OMAHA, Neb. — Union Pacific confirmed today that it has shut down the hump at Proviso Yard in Chicago and curtailed operations at several other yards across its system as the railroad reduces the number of times cars are handled en route...
http://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/2019/07/18-up-confirms-shutdown-of-proviso-yard-hump-consolidation-of-other-yards
Brian Schmidt, Editor, Classic Trains magazine
Doesn't this run smack dab into the "train make-up" issue?
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
They may be handling cars at different locations, but I'm not sure they are actualling handling them less often. Short Line used to build a couple of manifests that by passed the Kansas City yards. Many think that Neff won't be able to handle the extra work and Short Line will eventually reopen. Time will tell.
Jeff
Wow, have times changed. I can remember from back in the '70s when the hump was working BOTH tracks; and if both tracks wern't working, the second crew was likely in the process of getting the next shove ready.
Perhaps Carl will enlighten us further.
Jim, in the days you were talking about, the second hump lead was in effect a mini-hump. There were two regular hump jobs and one for the north hump ("Sputnik"). Sputnik could hump only into tracks 1-31, and the regular hump could hump only into tracks 32-69 while Sputnik was working, or all 69 tracks when it was not (or if there was a shove that had cars for both points north and points west). It should be noted that the shoves up the north side were almost always trains from the west, containing cars for points up north or into the city or for eastbound connections. If you were lucky, while Sputnik was humping, the regular hump had a train off the Wisconsin, with cars for points west or into the city or connections. If it worked out that way without causing too many rehumps of cars you couldn't get rid of, you'd be able to use both leads simultaneously. Tower C would be talking to the Sputnik conductor, and Towers A and B would be working with the hump conductor and/or the yardmaster.In 1972 or 1973, they rebuilt the top of the hump, elevating the Sputnik hump to the same height as the main hump, building a diamond crossover in front of Tower A, and enabling both hump leads to access all 69 tracks. This turned out to be more efficient, so "dual humping" was eventually eliminated--and while we were humping one train, the next one should be on its way up from Yard 9.I will bristle at the talk about our hump being less efficient because we used people instead of computers. Some of the shoves they'd send us bore no resemblance whatsoever to the order of the switch lists, and a good CRO could still work with that (I liked Tower A, because with my interest in freight cars, that was my specialty). And no computer could react nearly as fast as a human operator to a derailment, or a track filling up (yeah, the lists didn't do a good job of predicting that, either), or even avoiding the problems of long/short connections. A good conductor and his CROs (or perhaps I should say, some good CROs and their conductor!) might not get the glorious car counts that everyone was pushing for, but the cars were in the right place with the least hassle. What the management types didn't understand was that sometimes it made more sense to do nothing and wait for tracks to become available, etc.)Also, your CROs were extra pairs of eyes (four eyes for much of my career!) that could see car defects, lading defects, and the aforementioned computer and clerical errors; or extra ears that could hear defects on the cars, in the tracks, or especially in the retarders; or brains that knew what to do if a switch all of sudden wouldn't throw properly. We would hump by how the cars rolled, looked, sounded (and yes, even smelled in one case!).But they don't have us any more, and they probably will never get our likes back again.
Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
Please explain why you think a hump yard adds an extra day to the transit time. Hump yards are more efficient than flat switching. Push large numbers of cars to classify cars.
caldreamer Please explain why you think a hump yard adds an extra day to the transit time. Hump yards are more efficient than flat switching. Push large numbers of cars to classify cars.
The former CNW guy can respond with the “why” but; as a rail shipper - I can tell you that historically it has taken cars from 24-48 hours to pass through a hump yard.
I don't think it's the hump yard itself - it's that most cars get classified at every yard, while they could have been simply kept in a block for their final destination.
That can happen with flat yards, too.
Think of it like a basket of laundry - you get to little Johnny's room, you dump out the whole basket, pick out Johnny's stuff, then just dump everything back in the basket. You get to Sally's room and you do the same thing, then to your room, then to the bathroom/linen closet, until all that's left is the kitchen. If you more or less piled each group of laundry together in the basket, then when you got to little Johnny's room, you wouldn't have to sort through the entire contents of the basket - you'd just pick out Johnny's stuff and move on.
The redevelopment vultures are already circling around CSX Hulsey Yard in Atlanta.
https://hulseymasterplan.com/
caldreamerPlease explain why you think a hump yard adds an extra day to the transit time. Hump yards are more efficient than flat switching. Push large numbers of cars to classify cars.
