Anatomy Of A Train Run

So let's see what is involved in "running trains" on my layout. We'll jump onboard EM-15, the afternoon westbound known as the Heinz Transfer. We are just connecting on the road engine, a GP9 number 7046 which the S-1 yard switcher doubles back after adding the cabin car at the end of the train. The yardmaster has already made the train based on our work today with the first two boxcars (PRR 77100 and GD 8409) bound for LAS Fabrics in East McKeesport, the next two (NW 361508 and PRR 83397) headed to PPG and the last two cars (PLE 30399 and Heinz Pickle Tank car 73) for the Heinz factory.

EM-15, the Heinz Transfer, prepares to leave the yard

After passing through the neigboring towns (making a couple loops of the layout), we approach East McKeesport, first dropping the cabin car next to Vic's Bait & Tackle.

We leave the cabin car next to Vic's to leave plenty of room for working around the train

Next, we pull the train into the south passing track (closest to the aisle), we we will drop the train and run the engine forward to the next switch, then back into position to pull the cars from LAS Fabrics.

Leave the train on the south passing track, run the engine back to clear the siding

 We pull the boxcars from the siding and push them out of the way on the north passing siding. Next, we connect to the rear of the train and back almost to Vic's to clear the switches, this was why we dropped the cabin car all the way back here. Simple now to push the front two cars of the train onto the siding and leave them.

After pulling the cars from LAS Fabrics, leave them on the passing siding

We push the train onto the passing siding where we connect with the two cars we picked up from the siding, placing them at the front of the train. The engine uses the south passing track to run around to the front, connect to the train and push back to pick up the cabin car. All done in East McKeesport, time to head to the PPG and Heinz factories which share a siding.

EM-15 reassembled and ready for the next work assignment

The work on the PPG / Heinz siding is much the same except we use both mainlines. First leave the train on the north track and run around to pull the cars from the siding and place them on the south track.

Dropping the cars pulled from the siding on the south mainline before dropping off the cars for these industries

We connect with the cabin car and pull the train back, leaving the first two cars which we had picked up in East McKeesport. We push the first two cars for PPG in front of the factory, then pull back to drop the next two cars at Heinz. We push the cabin car at end of the cars on the south mainline, then pulled the train back to connect with the cars we left on the north mainline.

Pushing the cars on the siding, placing them at each factory

We run around the train, reconnect and head through the towns (around the loop) back to the Irwin Yard at the end of our day.