I am looking at setting up operations at a creamery which uses ice reefers to ship products. My question is how do you incorporate the icing procedure into the operations. Do you load product first then move the reefer to the icing platform or ice first, then product? Since I can't see the engine setting around waiting for the ice or product to be loaded, is it a drop off and pickup later and if so how much time between moves should you allow?

A couple questions for the community on industry yards:

How does a large industry yard like those at a paper mill with its own plant sitcher operate?

Are tracks allocated based on commodity (track 1 - wood chips (loaded / unloaded), track 2 - addtives, etc...) for ease of sorting by the plant switcher, or are they all just 'storage' (cars placed on any unused track in the yard) except for a designated pick-up and/or set-out track for the local switch job?

Ok, so my steam locos have dumped their ashes, which in turn have been loaded up into an old mangy hopper car -- but then, what next? What did the railroads of with all those ashes? Was there someone who could get value out of those, were they just hauled and dumped somewhere, or...what? Is anyone familiar with how these moved after they left the engine servicing area?

Gents,