BNSF Alliance Intermodal Yard

OK, here are some long promised photos of a tour I had the opportunity to take part in as a member of the NMRA's Lone Star Region as part of their 2005 convention in Fort Worth, Texas. The tour is of the Alliance, TX (north Fort Worth) Intermodal facility. We also toured the tower and shops at Alliance as well, but this was clearly the "headliner" of the event!

For starters, we have the truck entrance checkpoint. We are traveling in a tour van identical to the one in front, and in fact that van is also full of railfans as part of the same tour. In general, the tour had us go throught the checkpoint, hang a right and travel the length of the yard to the northernmost end, cross the loading tracks, all the way to edge of the concrete, take a left and follow the length of the yard again till we were positioned at the secured demonstration area consisting of a string of various intermodal cars and loads waiting to be lifted onto those cars. Once complete, we loaded back into the vans and proceded directly across the tracks and back out the checkpoint.




This is a shot as we are traveling north on the east side of the yard. Note the yellow concrete barriers, mi-jack crane and yard tractor.




I believe this is the farthest east of the three yard tracks at Alliance.




And again, this time looking "right down the barrel".

 

Here is a shot of the middle track, where you can see a little detail about how the track is embedded in the pavement.




Here is a shot of one of the main "materials yards" scattered about that have spare parts necessary to keep things running. Note the "etched metal" walkways leaning up against the container there. ;-)




Here is "our crane" located on the westernmost track. Here our BNSF guide is giving us the safety speech...something to the effect of "that big tire there will make a grease spot on the pavement if you get in the way". The truly amazing thing about the tour, besides the fact that we were even inside an intermodal facility in the first place, was that BNSF was gracious enough to give us "limited free reign" to move about and get photographs of the demo. (All this is attributed to one BNSF employee, and fellow NMRA member, who went WAY above and beyond to not only get this tour setup for us, but to plan everything out and present it to the "higher ups" such that BNSF felt comfortable letting us visit. We owe him one, bigtime!)




Another side shot of the Mi-Jack. I will post quite a few detail pics of the crane for you lucky guys that have a model and want to do some superdetailing. If you are really jones-ing, I can send you full-rez pics on CD if you'll spring for shipping via Pay-Pal. (or some other trade can be figured out.)

 

Here the demo has started, with the crane moving into position to load a Hub Group container into a well car.




Here the container has been lifted into position and is beginning the descent into the well.




Close-up detail of the top-left portion of the Mi-Jack.




...and top middle...

 

...and top right detail of the Mi-Jack.




Here is detail of the "PinPlus", which is quite a nifty device to see in operation. I'm not sure if the Mi-Jack cranes always had this type of lifter, but it sure seems efficient for picking up anything that can be pulled by a truck.




Here the lift moves into position to pick up a JBH 53-footer.




And here the PinPlus drops it down into a Pacer Stacktrain well car.

 

OK, more Mi-Jack. This one took a few tries. I think the warning light only blinked when the crane was moving, if I recall, but anyway it didn't seem like I could ever capture it lit. So after a few tries, here are the fruits of my labor. If you like blinky things or are part bug, enjoy!



This shot is looking north, on the west side of the intermodal yard, with the class yard to the left. It appears the two immediately close ballasted tracks are used for intermodal as well. Not sure if they are storage or A/D tracks.




This is one of my favorite shots, as I've always liked the Hyundai 20-footers and lo-and-behold they had one as part of the demo. (I swear, it wasn't arranged that way. Our BNSF plant isn't THAT good....hehe. Well, he is...but he wasn't privvy to my preferences, anyway.) This one is being loaded on an FEC 89-footer. FEC equipment is fairly common on the BNSF lines, around here anyway.




Here we have our gracious crane operator, who was kind enough not to drop ANY containers or trailers on us, nor did he run over anyone. Not sure if we tipped him or not.

 

Here is a shot of the end details and hitch on the AP spine car that was part of the demo.




More pics of the crane, showing the massive tires. Sorry if some of these seem a little repetitive, but I'm trying to show things like the pavement striping and general "background noise" as well, per some requests from other posts and other folks.




First in a series showing the "crane assistant" raising a hitch on the FEC 89-foot flat car. This is the guy that does all the work while the crane operator plays with his joystick. :-O




Here the hitch is raised into position, the then a pin is pulled to let it swivel properly to receive the trailer.

 

The TIP Intermodal Leasing trailer is moved into position and lowered onto the car.




