07-16-2010, 10:56 AM
Larry, when I worked in the Los Angeles Harbor, I noticed a lot of the locals just put the locomotive in the middle of the train. The locals usually consisted of one locomotive and 6-10 freight cars. The cars destined for a facing point switch were in front of the loco, those destined for a trailing point switch were behind the loco. I also noticed that the crews would come in the morning with a loco only to pull the cars out of the spurs, and then they would be back a couple of hours later to spot fresh cars. I think the yard they worked out of was less than a mile away. The U.P. (at the time I worked there the S.P.) had a yard pretty much in the center of the Los Angeles Harbor terminal area.