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National Geographic : 1936 Nov
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TRAINS OF TODAY-AND TOMORROW WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE? "They are writing, reading, chatting, ordering refreshments-doing everything except looking out all the windows we put there with not even a back platform to obstruct the view," humorously complained the conductor on the City of Denver (page 547). a "trimmer" engine pulls the newborn train to one of the yard's 21 forwarding tracks. There engine and caboose are attached and away it goes. By night the entire yard is illuminated by floodlights like a Luna Park, for the freight must go through 24 hours a day. You could stand 26,000 cars, rolling stock enough for a goodly sized railroad, in this yard, and there is adequate track to run a train from Chicago to Cincinnati. Sixty switching engines are working there every day, and you can shuffle trains around with the aid of 740 switches. For less than carload lots there is a freight transfer warehouse under one roof of 21 acres. Through its quarter-mile length run 24 tracks, each with a platform on either side for quicker loading. Along these platforms scurry tractors with their trailer "trains" piled high with parcels. Here 720 freight cars may stand while 42 gasoline tractors and 4,600 trailer trucks unload and reload their cargoes. Lay the platforms straightaway and you would have a 6-mile boardwalk, ample for a sizable sea resort's wheel chairs and strollers. The freight agent at this warehouse has the job of loading and unloading 873 cars on an average day, handling 13,980 sepa rate shipments, and supervising 719 em ployees. In it is a busy cooperage for re pairing or rewrapping packages in transit. BOTTLENECK OF PENNSY'S TRAFFIC If one retains a youthful urge to see the trains go by, the Enola Yards near Harris burg, Pennsylvania, neck of the traffic bot tle for the Pennsylvania's enormous west east freight movement, would fulfill his uttermost craving (page 565).
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