Who? What? When? Where? How?

[Willy2]

I've got a few questions on hump tracks. I really don't know much about them and would really like to find out what they are used for.

Who: Does the dispatcher who controls which trains go on to the hump tracks have a special name? Like "The Hump Dispatcher"?

What: What are hump tracks used for? I know that the cars are put over the tracks and they run down the hump or something like that? After that what happens to the cars and what does humping do to them?

When: When are hump tracks typically used?

Where: Where are some yards that have hump tracks? I know that Bailey Yard in North Platte has a hump and I know that Barstow California has a hump but that is about all that I know of.

How: How do the engineers send the cars over the hump tracks? Do they have to make some special preparations before the cars are humped?

I hope that all of those questions aren't too much for one topic. After I got done putting them all down I thought, "I think that I may have gone a bit overboard with this!"

Thanks In Advance!
Willy

[Anonymous]

Willy: All of your answers can be found in our big two-part series on yards in the June 2002 and July 2002 issues, which you can purchase as back issues.

This very web site has a complete list of hump yards as of December 2003:
http://www.trains.com/content/dynamic/articles/000/000/002/466szbkm.asp

And the April 2003 issue has a map of all the major yards in the U.S. and Canada, indexed as to whether they are hump or flat-switched.

[Supermicha]

Hump yards are used to compose freight trains. Here in Dresden, where i live is one of the biggest humps in germany, with 5 tracks. When a train enters the yard, a heavy switcher pulls it up to the hump. then, the cars are uncoupled, and the switcher pushes the train back . on the top of the hump, the cars begin to accelerate and roll down the hump. The dispatcher must throw the switches, so the cars are going on that track, or train, where they should.

Hump yards are a good way to compose trains fast. no switcher must pull every single car to another track.

Until 1960, the Dresden Hump Yard didn´t need switchers, beacuse the cars where pulled by steel ropes between the tracks up to the hump. On the top of the hump was a big steam engine, which powered the steel ropes. This system was good, but expensive, because the steam engine was very strong an needed a big amount of coal every day.

Micha

[Anonymous]

The UP has the Davis hump yard in Roseville Ca.. It has 30 bowl tracks and I think 10 inbound and 10 outbound tracks.

[edblysard]

Wish you had a e-mail I could send photos to, I have a nice shot of Englewood yard hump and tower, it would explain a lot.
Basicly, at one end of a yard, build a large hill or hump, with a tail track streched out behind the hump, with the bowl or yard tracks and leads on the other side of the hump.
Drag a cut of cars around, or in Englewoods case over the hump, then slowly start shoving back up the hump, at about walking speed.

At the top of the hump, just past center, the pin puller lifts the cut lever, on how ever many cars his list shows.

Gravity does the rest, the down side or yard side of the hump is a sharper incline than the side you shove up, so the cars acclerate away quickly.

On the downside leads are car retarders, a friction brake system the yard master can control from his tower, to slow the cars down if needed.

The hump master or yard master lines the switches to direct the cars to the appropriate tracks.

When a yard track fills, the yardmaster locks it out, and the trim job, or yard switcher clears it out from the other end, leaving a few cars in the track with hand brakes as a bumper, to keep the next cars coming into the track from going all the way through the yard.

The yard switcher will often double or triple over(couple together) several tracks to make up an outbound train, for another city or yard.

Each hump yard has its own little systems and culture, but basicly they all work along these lines.

Most large American yards have a hump, flat yard switching is a slowly dieing art.

Ed

[dehusman]

A hump yard is used for "classifying" cars, that is sorting them by destination or connection out of the yard. Any type of classification yard (flat or hump) is used to sort the cars from one train into other trains. A train will come into a yard will 100 or so cars, each going to a different place. The yard sorts them by their general destination. A yard at Kansas City will put all the cars going to or beyond Chicago in one track, all the cars to or beyond St Louis in another track, all the cars going to the KCS in another track, all the cars for local industries in another track, etc. When it comes time to run a train to chicago, they start putting the Chicago cars in another track and then couple up the Chicagos that are switched and make a train.

The person in charge of the hump is the "hump yardmaster". A dispatcher handles the mainline, a yardmaster handles operations in the yard.

You seem to be under the impression a hump is a track you run a train through, its not. A train drives into a recieving track, the power is removed and the air is bled out of the air brake system (same process regardless of whether its a flat or hump yard). A switch engine then switches the cut, either by humping it (at a hump yard) or flat switching it.

The hump engine shoves the cut up the hump at walking speed (3-4 mph) and as the cars approach the crest, a switchman pulls the pin, upncoupling the car. As the car goes over the crest, the car rolls free into the track in the yard. In addition there are devices called "retarders" just past the hump that brake the rolling cars so they couple into the tracks at about 4 mph. The retarders can be manually or computer operated.

The UP has hump yards in Roseville, CA, Hinkle, OR, N Platte, NE, Ft Worth, TX, Houston, TX, N Little Rock, and Pine Bluff, AR, Kansas City, MO, Chicago, IL, and Livonia, LA. The bowl or classification tracks on the hump yards vary from 30 to 60 tracks.

Dave H.

[edblysard]

Willy2,
The e-mail address you sent keeps coming back as not available....try going to my profile, and sending another one to
[e-mail]
directly form your e-mail address.
Or send me another address...
Ed

[Anonymous]

hey Ed, do you think you could send me those shots? Here in Danville it's just a small flat switch yard with nine tracks.

[edblysard]

Sure, just e-mail me at the link in the above post first.
I havent been able to get the e-mail system provided here to support photos, so I need your e-mail address to send them to.
I drive under Englewoods hump every day, on the way to and from work.
Never occured to me to take a photo of something I see every day...
weird, huh?
Ed

[Mookie]

Willy - come to Lincoln - we have a hump yard. A big one!

Mookie

[Willy2]

Hi Mookie - Sometime I'll come to Lincoln to check things out. It sounds like you have pretty good luck on BNSF and it must be cool to watch what goes on in the yard.

Ed - Thank you for the photos.

And for everyone else - Thank you for all of the information on hump tracks!

Willy

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

Clearing Yard on the BRC is unique in that it has a bi-directional hump with two distinct class yards, one in each direction.