Now you can see the PinPlus earn its keep by swiftly and effortlessly folding up the TOFC arms and tucking them out of the way for more containers.




(OOPS #1...I got so excited about a new "quick-and-dirty" resize utility I found, I forgot to rotate a couple of pics before uploading. I'll fix them once I complete the narrative.) A "down the way" shot, with the Mi-Jack's next victim in its sights...another JBH box.




"Umm, can we just stay here all day? Those layout tours can be rescheduled..."

 

Up goes yet another Hunt box, which is probably far and away the most common container or trailer loaded at this facility.




This was another Mi-Jack waiting in the wings near our demo. Not sure if it was a "hot spare" or if it was just unused at that particular moment.




Details of the trucks on the AP Spine car. Thought this one might be useful for modeling/weathering purposes.




And a closeup of the warning stencils and labels on the hitch.

 

OOPS #2. An end view of the spine car and newly loaded MVT 53-foot trailer.




Side view of the operator's "cockpit".




A new angle from the other side of the crane looking south. Once the end car was loaded we could move around on the other side.




Tour members checking out the Mi-Jack and chatting with the operator.

 

The "fishbowl". This glass enclosed control area gives the operator good view of the surroundings for safety and efficiency...note the windshild wiper. You get the feeling this operation doesn't stop for nuttin'! Well, maybe ice.




A worm's eye view of the PinPlus, showing all the hydraulic detail. Pretty amazing machine.




This was track two viewed as we were leaving the facility. It appears to have an automated derailer device of some kind. Maybe to keep runaway cars from mucking up the operation or endangering the ground crews?



Here is the TTX maintenance facility, along with other independent contractors performing work at the yard.

 

Wow! Terrific series of photos!

Thanks for posting them!

Russ

 

Thanks Russ. I think you and Tim are my only fans! But, good enough for me...here are a few more, starting with the signs that are just the right of the main entrance. A must if you are modeling a BNSF intermodal facility!



Then, a special bonus...a series of photos panning the intermodal yard from the yard tower across the way.

This photo is looking to the north side of the intermodal yard. In the foreground is part of the classification yard, with the car shop just out of sight to the left, and the engine facility just to the right. Notice the BN cabooses, two of 'em!




Panning toward the south, we see a lot of orange signifying the very common Schneider trailers that are almost as easy to find as J B Hunt stuff around here. Engine facility in the foreground.



More yard and another Mi-Jack.

 

Yet more variety of boxes.



Some BNSF and NACS in the mix.




Here you can see the front entrance/checkpoint in the background.




A couple more cranes, and the TTX maintenance facility.

 

Here we see some road units shoving a cut of intermodal cars back toward the ramp. If you look carefully you will see a blue SW unit in the upper left corner. It belongs to the company that is contracted to switch the intermodal facility.

Also note the right handed turnout in the center of the photo...it veers off to the right, as does the left handed turnout a bit further up in the photo, to a dedicated wye used for turning locomotives.




Here is a small lot just south of the yard offices for chassis storage. Behind is the third leg of the aforementioned wye. It dead ends just a few feet past the right edge of the photo.




And I just had to throw this one in--taken from the BNSF yard office--a "fallen logo"...

 

Hey, another fan here...lot's of good detail for modelers.

 

Great shots Doug - thanks for the time and effort in sharing.

I'll have to PM you soon about some cds....

 

Thanks for the comments. Too bad the tour happened during the only 3 hours in many months that we had overcast skies in Texas that year. But I can't complain, there was talk of cancelling the tour altogether due to storms being forecast. And it would have been wicked hot out there on that concrete.

I'm going back through and cleaning up some of the photos a bit. I may add a few more...I took over 300 pictures between the shop tour and the intermodal tour! But a good bit of them are just sequence shots of containers being loaded--not especially good use of bandwidth. I was able to successfully use the zip file import which was NICE. Still does some goofy things like reverse ordering the photos but not a huge deal.

 

Nice pics Doug. Keep up the good work and thanks for posting.

 

An excellent montage. Very interesting since I need to design an intermodal facility for my modernized version of Moriarty.

I also noted some San Luis Central Mech reefers in the shots from the tower. Always nice to see some cars from an old home town RR. SLC ships out potatoes and carrots in those mech reefers all over the country. About 25% of the USSA production on potatoes comes from the San Luis Valley of Colorado. Including much of those sold by Wal Marts.