Found a LOT of Model 3's in a Tesla lot - Pictures inside

[Reddy Kilowatt]

One thing not mentioned is how rough the RR's are with these railcars. Stuff really gets slammed around on trains. Coupling can be done at as much as 5MPH and stuff can fly if it's not tied down. Anything greater than 5 is a hard couple and damage will occur, if not secure. Goggle "Hump yards" and watch how they seperate the rail cars on a hump yard. ( A good reason to have a unit train) God help you when a rail car derails, they total the cars almost every time. If the tie downs hold they probably bend the car frames. I had posted pictures of the Auto train that derailed in Penn last month and the cars are just trashed bouncing around inside the rail car.

It may sound easy to chock something down. but when your in the tight constraints of those cars it takes longer to bend over and reach down to set the chocks in the slots than to actually just tighten them. Do it all day and I'm sure there real fast.

I watched the guy unload my Model S and it took him a good ten minutes to undo the straps on each car as they came off the truck. Now a rail car will be one or two feet wider than a truck so they might go faster.

 

[mongo]

One thing not mentioned is how rough the RR's are with these railcars. Stuff really gets slammed around on trains. Coupling can be done at as much as 5MPH and stuff can fly if it's not tied down. Anything greater than 5 is a hard couple and damage will occur, if not secure. Goggle "Hump yards" and watch how they seperate the rail cars on a hump yard. ( A good reason to have a unit train) God help you when a rail car derails, they total the cars almost every time. If the tie downs hold they probably bend the car frames. I had posted pictures of the Auto train that derailed in Penn last month and the cars are just trashed bouncing around inside the rail car.

It may sound easy to chock something down. but when your in the tight constraints of those cars it takes longer to bend over and reach down to set the chocks in the slots than to actually just tighten them. Do it all day and I'm sure there real fast.

I watched the guy unload my Model S and it took him a good ten minutes to undo the straps on each car as they came off the truck. Now a rail car will be one or two feet wider than a truck so they might go faster.

Good point regarding coupling collisions, I had not considered that impulse situation. So the fore/aft restraint would be needed.

I'm thinking that the over the road shipping needs full tie down due to the roads being more jarring than trains, especially in vertical movement. Trains don't bounce much. Also driving dynamics (swerve/ collisions) would necessitate better fastening.

 

[augkuo]

4/17/18 around 5pm - 4 car carriers loading

 

[Zorg]

Seems that carriers are loading throughout the day now.

 

[augkuo]

4/18/19 around 7:50am - 3 car carriers with one coming into the lot. Lot still looks pretty full but you can see where cars are missing.

 

[SlicedBr3ad]

thank you for showing me my car is on a carrier!

 

[Reddy Kilowatt]

Can anyone say how many cars fit on this lot?

Reports are coming out from Elon's new Email stating there ramping up to 3K-4K cars a week real soon and the 5K-6K by the end of the quarter.

Does this lot even hold that many cars?

I looked up Richmond and the plant and that isn't just around the corner. That would be a bear to drive straight to the rail cars.

Good to see the Dodge pick up back in service. it looks like he's been nibbling at the pile down at rows 1-3 there at the entrance. just a couple cars missing in today's shots.

Wonder if they would start parking up at the oakland stadium site???????

 

[mongo]

Can anyone say how many cars fit on this lot?

Reports are coming out from Elon's new Email stating there ramping up to 3K-4K cars a week real soon and the 5K-6K by the end of the quarter.

Does this lot even hold that many cars?

I looked up Richmond and the plant and that isn't just around the corner. That would be a bear to drive straight to the rail cars.

Good to see the Dodge pick up back in service. it looks like he's been nibbling at the pile down at rows 1-3 there at the entrance. just a couple cars missing in today's shots.

Wonder if they would start parking up at the oakland stadium site???????

Shipping needs to match production (or there will never be a lot big enough). The lot should only be a buffer to handle fluctuation/ truck arrival timing. Say 1050 S/X/3 per day, load only in daylight, need minimum 600 spot capacity.

 

[augkuo]

4/18/19 - around 1pm 9 car carriers in the lot! S and X’s in the mix as well though

 

[sooner]

When does the shut down begin and the lot ceases to refill?

 

[Big Earl]

When does the shut down begin and the lot ceases to refill?

Soon?

 

[Reddy Kilowatt]

When does the shut down begin and the lot ceases to refill?

I thought about two days ago it was reported, was that when it happened not sure. That is why I would have thought the lot would have started empting.

I'm really curious how fast it will empty.

Thanks again Augkou for getting the shots. Iwonder with 3 shut down will S & X start showing up.

