Monday, July 1, 2019

From Cambridge to Waterloo via Paris and Plattesville

Yesterday we moved from our Cambridge daughter's place to our Waterloo daughter's. It was a beautiful day, so we took the scenic route, over to Paris for a Mary Maxim fix, then on to Waterloo via Plattesville. Being a holiday weekend, it was a good day to keep away from the main roads.

Along the way near Ayr, we noticed a large number of cars parked near the road:

It turns out this is a landing/distribution area for new autos unloaded from trains, likely destined for relatively local delivery. Wish we had a drone, as the picture just hints at the number of new cars parked here.

When we poked around the site, we came across the unloading operation. Several rail car carriers were parked off the main tracks:

Double-decker carriers, full of autos
They were setting up a mobile ramp to unload the top level of one of the carriers. It took several minutes for them to get the track aligned properly. This seemed a really slow process, that would have to be repeated for each line of carriers and each carrier level.



Once aligned and connected, the crew started driving the cars out of the top level of the carrier:


The rail cars in a given line are inter-connected with ramps, so all the cars for one level can be unloaded without changing the ramps.

Something different, and it surprised us how slow and manual the process seemed to be.

5 comments:

  1. That is a beautiful drive, have been through those places many times over the years. Too bad we did not know we could have met up with you as you came through Plattsville. We are just up River Road about 2 and 1/2 blocks. Drive slow you can't t miss us.
    That sure looks like and interesting process unload those rail cars.

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  2. We watched for you folks on the way through town but didn't spot you George. We waved though. Dang, it was about Happy Hour time too.

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    1. Well heck we have Happy hour here too, maybe another time.

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  3. Looks like a very interesting process. And a very round about drive!

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