Some BNSF Questions....

[jagged ben]

On the west coast I presume baretable trains run WEST??  (In the East they are always eastbound to the NY/NJ ports)

No they don't.   At least from the Bay Area they head initially east, then apparently north or south to the Seattle or LA areas.  Don't ask me to explain the traffic patterns, I frankly don't understand them.  Only thing to add is that frequently the baretable symbol trains have some trailers or containers up front.   Never clear to me if they are loaded or empty.

[ljudice]

That's interesting...  There must be some kind of imbalance in the system...

I know from Conrail days (not sure if this is still true) there was a massive influx of UPS into North Jersey over the weekend - because "Next Business Day" traffic could go by rail and save the cost of flying it.  This left extra locomotives in North Jersey and westbounds were overpowered on Sunday leaving town.

[Hyperion]

Missed this question earlier...

On the west coast I presume baretable trains run WEST??  (In the East they are always eastbound to the NY/NJ ports)
- Lou

Yes, and no.  Kinda, sorta.

We actually run fairly few Baretables.  Obviously they don't make us any money, on a train-type that's got fairly thin margins to begin with even Loaded, so you want to minimize your B-trains as much as possible.  At any given time on the system, only about 1-3% of our total trains are Baretables, and if you want some type of prototypical mix, you can figure we run about 8 Loaded Intermodals for every Baretable.

Now, as far as direction, the High Line is a little different.  Most of the baretables there actually come out SoCal up to Seattle, so they're actually coming NORTH.  Technically, we break all train directions into "East" and "West" -- and, in that regards (which doesn't exactly mean a ton, as it's fairly meaningless overall) Baretables are pretty even in their scheduled direction -- and Oakland to Seattle is considered "East".

As an example...

Right this moment, there are 25 B-trains on the system (out of over 1000 active trains).  11 are "East", 14 are "West".  Not a single one of them is anywhere near the High Line.  Every one is on the Transcon somewhere (plus 1 in Alliance, TX which is close enough).  There are 2 headed up to Seattle at the moment, enroute from Oakland.

[ljudice]

Interesting...   As big as the local RR's in the east are, the sheer scale of BNSF (and UP for that matter) is mind boggling....