The reality of most railroad operating plans is that DAILY service is provided between train origination locations and train destination locations.
Trains are aggregating devices, except for unit trains.
I'll demonstrate with one I am familar with (not that I totally agreed with it). Baltimore is made up of 3 major yard areas. Bayview, Curtis Bay and Locust Point. Each yard area has its own customer bases that create traffic moving, East (which includes North), West, South and interyard within Baltimore. Each of the Baltimore yard switch 'nominally' 4 blocks - East, West and for the other two yards in the terminal.
The East block contains cars for Philadelphia, Selkirk and all the New England locations. The West block contains cars for all destinations West of Baltimore as well as South of Baltimore. The Baltimore Terminal blocks get shuttled between the yards on what is referred to as the Terminal Drag.
The East Block goes to the Selkirk Hump Yard to be classified into the appropriate blocks including one that will back haul the Philadelphia traffic to Philadelphia.
The West Block goes to Cumberland where it is classified with the South cars being switched into blocks for Hamlet, Richmond and Rocky Mount to be back hauled from Cumberland through Brunswick, the Virginia Avenue Tunnel and on to Richmond and points further South. The true Western cars got classified to their Western CSX cities or their Western interchange connection blocks and formed into trains to service those ends.
With the arrival of a inbound train to a hump yard, the train gets yarded in the receiving yard where Car Department inspectors inspect the train for defects that will cars to be sent to the shop track for repairs as well as bleeding the air off the cars so they can be moved around the terminal without air brakes. Once the initial inspection and bleeding has been accomplished those tracks can be moved to the Hump and switched over the hump into the classification tracks as directed by the cars destinations. In being switched into the classification tracks there is no guarantee that all couplings will be made and that the track is 'solid'.
At some point in time the yardmaster come to the decision that tracks X, Y and Z have all the cars that they are going to get for the Outbound dispatchment of those tracks. A Trim yard job will then attend to insuring that the tracks are fully coupled. After the track is fully coupled the track will be turned over to the Car Department for their final inspection, coupling of air hoses and in many cases the performance of a Class 1 initial terminal air brake test (if the yard has designated Departure Tracks the air tests may be done in the Departure Tracks to improve the turnover of the Class tracks).
Depending on the track make up of the Hump yard, tracks that have completed final inspection may be coupled together and taken to a Departure Yard for dispatchment of the departing train or the departing train may double together the class tracks and depart with the train from the class tracks (such operation normally delays Trim Operations at the departure end of the yard).
Delay opportunities - humps operate 24/7 (really 24/6.67 - as one trick a week is normally allocated to routine hump maintenance). Multiple trains arriving in the same time frame cannot be humped at the same time - one at a time as the Car Dept. most likely won't have staff to inspect much more than one arrivng train at a time and most humps are not double tracked over the hump. Car Dept. personnel are also restricted in numbers when it comes to performing inspection and testing of outbound tracks.
While the carriers Operating Plan may try to have arriving trains switched to departing trains within the same 24 hour period - sometimes (more than they would like to admit) that scheduling does not happen in reality and therefore that traffic gets delayed a day or more. The reality is that ANY SWITCHING, flat or hump, will delay a shipment a day or more.
Think of mail delivery to your house - Postman leaves the Post Office at 8 AM with ALL his deliveries for the day. If your inbound mail arrived the Post Office at 0805 it missed you delivery for today and becomes delayed for 24 hours - same priciples apply to switching yards - hump or flat.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
rdamon The redevelopment vultures are already circling around CSX Hulsey Yard in Atlanta. https://hulseymasterplan.com/
I suspect the same “fate” is in store for Tilford.
My youngest son and I took a quick drive through that area two weekends ago and I was surprised at the amount of new development taking place in that area. It would not surprise me to see both Tilford and Hulsey becoming Atlantic Station-like developments.
Saw another article behind a paywall that said a developer bought up 40 acers around Tilford with similar plans.
Bet the taxpayers will be on the hook for any hazmat cleanup
Sounds like either an efficiency-driven move or business in decline, selling off assets. Take your pick.
d.) All of the above
But let me make one observation. The issue is not whether classification switching can be more efficiently performed by a hump yard rather than by flat switching. If there is enough classification volume to support a hump yard operation, it will almost certainly be more efficient than flat switching. Rather, the issue is how much classification switching (flat or hump) really needs to be performed at a particular location.
