Perishable Trains

 I have a number of “perishable” trains on my schedule.  I think there are three produce trains and two meat trains. All the products these trains carry  are defined by the Atlantic Inland as “perishable”.

All these loads travel on “Preferred Movement Waybills”. The Preferred Movement bill is pink, so that at a glance crews will know that “This car is expedited”.

A lot of different freight moves on Preferred bills. For example Produce, meat, LCL,  might all get a pink waybill. Livestock does not get these pink bills because there is simply no need. Livestock is the hottest thing there is on a railroad. 

Auto parts could be designated as expedited. I have a block of cars from a sub-contractor that travels to Convair Aircraft in Ft.Worth, TX. They contain parts to the B-36, which is being assembled in Ft. Worth.

The traffic department might designate ANY load as expedited and worth a Preferred Movement Waybill. And “Worth” is the key word here, since there is an extra charge for Preferred Movement.

But I digress, these Perishable trains are all 2nd Class; are all Eastbound and listed on the Time-Table; and all are one-way. There is no Westbound return train in the schedule. Their job is to move large amounts of these perishable items to markets in the East. The MTY cars coming back, travel as “dead freight”* in numerous trains. 

I have built into the staging process a “Token” simulation of returning MTY reefers. Each westbound train  carries a block of MTY reefers just ahead of the caboose.  I have even done this with passenger trains, inserting one MTY Express Reefer into each westbound M&E**train.

These eastbound perishable trains carry, roughly the same blocks: Newport News, Richmond, Washington DC, Bluefield (N&W), and Littlerock. 

Only one perishable train carries a block for the WM, train 97 “ The Florida Perishable”. After studying the RR atlas and traffic patterns it’s obvious that the vast majority of perishable loads would travel to the WM vis the NKP - P&WV*** connection. But a block of produce from Florida would make its way to Pittsburgh, PA. Via the WM. Additionally some meat does go to the WM, representing kosher meat products.

Each of these Perishable Trains stop in Littlerock Yard where they set out blocks for Littlerock and Bluefield. They will fill tonnage with any preferred produce from Littlerock, and LCL. 

No dead freight to slow these trains down.


* Dead Freight- this is the term I use, picked up from the UP, to denote just plain freight. You know…, merchandise, freight, cargo. As opposed to expedited, preferred, hot, freight. Dead freight is just freight, or JAFL - just another fucken load…

** M&E - Mail and express

*** NKP - P&WV: Nickel Plate RR and Pittsburgh and West Virginia RR, members of the Alphabet Route.

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