Local vs Local Turn

I recently came across a listing of NS Harrisburg Division Locals. Many of them are listed as "Turns" while the ones I'm familar with are not. What is a Turn?

The term might vary from place to place.

A turn here means your on the mainline board, but not on the extra board, "holding a turn".

Then a "turn around local" means you come back to the same terminal that you departed from. Those jobs here are assigned.

Another one is a "pool". The Cheyenne guys here get all the fast trains and run them most of the way across Wyoming, "long pool". Then theres the "short pool" guys that run the dogs from Cheyenne to Rawlins. From there the guys on the Rawlins "turns" bring the dogs to Green River.

Dont know what the real difference between them is.

washingtonsecondary wrote:I recently came across a listing of NS Harrisburg Division Locals. Many of them are listed as "Turns" while the ones I'm familar with are not. What is a Turn?

As UPRR engineer said a ''Turn'' is usually an assigned train that is not called off extra or pool boards unless of course someone lays off. A ''Turn'' goes on duty at a specific place and time and has an assigned crew.

A ''Local'' is a term that usually applies to a road switcher that services industries along the mainline. Like the ''Turn'', it too has an assigned crew and goes on duty at a specific place and time.

However, a ''Turn'' and ''Local'' could also have the same meaning. As an example I used to work an assigned train that went on duty at San Diego and ended at Barstow. We would lay over until the next day and bring back the loads to the originating point.
This train had three ''Turns'' (three different crews) assigned to this particular ''Local'' board, --so there ya go.

A good way to look at it is--

Turn-------------Away from the wife and stuck in the motel.
Local------------Home with the wife and watching football every day/night.

Locals are a good thing.

CN Has turn listed in there local list most of these are are transfer jobs runing from yard to yard.

They also call there Branch line Locals Turns Many run for miles down dead end branchs in places like Alberta, and Saskatchewan, dropping off empty grain cars till they reach the end of the line where they tie down for the night and turn back in the morning to recollecting loaded cars to take back to there H.Q. in the morning.