Coal Operations: Marshaling Yards

 In the steam era, and I’m willing to bet into today, coal hauling railroads established intermediate yards, between mine and final destinations, where coal loads were classified by customer, Grade of coal, size of coal, and where the weighing process took place.

These were so called marshaling yards. On the Western Maryland it was Knobmount near Cumberland, MD. On the C&O, Hinton comes to mind. The N&W, Bluefield. On the Atlantic Inland Railway (AIR) it’s Pettigrew Yard.

It appears that coal hauling railroads found that separating coal traffic from general merchandise allowed efficiencies in transit to be developed for their coal operations. Since the Atlantic Inland is supposed to simulate the operations of a steam era, coal hauling railroad it only made sense to build a coal marshaling yard into my operations. If you have read many (Any?) of my blogs you will no doubt have seen the name Pettigrew Yard (PY).

PY is CENTRAL to operations on the AIR. Every coal hopper passes through PY. Mine runs originate and terminate in Pettigrew, bringing coal which must be weighed, classified, and built into trains going in a “Like “ direction. MTY hoppers from off-layout locations (Staging) return to Pettigrew to be allocated to mines. This is the foundational process upon which all the other operations are based on the AIR. The job of Pettigrew Yard Master (PYM) is complicated, busy, and sought after.

Because of my use of TTTO to control my traffic, total traffic volume is one of my bug-a-boos. TTTO does not handle high volume. Adding a mine run here or there was often not possible. My “planned” solution was to stage ALL the mine runs at the branch heading BACK to Pettigrew with their loads. I want loads moving to Pettigrew, if I HAVE to sacrifice trains I would rather it be the MTY mine runs.

Well the best laid plans of mice and men are often upset by cats and women, or in this case, operators. This plan met with ALMOST universal opposition from my crew members, “But we like switching mines…”.

In any case that solution remains to be seen, but the coal loads still return, somehow, to Pettigrew. Historically coal from my region moves in two basic directions: East (To tidewater) or West (To lake ports). I chose to “suggest a 70-30 split, 70% of the tonnage going East, and 30% going West. I’m still pretty happy with that, but the Midwest steel industries were a HUGE coal consumer. I am going to make up for this with the river coal barge traffic out of Littlerock. 

At this point it’s important to make one note, starting in , roughly, 1960, coal flowing from my region began to change direction, it went south. Coal fired power plants, built all over the South and South East had a voracious appetite for coal. Along with this is the birth of the “Unit Train”, and this marks a huge transition in the coal business.

In my era, 1952, even though coal moves from Marshaling yards to market in solid trains of coal hoppers, THESE ARE NOT UNIT TRAINS. Each coal load in the steam era moved on its own waybill, 50 to 55 tons per car load. Each train would have a hundred waybills, and each train would simulate the travels of a slow skyrocket: moving from one point to another until it “bursts”,  depositing each individual car load at each consignee’s doorstep. Unit Trains are bound for one consignee, traveling from loading point to customer, with one waybill, often for twenty-thousand Tons of commodity. 

Back on the AIR, loads from the mines with their two sided waybills get classified at Pettigrew. When the PYM flips these bills their final destination is revealed. He builds trains of cars going in like destinations. My NEW coal Waybills will still be two sided, but their final billing side will have more information describing the consignee. I doubt this will have any practical use, unless I set up a procedure in such a way as to require additional blocking.