Switching Action at Mountain King Potatoes

[Gary S]

Yesterday at lunch, decided to make a run through the industrial park to see if I could catch any trains. I was in luck. I got to see the Mountain King Potato factory being switched. I thought it would be fun and interesting to post some pics here and review what I saw. Heck, maybe it will even be informative for those of us who never worked on the railroad!

I drove up to the factory at the perfect time. The incoming loads were sitting on the spur, just about to make their move.

First, a google earth view and a bing view, which I have photoshopped the rollingstock to match the situation. There are 2 tracks at the plant, both for unloading of potatos, which are shipped in reefers. I'll refer to the track closest to the building as Track 1, and the outer track as Track 2. Each track has 5 unloading spots for a total of 10. Track 2 had all five spots taken with empty reefers. Track 1 had 2 empties. There were 6 loads coming in. The job was to pick up all 7 empties and set out all 6 loads.

   

   

Here are the empties waiting to be picked up:

   

And the loads waiting to be set out:
   

[Gary S]

And the locos with the cars to be set out. All of the cars are SLC which is the San Luis Central in Colorado. Cars to be set out are numbers 196, 169, 199, 163, 165, 175.

   

The first move was to back into Track 1 and grab the two empties on that track. The empties are SLC 144 and 171.

   

[Gary S]

The two empties were pulled from track 1:

   

Moved past the turn-out:

   

The switchman threw the turn-out from Track 1 to Track 2:

   

Then the two empties were pushed onto Track 2 and left there. This left Track 1 clear so the loaded cars could be set out.

   

[Gary S]

SLC 144 and 171 are left on Track 2:

   

The train then pulled past the turn-out, the turnout was thrown back to track 1:

   

Then the loads were shoved into track 1 to make the setouts:

   

Here, the loads are in place. Remember, we have 6 cars being set out, but only 5 spots on Track 1, so 1 of the cars has to be pulled back out. At this point, the loco jockeyed back and forth a bit to put the cars in the exact places for the unloading ramps.

   

[Gary S]

Now the 6th car, SLC 175 was uncoupled and pulled from track 1:

   

Closer to the tunrout on Track 1, the remaining load was uncoupled from the locos and left standing behind the two cars on Track 2.

   

Then the loco moved past the turn-out, the turn-out was aligned to track 2:

   

The locos coupled to the two empties on Track 2:

   

[faraway]

Great series of photos and explanations. I love to see and learn to understand how the prototype works. Thanks for posting.

[Gary S]

Next, the train backed up and coupled up with all 5 empties that are in the Track 2 loading positions. We now have all 7 empties connected to the locos.

   

The empties were pulled past the turnout.

   

The turnout was thrown to track 1, and the train backed up to the remaining load on Track 1.

   

The train again pulled forward to clear the turnout.

   

Turnout aligned back to Track 2, and the load was shoved towards the spot.

   

[Gary S]

The loco again inched back and forth to get the car exactly in position.

   

Then the loco with empties pulled away:

   

And they headed off towards the yard:

   

[Gary S]

It wasn't long, the factory employees opened a door, lowered the ramp, ran some large water hoses into the car, removed some of the boards at the bottom, and the taters started flowing out and down the ramp. I guess the factory was running low and needed the potatoes for processing. Can't really see the potatos, I could barely see them over the ramp.

   

The end! Hope you enjoy.

[tetters]

Great stuff Gary. Thank you for taking the time to snap of the photos and post it all here on Big Blue.

[Gary S]

Reinhard, Tetters, you're welcome. I thought it was pretty cool to see the moves made, and wanted to share it with The Gauge.

In all, this sequence took about 45 minutes.

[Sumpter250]

Interesting. I wonder if those reefers were chilled, or simply ventilated?
Growing up on Long Island, Westbound reefers with the ice hatches up or open, were loads of potatoes. Reefers with closed hatches were usually cauliflower, iced.
The use of water, for unloading, makes sense. I would have to assume that those spuds went straight to processing, if they're "damp" enough they sprout "roots", fairly quickly.

[faraway]

...In all, this sequence took about 45 minutes.

It is amazing. Some cars, one turnout and 45 minutes. That demonstrates very good why the switch crew does not want a time saver puzzle and also no unnecessary run around in the real world.

[Gary S]

S-2-fiddy, some of the the loaded cars had their diesels engines running, you may be able to see smoke on some of the exhausts in the photos. So, looks like they do cool the potatoes.

[ocalicreek]

Great sequence shots, Gary. Nice to see those new Genset switchers at work. The clean engines really stand out in contrast with the painted out reefers.

As for real life switching vs. timesaver puzzles, I have a few thoughts on that as well. This industry takes multiple cars of the same type in a single loading zone divided by two tracks. The dedicated spots provide the challenge - how do you split 6 cars between two tracks after pulling 7 cars already split. It's not necessarily a puzzle, but still a challenge

A timesaver has multiple single spots for a variety of cars. It's nothing like a modern industrial park big-box factory. In its purest form it's a switching puzzle in which the type of cars matters less, only as pieces in the game. But add some structures and you can created dedicated spots. Part of the challenge for the timesaver is the limited length of the single runaround needed in order to access all the spots.

So this potato industry is just like a timesaver in one regard - limited space is a challenge. In one case, it's a limited number of dedicated spots. For the timesaver, it's a limited space for completing the moves to put single car in a spot. Our model railroads are more often like the timesaver due to our limited space than the potato industry. That trend seems to be changing as more layouts are built like modern prototypes, but I don't think single-car industries will disappear from the modeling world anytime soon as long as folks build layouts in spare rooms.

Galen