Amtrak yard in washington DC

I was wandering,
as you go down new york ave tords union station and you look to your right you see a big rail yard, Is that yard owned by amtrak?

That is Amtrak owned (actually Washington Terminal Co) Ivy City yards.

VRE also uses this yard. It used to be the yard back in the old days that most RRs(in DC) would service their passenger trains and refuel their engines.

Home of the noted blue RS1's operated by the Washington Terminal.

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.p ... &nseq=2027

I was always curious how the Wabash/Mopac look got to such a Pennsy-dominated place.

Thanks for all the replies guys!
If anywon works their you think you can put up some photose or vids of the yards operations?

Mr. Dunville, two points; first the MoPac Blue has not always been WTC paint scheme. I can recall a Grey livery.

Secondly WTC was owned 50-50 between PRR (subsidiary PB&W) and B&O. B&O's livery, once it had evolved beyond Soot Black and Pullman Green, was predominately Blue. All roads USING WTC, as distinct from owning it, were governed by an October 24, 1907 Agreement.

Finally an apology to Mr. CSXT for diverting away from his straight-forward railfan oriented inquiry.

Even though it was 50-50 ownership they still settled with B&O CPL's. I wonder who made that decision.

Davis

Each road that operated trains into WTC, namely PRR, B&O, RF&P, SRY, and C&O all paid their proportionate costs to operate the terminal. The usual means of allocating the costs of any joint facility was car count, i.e. your road handled 12 cars into the facility; all roads handled 100. You pay 12% of the cost of the facility.

But be assured that if there is anyone here who spent their career in Joint Facility Accounting; I realize I have presented a simple better yet a VERY SIMPLE example of how it works.

VRE at Ivy City
Amtrak at Ivy City

Thanks for all the replys everywon!!

Still keepin my fingures crossed with the yard vids.
And about the Alco Rs1, Is'nt that a switcher engine?

strench707 wrote:Even though it was 50-50 ownership they still settled with B&O CPL's. I wonder who made that decision.

Mr. Strench, could you clarify the term "B&O CPL's"? Possibly, with what exposure (limited) I had to joint Facility Accounting "along the way" I could better respond.

Possibly that term was one unique to the B&O, and for which my road had an equally unique term.

Example; AFE - Authority for Expenditure - was prepared on my road for any project that would be charged to Capital accounts (as distinct from Expense). On Amtrak, as I learned from Amtrak accounting hands I've known also "along the way', same is a CAR - Capital Appropriations Request.

> clarify the term "B&O CPL's"? <

Washington Terminal has a lot of Baltimore & Ohio Color Position Light signals, instead of Pennsylvania Position Light signals, or even whatever the tenants from the South used.

All signals within the limits of Washington Terminal Company ownership are color position light (CPL) signals. The station originally used semaphores; they were "modernized" to CPLs at some point in the 1930s or 1940s.

The RS1 was an ALCO-built "road switcher". WTC dieselized with RS1s in 1939, and they were still clanking around the terminal at the time Amtrak took over operation of all non-commuter passenger service in the U.S. During the 1970s, WTC also tested a Romanian-built diesel-hydraulic switcher called the "Quarter Horse". It lasted only a couple of years. In the 1980s Amtrak began replacing the RS1s with somewhat newer end-cab switchers (RS1s have a short hood at one end, long hood over the prime mover). I don't know where those came from.

Ivy City yard is north of the "B&O wye" that connects the Metropolitan Sub to the Capitol Sub, and handles both passenger cars and locomotives. South of the wye is a long service building for Acela Express equipment, and a yard (formerly the commissary yard, exclusively for dining cars) that handles VRE equipment. To the east of the former commissary yard is Washington Metro's Brentwood Yard. The Metro Red Line tracks use the former alignment of the B&O tracks into the station from the west. Close to the station, former platform tracks 1 through 6 have been removed. The Metro tracks are on the far west side, descending into a portal about where the midpoint of the platform for Track 1 would have been. The rest of the area is taken up by a yard for MARC equipment and by some crew buidings.

I don't have any videos for you, but if you visit Washington, book a room in the Marriott Courtyard adjacent to the New York Avenue Metro station, and ask for a room on the east side. You'll have a panoramic view of Union Station's trackage. I'm staying there myself for a couple of days next week.

I learn from both Mr. Strench and Ms. Bly; C&S is one area of the railroad industry to which I had no exposure during my years (70-81) with such.

strench707 wrote:Even though it was 50-50 ownership they still settled with B&O CPL's. I wonder who made that decision.

Davis

I've always assumed (subject to correction) that B&O signaling was used because when Union Station was built the alignment from the north was essentially that of the B&O (the PB&W had to build a line from Landover to get there). Semaphores in the old photos I've seen are B&O style, and I assume that when the B&O converted to CPL the Union Station signaling was done in the same way.