NE New Mexico- Raton, Las Vegas & Glorietta Subs-Someone help me understand why BNSF is always moving baretable unit trains North (East) and South (West) on a daily basis. It seems that 8 of 10 sidings are full of empty baretable and double stack cars that seem to go nowhere besides from one siding to the other. The abandoned York Canyon Sub off the Raton sub is full of double stack empties. There is no intermodel facilities close (besides Belen-Denver) within 100-200 miles. I'm confused or I guess you can say just wondering what BNSF is doing with all these cars. Any answers or guesses? Thanks BNSF FANS!
Simple really, there's not enough room in the yards to store them. So they're sent to any available space no matter how far away they are from the yards. Sometimes they send baretables out on the road w/ no destination! Just keep em moving so they don't take up any space. That's what happens when you have bean counters & mouthpieces running the RRs. What you're seeing in NM is happening everywhere
Yep that is it. Add to it the fact that Raton, is not on the "transcon", so there are bigger "windows" in which to move the cars around.... (transcon 100+ trains a day, Raton pass 6-12 trains a day) luck, Kevin
Apparently CSX has the problem, although not to the extent as described here. A few times each week I'll see a trainload of bare tables pass through between New Orleans and Mobile, either eastbound or northbound, sometimes both directions within a day or two. It would be interesting to compare the annual cost of crews and locos to keep these trains out of the way by moving them, vs. the cost of building the necessary "parking lots"....?
Flash, don't feel alone. I didn't know what it meant either until just recently, but I think it's a great descriptive term. :thumbs_up:
There is also the Baretable train that they often run out of the Northwest down to LA when too many Tables are in Seattle and Portland.
You can alos have a loaded baretable, this is when they run empty trailers around, seen it a couple times when I was working in Vancouver. Kevin
Just seems really odd because I'll see the same string of cars in three different sidings in a weeks time. Then they seem to disapear over night and then there they are again the same 20-40 cars again just playing musical sidings. Well one good thing out of all this. Here in NE NM, Wagon Mound, yesterday 11/12/06, a Northbound baretable had to take the siding for the #3 Amtrak SW Chief to go on by Westbound. Seems since 1996/1999 we no longer have train meets. It was a great thing listening to the baretable cars ramble against one another as they left town. it's a sound no longer heard in this part of the country. The only South (WB) traffic we see is the #3 SW Chief daily and the baretables. All other traffic, empty coalies (1-2 daily), empty grainies (2-5 daily, the #4 SW Chief all go North (EB). I do enjoy seeing the locos on the baretables. Lots of UP, NS, CSX motive helping with the tables.
I presume MT is an empty. Is repos an empty train or an empty trailer on a train? Thanks. Means "reposition?"
Since you guys have helped me with all these new terms, I'll tell you this story. Eastern Airlines (or as it was originally known, Eastern Air Lines) used to do the same thing with airplanes in the 1930s. Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, the boss, was known to fire station managers who had airplanes sitting on the ground because an airplane on the ground wasn't making money. When Capt. Eddie visited the station on a stopover, the station manager would pay all the spare pilots extra money to take the DC-3s someplace away from the aerodrome to orbit for a few hours. After Capt. Eddie had left, the station manager would radio the pilots to bring 'em back. Different reason; same effect. The only thing new is the history you don't know.
Are baretables really heavy when they're empty? I always see 2-4 locos hauling a string around. Anything from 2 Dash 9's to 3 SD40-2's and a Dash 9. I thought one or even two locos could dothe job?
