Clean out tracks

[NW Mailing List]

Jim

The clean out tracks at Shaffers Crossing was just west of the engine 
terminal on the South side.  The old stock pen was in the same area.

Re excessive super elevation.  Not sure on this.  Could be that the area 
between the tracks were worn down by removal of some dirt every time 
they ran machines to clean up the debris.  On the other hand it could 
have been by design to keep those rats from jumping in the open box cars.

I was only at the clean out tracks three times.  One time to show me as 
a new employee where they were, one time to check on the location of a 
car and another to check out some interesting junk to see if it had 
potential use.  When you were at the location you had to watch every 
step.  There were plenty of nails and rats to avoid at all cost.  I 
never did see a rail fan with a camera taking any photos in this area.

As for me, I would rather walk through the stock pens than the clean out 
tracks.

Several years after my clean out experience when I was in the Traffic 
Dept. we put in charges for cleaning out cars.  This was a tariff charge 
that required all empty cars be cleaned by the customer before releasing 
the car to the carrier as an empty.  The only exception was dunnage used 
to block and brace the load being returned to the original shipping 
origin.  This eliminated the need to operate the massive clean out tracks.

Jim Blackstock

On 11/28/2018 12:57 PM, NW Mailing List wrote:
> On another list there has been a discussion about clean out tracks and 
> the cleaning of cars; some photos show the clean out tracks to have 
> excessive super elevation that assisted in the removing of dunnage and 
> the cleaning of the car, i.e. steam cleaning.
>
> Does anyone have insight in how N&W handled cleaning of box cars, etc? 
> Were the clean out tracks super elevated?  Any photos?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Jim Brewer
> Glenwood, MD
>
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