Switching the Kelim Turn
The Kelim Turn is the most straight forward local on the Great Western. It originates in the Loveland Yard, runs to Officer Junction and Kelim, then returns to Loveland, switching as needed along the way.
Since it is October and the GW’s locomotive fleet is busy with the beet campaign, the Colorado and Southern (a CB&Q subsidiary) has leased an 0-8-0 switcher to the GW for a few months. We will use this as power for the Kelim Turn. The train is made up and the engine is serviced and ready. The train is composed of four cars for the Birds District (red tabs) and four cars for the Union Pacific interchange at Kelim (white tabs). We leave the yard heading eastbound. The yardmaster is busy assembling the Windsor Turn on the outside track (yellow tabs).
The first location east of Loveland is the stock pens and feed storage area at Gorom. We have one car for the storage building (GO STO) and two outbound cars to pull but it is a facing point move in this direction so we will hold onto the car and do this work on the return trip.
The Kuner’s Bean Warehouse is at Birds on the west side of the I-25 overpass and we have one car for it (BI KBN). However, it is also a facing point move so we will again wait for the return trip.
On the east side of the overpass is the Birds elevator (BI ELE). This is a trialing point move so we can do some work here. There is an outbound car ready to be pulled and moved back to Loveland yard where it will be added to the C&S southbound interchange (CS SOUTH).
After a simple swap, we’re ready to couple up and head to Kelim.
However, Kelim and the UP interchange are all facing point moves as we head into it so we first need to turn the entire train on the Officer Junction wye. This is not immediately obvious to first time operators so it is noted on the train order card.
Kelim has two industries on the rear track, Bumble’s Bean warehouse (KE BBN) and the Kelim elevator (KE ELE). The middle track is the UP interchange and has a string of outbound cars to be moved to Loveland. The car at the elevator has a blank tab on it denoting it is being worked and will stay At the elevator this session. We leave the train on the mainline and prepare to pick up the UP cars.
After we pull the outbound interchange cars, we set out the inbound cars on the UP track. As we move the outbound cars, we noted that a box car for BBN was in the cut so we need to do some minor classifying to get things ordered correctly.
We will need to pull the ELE car being worked, put the KBN and the new ELE car behind it and push them to their correct spots.
And don’t forget to keep the Birds and Gorom cars up near the engine for the trip back!
OK, that was a little more complicated than it seemed at first, but everything is spotted correctly and we are ready for the return trip.
After we cross the I-25 overpass at Birds, we have a simple trailing point drop at Kuner’s Beans (BI KBN).
Back at Gorom, we have one car to spot at the storage shed (GO STO, the old grounded box car), two cars to be picked up (the box car (LV PLT) and stock car (CS SOUTH)) and we need to leave the UP stock car where it is. With the tab waybills, any car that is not being worked and is not at the location shown on the tab gets picked up and usually moved to Loveland. The Loveland yardmaster will classify all inbound cars to the C&S interchange or top another GW train.
A little pushing and pulling and we’re good to go.
We’re back in the yard. The yardmaster has the Windsor turn all assembled and blocked so we just need to drop our cars, turn the engine on the wye, let the hostler oil around, add coal and water and turn it over to the Windsor crew. Job well done. Go to beans!
