Newbie question about yard purposes?

[Anonymous]

Over the past couple of months I've had my boyhood love of trains rekindled (building a new house in a refurbishing neighborhood next to CSX's Tilford [Atlanta] Yard has something to do with it), and I've got a million questions to help me understand prototype operations.

But I'll start with one--What are the different purposes for all of the different yards I've come across while driving around town? Some I understand, I think, like CSX's Tilford and NS's Inman which (I guess) function as main classification yards, sorting incoming cars by destination and making up new trains to head out on the various mainlines. And I understand the role of intermodal yards like CSX's Hulsey or NS's Austell.

And I also understand ( I think) the role of an interchange yard like the one sitting at the junction of CSX and a local shortline, the Georgia Northeastern.

But in Atlanta, there are a handful of midsize yards that have me scratching my head, like Pegram and Armour on NS and Howells on CSX. It would appear that they served as classification or interchange yards when there were more than two railroads in town, but what do they do now? What would they potentially do that the main classification yards don't already handle?

Obviously, I gear my question to help me understand my hometown (and would love to hear from someone locally in-the-know), but I'm interested in a larger sense as well for potential modeling ideas.

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

First of all, Welcome to the forums

now for my answer: well, around here, there are a few small (very small) yards used for temperary and evening regular storage (Commuter trains, CSX freights waiting for orders to continue or waiting for a late crew replacement), But I dont Know, and couldn't tell you exactly what they are using yours for. CSX tore out most of the yard here in 1987, so we went from an 8 mile yard to a 3.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

Small yards, especially those which are now out of service, used to exist to serve local industries with switch jobs based out of that yard. In Chicago, Galewood yard on MILW and Western Avenue yard on BN served this purpose. There were undoubtedly many others.

[JoeKoh]

There is a yard for gm here in defiance on csx. a lot of train traffic is switched here.There used to be a small yard that was behind the jr high but that has been torn out for some time now.
stay safe
Joe

[mudchicken]

Clarkbeast:

Welcome to the forums and keep watching/participating![#welcome]

The smaller yards are out there for multiple reasons. On top of what has already been hinted at, sometimes these yards are no longer railroad owned or are linked to a contract with an industry that requires X-amount of car storage be available to that industry. (As long as the industry pays, the yard stays.) Operating people on any railroad do not want to ever give up storage capacity, the railroad biz is anything but predictable in terms of traffic patterns....

Many a roadmaster (myself included), will take a track out of service(spike the switch, etc.) if the track is not being used and is just rusting away. I'm going to put my scarce resources (inspection & repair $$$) to better use somewhere else. This does NOT mean the railroad abandoned the track - we can always put it back into service when the need arises. This is also why you see tracks in place with frogs and switches removed (Frogs and switch points are expensive special trackwork in short supply). In some yards, one or two tracks in good shape are left in service while others that are in worse shape (but still servicable) are held in reserve until they are needed to extend their lives and usefulness. I've had trainmasters come unglued when I took off with a spike maul and a glove full of spikes to take unused tracks out of service. (Understand folks like Ed Blysard need some options, but sometimes a track has not seen an engine or cars in years. In LA, I found boxcars buried in backtracks that the operating department "lost" years before I got there. One boxcar, near LAX/ Lawndale, sat in a backtrack for nine years! (they could not even find it in their computer records!!)

There are also tracks that are held onto for seasonal use (grain harvest) or for special moves (like around military facilities) that sit idle for months. Other yards store cars in slack periods (like TOFC/COFC flats and tables) or between seasons (like grain hoppers). Watch what happens over time where you are at and see if you detect an overall pattern to car movement and storage of certain types of cars. Car storage is a juggling act for some railroads (feast/famine), where in an "ideal" world the cars would always be moving except for loading/unloading at an industry or loading facility. (Pennsy and others used to stencil "Don't stand me still" on their cars, guess why!)


Old Dirty Bird[banghead]

[rrnut282]

One reason I haven't seen here is that almost every railroad built a yard in major cities. As the railroads merged and consolodated, the yards were, too. Since NS and CSX were made up of several RRs each, that would also explain why you see so many.

[Anonymous]

Wow . . . a wealth of information coming in! I had figured that bit about each railroad building its own yard in pre-merger days. I would guess that CSX's Howells Yard in Atlanta used to be Seaboard Air Line's main Atlanta yard, for instance.

My question has more to do with what new roles these yards take on after consolidation. And Howells is a good example, as it sits "around the corner" (or "around the wye," so to speak) from Tilford (which I 'm guessingused to belong to L&N). Nowadays, it looks like half of the Howells trackage has been pared down and converted to a Transflo bulk transfer facility, but the other half has a more or less normal mix of rolling stock. So how does it fit the larger picture?

CSSHEGEWISCH, you talked of smaller yards used to originate local switch jobs--that's precisely the type I'm wondering about. If incoming cars are sorted at a main classification yard, why would they need resorting again a short distance down the pike in the same city? Why not base the locals out of the main yard to begin with and cut out a second yard delay? I'm sure there are excellent reasons, so I look forward to the education.