My understanding is that one of the key goals of PSR is to reduce switching/classification events. That's a very worthwhile objective, as every switching event adds significant transit time and increases the assets required for the service (both for the railroad and the shipper). The goal is not to convert existing switching events from humping to flat switching as such - it's to reduce the events themselves.
Now, if a railroad is successful in significantly reducing the number of switching events needed to handle its traffic, then the volume of classification work at many of its former switching locations is going to be reduced. If the remaining volume of classification work falls below the volume that justifies hump yard handling, then the hump operation will be discontinued and the remaining classification traffic will be flat switched. Another way this can happen is if the railroad changes its operations so that most traffic moves between trains at a switching location in block swaps rather than a full classification.
Another factor at play here is likely the fact that there simply aren't as many manifest carloads to classify as there once were. Carload freight is in a long-term decline, replaced in part by intermodal units. Back in the old days, Proviso used to build 17 or more road freights per day, plus transfers and locals. There were multiple daily trains to Green Bay, Janesville, Kansas City, North Platte, and Minneapolis. There was evan a train that ran all the way to Belle Fourche. Janesville is much reduced since General Motors left, maybe not even a single daily run now, and when was the last time Proviso built a Green Bay or Belle Fourche block? Meanwhile, there are many, many more stack trains than there were "back in the day". It makes sense to shift the yard space to serve the "modern" trains.
- Ed Kyle
Falcon48My understanding is that one of the key goals of PSR is to reduce switching/classification events.
They're not being reduced, just shifted to other places/crews. So yeah, a hump is shut down, but you're spending lots of hours in other yards with other crews blocking stuff before it gets to the humpyards. I wonder how much they are really saving.
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
Falcon48 But let me make one observation. The issue is not whether classification switching can be more efficiently performed by a hump yard rather than by flat switching. If there is enough classification volume to support a hump yard operation, it will almost certainly be more efficient than flat switching. Rather, the issue is how much classification switching (flat or hump) really needs to be performed at a particular location. My understanding is that one of the key goals of PSR is to reduce switching/classification events. That's a very worthwhile objective, as every switching event adds significant transit time and increases the assets required for the service (both for the railroad and the shipper). The goal is not to convert existing switching events from humping to flat switching as such - it's to reduce the events themselves.
PSR's primary means of decreasing switching events is to reduce the volume of lose car customers. Cusomers the receive or ship one to a hand full of cars and then not all of them to the same locations. Individual cars to differing locations create switching incidents somewhere in the system - minimze or eliminate those switching incidents and PSR looks like a champ.
PSR is nothing more than the 'plant rationalization' mantra of the 1990's to early 2000's carried a extreme in the 20'teens'. In the 90's undesired traffic had their rates jacked through the roof - if you stay will rail you will pay through the nose, if you don't want to pay through the nose go truck or any other form of transportation - not car load rail.
PSR's desired traffic is equalized unit trains operating between each O-D pair
zugmann Falcon48 My understanding is that one of the key goals of PSR is to reduce switching/classification events. They're not being reduced, just shifted to other places/crews. So yeah, a hump is shut down, but you're spending lots of hours in other yards with other crews blocking stuff before it gets to the humpyards. I wonder how much they are really saving.
Falcon48 My understanding is that one of the key goals of PSR is to reduce switching/classification events.
Having been at UP for many years, I think I can say with some authority that playing accounting games like this was frowned upon (to put it mildly). This kind of issue could come up in a variety of scenarios, not just switching (for example, proposed line sales/leases, where the operating cost "savings" which benefitted one accounting silo were more that offset by the short line handling charges that had to be paid out of another silo). The bottom line was whether the company as a whole was better off, not whether some accounting silo could be made to look better by shifting costs to another silo. I doubt that has changed since my retirement
Falcon48Having been at UP for many years, I think I can say with some authority that playing accounting games like this was frowned upon (to put it mildly). This kind of issue could come up in a variety of scenarios, not just switching (for example, proposed line sales/leases, where the operating cost "savings" which benefitted one accounting silo were more that offset by the short line handling charges that had to be paid out of another silo). The bottom line was whether the company as a whole was better off, not whether some accounting silo could be made to look better by shifting costs to another silo. I doubt that has changed since my retirement
The PSR enviornment is nothing that any of us retired railroaders have worked under.
What is the saying - It's a brave new world.
As we have witnessed in the past 2.5 years any number of accepted 'norms' have been violated with impunity.
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