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Inbound outbound freight would not stop to drop off local cars UNLESS the freight has instructions to do so.

The normal way it works is a

The normal way it works is a "manifest freight" originates in a classification yard and has another classification yard as a final destination. It's job is to move cars from yard A to yard B (or any other classification yard along the way that it is directed to "work"). At yard B any cars  that are destined for local industries serviced by that yard are placed on a "local" train. This local goes to all the industries it is scheduled to work and sets out deliveries and makes pickups (takes those pick ups back to its yard).

I agree

Unless you had a local come out of staging to switch the customers I agree the train would deliver them to the yard to be blocked then taken out to spot at those industries later. 

Loads 'n' Empties

As an aside; consider that not all industries will receive loads, some will get empty cars and ship ful ones. Trains are usually made up of a combination of loads and empties. The common thread is that all the cars in a train are going in the same general direction.  

Thank you all for the quick

Thank you all for the quick responses. I knew manifests and locals were separate but as I'm laying out the track plan it just wasn't looking right. Now I feel better about it. Sometimes you just need an outside opinion. And Bill, I just used "full" and "empty" as a generalization to show the flow of traffic. Thus the "quotes". If all goes according to plan I will have plenty of each moving in both directions!

If your local is a turn,

If your local is a turn, running out from a yard and returning to the starting point, the crew might very well save facing point turnout industries for the return trip.

"If your local is a turn,

Yeah, they'd have to have a very good reason to work facing point spurs if they were coming back by later. I occasionally saw the SP do it at the old Capitola freight house  track. They came by in the morning and returned in the evening , I've seen them drop cars there so the customer could unload them that day. Of course they had a full crew and knew how to make a drop but most of the time they'd wait for the return trip .....DaveB

Different classes of trains

IME, the through or Z-trains or "hotshots" go from Yard A to Yard B while locals do the switching along the mainline.  However, my best friends's dad was a brakie on tne SOO running from Gladstone, MI to Rhinelander, WI and his trains acted like a hybrid - most cars were through freight, but they would also stop to switch customers along the way.  Keep in mind this was pretty much a backwoods run, but I'd say the precedent exists to do pretty much whatever you want.

You might want to check out current Iowa Interstate ops also.  Not an expert, but I thought CBBI / BICB switch along rhe way.

Exceptions

You can always find exceptions, but probably 99% of the time, the through freights go through with no work (that's why the exceptions are exceptions and not the norm).

Traditionally crews were paid at three rates :  Through freight, local and yard.  Through freight crews got a different rate of pay (higher) if they switched industries.  The only reason you would have a through freight work industries is if it allowed the railroad to NOT run a local.   We had a run between Houston and Ft worth 30 years ago that had to work one or two remaining industries on line.  So rather than run a "local' they paid the through freight crew local rate wheever the spotted the occaisional car, once or twice a month. 

On another territory they designated a through freight as a local even though it didn't do any local work.  On that territory they couldn't have traveling switch engines (through freight crews that operated like yard engines) unless they had a local over the territory, so one train was the designated "local" even though it did not local work, didn't spot a single industry.  But it did allow the railroad to operate TSE's along its route.

However on virtually all the other routes, the hundreds of through freights a week did no local work, regardless of bulk trains, mixed freight trains, intermodal trains, auto trains, they went through with no local work.