Mudchicken, you mentioned storage yards. I found myself thinking in those directions this morning when I looked in on NS's Pegram--all I saw in a brief glance were box cars. But why would an industry need to store cars? Don't they simply request cars as necessary and leave it to the railroad to provide them?

[AltonFan]

QUOTE: Mudchicken, you mentioned storage yards. I found myself thinking in those directions this morning when I looked in on NS's Pegram--all I saw in a brief glance were box cars. But why would an industry need to store cars? Don't they simply request cars as necessary and leave it to the railroad to provide them?

Railroads might maintain storage yards for cars that are need for seasonal rushes. I deally, the railroads would like to have all its cars producing revenue all the time, but sometimes surplus equipment can't be helped.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

Local industry yards probably existed to avoid plugging up too many departure tracks in the primary class yard. A transfer could deliver a block of cars to the local yard for further sorting to the industries served by that yard.

Interchange yards also existed, primarily at outlying areas of large terminal districts. South Shore's Burnham yard was a good example. South Shore would deliver cars which it received from eastern connections to this yard where it would be interchanged with BRC and IHB. C&O also used this yard to drop off preblocked cuts of cars to be delivered to other Chicago area yards by its own or BRC transfers.

[mudchicken]

Altonfan hinted at part of the reason for storage yards. Another issue is convenience - Railroads "stash" cars close to where they may be used next. If plants like automotive plants shut down for re-tooling, everything sits. The issue of demurrage and switching fees can also come into play. Industries start juggling variables around to find the cheapest way to order, store, switch and move cars/lading.

Also think about this: Most of the smaller yards are older facilities designed for smaller train lengths and 40Ft. boxcars. If they had no room to expand (lengthwise), they become storage yards and relegated to secondary status. When railroads are assembling trains, they want the train all in one piece. They do not want to double or triple over the train to get going. (Ed Blyssard could elaborate). They want to do one air test and then "get outta Dodge" as quick as they can. If they have to double or triple over the train to get going and then do a mandatory air brake test, there is at least one switch engine waiting for all the yard congestion to clear so the switcher can go back to work. [It's an efficiency thing]....Also, a lot of those older yards are built with sharp radius switches that were fine for 40 foot cars, end cab diesel/ small steam engines - but do not do well with 90 ft cars and 80+ foot long monster engines that are also twice as heavy as the old stuff.

A healthy part of what I do for a living revolves around updating old track "geometry puzzles" and make it work with new switches with better curvature that results in yard tracks with more storage capacity that can handle the loads and track dynamics. We also help convert yards into new configurations for new uses to generate new business. What worked in 1940 is most likely VERY inadequate in 2004.....

Mudchicken[banghead]

(!) and besides, somebody has to do the steering![swg]

[edblysard]

One other possibility,
a SIT yard.
Storage in Transit yard.
You said the yard in question was full of boxcars?
Any chance a paper mill, or newspaper near by?
We have several sit yards down here, for anything from three and four bay covered hoppers full of plastic pellets to boxcars full of newsprint grade paper rolls.

Mudchicken and Altonfan hit on another thing we use our smaller yards for, sesonal storage or at a business request.
Often a company will let their railroad know they will need X many cars for a large order, and the railroad and the companies shipping agent will start the process, finding and storing cars for a large order.

Csshegewisch told you true, we do take cars from one yard to another to switch them for a local industry and a local switch job.
Why?
Because of volume.
When you serve 150 industries, you cant do it all from one yard.
Switching and blocking out a train for a customer that is on the other side of a smaller yards takes up time and space in the major yards.
Example would be a industry south of a small yard, say, a scrap metal dealer, and this small yard is south of our major yard.
Instead of building a train to service that scrap metal dealer and all the industries past them in the major yard, and trying to build trains for all the industries inbetween the small yard and the major yard, we throw all the cars destined for industries past the small yard into one track, and take them out to the small yard to switch and block.
This frees up several big tracks in the major yards for larger customers.
If we kept and switched the cars here, in the big yard, you would have a 75 car track, with 6 or 7 cars in it.
Do that three of four times, and you run out of tracks real fast.
Its more efficent to take all the small trains out of the major yards to the outlieing yards to work and build them up there, saves time and space.
Besides, you have to run the trains out to the customers, and trying to get 8 or 9 100 car plus trains out of a 60 track switching yard on single track mains creates ulcers for yardmasters.
By moving all the local cars out near their final destination, the trains that service those businesses can be built and depart from there, instead of creating a traffic jam in one yard.
Lastly, when our major yards fill, and we still have cars for interchange to the class 1s we serve, we do drag them out to our smaller yards, and when the class 1s show up to pull, we bring them back to our major yard for them to take.

Some times things get out of balance, the class 1s pull less than they drop off, and our outbound yard gets full quickly.

We have to have the room to switch cars, so when the outbound tracks fill up, we take them out to Manchester yard, and tell the big guys they have to pick them up there.
Because its a small yard, it means the class 1s crews have to double or tripple over the tracks to assemble their train.
It only takes a few times doing this to them and they get the point, and start pulling more times per day from our major yards.

Stay Frosty,
Ed