Also I looked at the google earth shots and it looks like there still removing rails, not installing them.

 

[RedOctober]

When does the shut down begin and the lot ceases to refill?

This is what I got from an automotive site on the model 3 shutdown. “The shutdown is expected to last until Saturday”

 

[Waiting4M3]

I thought about two days ago it was reported, was that when it happened not sure. That is why I would have thought the lot would have started empting.

I'm really curious how fast it will empty.

Thanks again Augkou for getting the shots. Iwonder with 3 shut down will S & X start showing up.

Also I looked at the google earth shots and it looks like there still removing rails, not installing them.

Are you looking at this site for factory satellite images?

Compare daily satellite images of Tesla production locations

 

[sooner]

This is what I got from an automotive site on the model 3 shutdown. “The shutdown is expected to last until Saturday”

So it's almost over and lot still seems to be refilling? I'm just anticipating some sad pictures of the parking lot without a 3 in sight and dreading how depressed I will be those days.

 

[dc_h]

So it's almost over and lot still seems to be refilling? I'm just anticipating some sad pictures of the parking lot without a 3 in sight and dreading how depressed I will be those days.

I would guess they will increase SX production the next few days. I’m sure a lot of model 3 people will be happy to pick up hours and they can probably increase production significantly with more manpower or even another shift. Over 4-5 days that may only be 500 cars, but that’s an extra 50 million in revenue for the quarter. Could make up half of the lost model 3 revenue.

 

[Zorg]

5-6 carriers loading at 8:30pm. Fewer cars in the lot.

 

[wdolson]

This is true but couple obvious things there not going to load a mile long train. it will be staged in probably groups of six rail cars at a time. Having 6 rails at the plant allowed for the railroad to constantly shuffle the railcars and build the train outside the property in the rail yard. Meanwhile the guys are driving the cars up onto another rail. Something the marketeers don't show is the amount of time it takes to chock those cars down. That takes a lot longer to do. 10-15 minutes per car? so you have armies of guys just securing the loads. I don't recall if they use binders to further hold a car. down. In the end Tesla couldn't build enough cars fast enough to keep up with the loading trains.

Currently I would not be surprised if they run the cars right off the line to the Richmond loading yard. These cars in the lot are mostly locals you would not use rail to distribute.

Going back to the three trains a day, would allow the logistic's to send Unit trains non stop between point A and Point B. These are called HOT trains (express), UPS runs them non stop coast to coast. Traveling at 70MPH only stopping to change out the crews. BNSF does alot of this with shared power with NS. they pool all there locomotives just like TTX pools the cars. So one train could be made up of cars destine to the Alabama CDC further reducing transportation costs. These hot trains never get put in sidings and passed by another train, there always moving overtaking "Locals"

I believe Ford was one of the first to do Just in time inventories. they would receive boxcar carloads of parts and have their own on site RR to distribute the parts to a door adjacent to the production line where the parts come right out of the car onto the assembly line. Miles and miles of track on site constantly moving parts around. and outloading the cars.

On the last drone footage I noted there looked like there was rail activity along one fence. I don't know if they were removing rail or getting ready to add the rail back in. we will see with the next fly over.

Bottom line is Tesla will have to get serious with Rail if there going to start cranking out all these cars. I think Every car plant has rain inbound and outbound. The first thing I looked for on the Gigafactory was where will the rail come in. They could send unit trains of battery packs to Fremont and not tear up our roads.

They definitely wouldn't drive them individually from the factory to Richmond. There would be too much rick of damage on the road. Bay Area traffic is nuts. And it would be expensive to hire lots of drivers to ferry cars to Richmond, then get those drivers back to the factory to do it again. It's a lot cheaper to put 8-10 on a car carrier and pay one driver who can return to the factory in the vehicle they left in.

They deliver cars by truck throughout the west. Los Angeles, San Diego, Portland, and Seattle get many truck deliveries a week. In 2016 the Portland delivery center alone was getting 4-5 truckloads of cars a week. They still do it that way. There probably aren't many north-south car carrying rail cars moving the rail corridors of the west. Cars coming in by ship destined for western cities go to a port nearest the city and all other cars come in by rail from the east somewhere.

Tesla may have had to take out the rail spur they had because it had been dormant long enough, it would have taken a lot of work to get it up to modern spec and they decided to build a new one somewhere more convenient for their layout. If that's what they are doing now.

 

[Zorg]

There are definitely less cars on the lot, but the shipping keeps going. About 6 semi around 8am

 

[dsvick]

I found this on page 3 .... not sure why it was hiding back there, I almost went into withdrawal when I couldn't find it.