I am listening to a little radio shack scanner as i sit on my boat, across the water from fisherman's terminal in seattle. mostly i can hear balmer yard activities and bridge 6.3...i am understanding more and more of what i hear on the scanner, partly by going to the dravus or magnolia overpasses and watching activities while i listen. here are some things i have not been able to pin down:

J-train: what is it? leaves in evening i think.

House of Pain: a term used by yardmaster

Frogged Out: as in "we've been frogged out of the yard"

Crew 2: usually a term used in the evenings, i assume it is not a crew going over the road cos then they would be referred to by their train....but not sure.

Twenty-yard: where?

B-Baker, Auto-4, A-Apple. These all refer to tracks in balmer yard, I think, but not sure how. Leads me to other question, are tracks always called the same thing, do they have different names, and does it depend on the direction of travel of the train?

Seattle Terminal Dispatcher: crews coming through balmer always talk to both the balmer yardmaster and to the seattle terminal dispatcher. where is the terminal dispatcher located? i wonder because i rarely can hear him speaking from where i am; i only hear the crews speaking *to* him. i heard once that all movements outside yard limits are controlled by a dispatcher in Fort Worth TX (for BNSF). is the seattle terminal dispatcher in Fort Worth?

switch jobs: as in 119, 219, 319, 230, 220, etc. the first digit refers to the shift. the "19" refers to switchers working, i think, in the pier 86 grain yard and on the drill track in the balmer hump yard. what are 20, 30, etc?

any help would be much appreciated!