DOWNSIZING IS A FALSE ECONOMY.

No doubt there is a business guru somewhere who will complain that two leads, and two switch engines, working Ash Fork, Arizona, are at least one switch engine too many.

The crew at left has pulled set-out cars off a westbound through freight train, and once the crew at right sets the tank cars over to the Houston block being assembled for pickup by an eastbound through freight, they will run around and spot the cars at the industries.  There's a second track for spotting those covered hoppers at top left.  The crew at right will return to the east end of the yard to spot industries there.  Meanwhile the switch crew that works the passenger station will have a few minutes to assemble a transfer of cars for Williams that you see to the immediate right of the tank cars.

At shift's end, all the outbound cars have left, either on through trains or on the Williams transfer, and all the inbound cars are spotted for unloading.

Freight cars don't make money sitting around in yards.

We'll look at how the real railroads have to re-learn this lesson in a future post.