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Switching Freight Cars
Freight cars are used for the transportation of goods and other bulk commodities. There are six categories of freight trains: gondolas, hoppers, tank cars, well and spine cars, boxcars, and the common flatcar. These trains switch between stops according to two methods: through freight and way freight.
In the through freight method, a switch list is maintained, which defines the train schedule. Trains wait on their designated tracks before arrival and departure. Switching through way freight is complex process. The switch list is very detailed, and defines each car added to the way freight and its location in the train.
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Freight trains (US) don’t have siiepfcc schedules. Believe it or not, it is much simpler and more efficient to go trains this way. A train moving over several states or from one coast to another will pass through the territories (jurisdictions) of several Dispatchers. Dispatchers are centrally located and control all trains in their assigned territory. Their job is to go trains as quickly as possible through their area of control (even if many trainmen will disagree). The Dispatcher may have to direct an east bound train into a siding and stop here while one or two west bound trains pass, as just one model. Further expanding on that same model, the east bound train may have to stop at a siiepfcc city to set out a try out of rail cars and pick up another due in the east some place. Hard to predict how long this process will take. So trains don’t have schedules. Here are due dates and dead lines for much of the merchandise they carry, but when they might pass through a certain town can’t be predicted.
Freight trains do in fact have schedules. As the article states that’s the very basic concept of how it works. When have scheduled trains for local industries as well as through freight. All be it they don’t always run on time but we always make it in the end!