Train 60, The Merchant Express

Cape Ann’s midday train 60, the Merchant Express, rolls into Davis Yard. The crew had a lot of work back at Kenton to get this train organized. After dropping their southbound interchange traffic, they had to gather the cars destined for local delivery. The railroad likes pickups for the same destination to be blocked together, so it took a lot of switching moves to get cars in the proper order. Plus, to complicate matters, one pickup was a loaded tank car which cannot be coupled next to the locomotives for safety reasons.

The manifest:
BO 76893, LCL for Kenton Freight Forwarders.
BN 100458, LCL for Kenton Freight Forwarders.
BAR 5226, specialty paper for Chronicle Press.
CA 4722, machine parts for Chronicle Press.
EXX 1121, fuel oils for Glen Cove Fuels.

The crew will break for lunch as the yard switcher (visible above GP40 826) adds any additional local delivery cars. The hostler will run the engines around the train so it will be ready to depart as train 61, the Kenton Turn. There had better be at least one more car tacked on the end, to avoid the tank car restriction.

Getting the train put together and to this point was a good session’s work.