight and works the local industries. Expectations are very low for these jobs. Although lately it seems that they can't seem to keep functioning RCO units in town. Our last unit, the BNSF 2245, has had problems with the software. It will go into emergency and then it can't be recovered without re-linking the beltpacks. I found out this funny little quirk one night when it said we requested emergency brakes when we weren't even moving. I guess it just wanted to make sure we were stopped. After all, the computer knows best right?

Fortunately this summer the company has decided to invest a little money in the yard and has begun a project to rebuild our roundhouse area. We have switches so tight, you swear when those big motors go over them they are surely going on the ground. Currently panel track is spread all over the place waiting for installation. In addition to this, a new facility has been built to allow the mechanical guys to actually fix bad orders under a sheltered area. They've been able to do some pretty major repairs. Although we have a track still full of cars we've bashed up in the last month or so. Hope this helps with your question there boomer. I guess I should email more to update you.
Chris S.

Chris, thanks for that great snapshot of Clovis. Every time I think of RCLs and their control packs, I keeping seeing World's Largest Model Railroad, 1-1 scale! I talked to your terminal super a few months ago, Alan Potter. The guy must be a real desert rat - he's been there forever. Anyway, Potter says Clovis now extends eight miles, end to end - not as wide as North Platte but just as long.

Fred

There are never enough carmen in a yard...

Did a little - not much - checking: the proposed new border crossing that I spoke of earlier was at Santa Teresa, New Mexico. This was about 12 or 13 years ago, and included a new yard for SP/ATSF (now UP/BNSF), NdeM connection, etc. Checking the link below I found no mention of this idea at all, so unless I just didn't search far enough the rail portion of the idea has died. Oh well.

http://www.mexonline.com/stred.htm

Okay, I'll admit that it's been a few years since I did switching at Belen, and even on the SantaFe, there were occasional backups trying to get into town, however once the trains arrived at the fuel docks and were inspected, they really got 'em out of there fast. Yes, things are probably a little more "congested" around there these days, however my point was to compare that yard with some of the yards on the UP, which seem noticeably more "plugged."

OHRY, thanks for the Clovis update. You back on the mainline yet?

Brian, you hit a nerve when you said Santa Fe trains got out of town fast. As noted, today they sit around Belen forever, but when they get the signal, they damn near accelerate to 70 going out of the yard. Somebody else is going to have to cite the enabling rules, but it is impressive to watch a train jackbooting its way out of the fuel racks as if the Super Chief/El Capitan were one block behind with John Reed, Rob Krebs and Matt Rose aboard, and Dave Dealy calling from Fort Worth wanting explanations.

Fred

Since we're talking about congestion. I've noticed lately the UP has been routing an ever increasing amount of trains over the BNSF. I've seen several F-SWRVAU trains as well as stuff coming out of Barstow going east. Last night, while sitting on the Cook's lead waiting to get out to Texico, we were passed by the F-BARSWR, a nice stack train. Would this be UP attempting to get some trains pulled off the Sunset even if it costs them to be running them over the BNSF?
Chris S.

Just to add a bit more to this, some of the new extended Haul Z-Trains (extended haul meaning trains that qualify for 1500 mile inspections instead of 1000 mile inspections) are now being done at Amarillo instead of KC and Belen.

Santa Fe