Sattelite yards

[trainboyH16-44]

What exactly is a sattelite yard? There is one right by my house and I would love to know. Does it have something to do with it being close to, but not part of, a main yard down the line? Or does it have something to do with bits ofelectronics flying through space?
trainboy

[ndbprr]

I would say you are on the right track. Major classification yards are getting fewer and fewer but there is a pecking order right down to the last siding. As an example on the PRR nearly all freight was reclassified at Enola outside Harrisburg. Cars for Philadelphia were pretty much sent to Greenich yard in south Phiily where they were further boken down. I am modeling the mile and a half from North Philadelphia station east toward New York. In that stretch are five yards! Margie was the biggest and had a track scale and fourteen tracks on the westbound side. On the east side of the main was Estes yard with about six tracks. Between one mile and a mile and a half east on the eastbound side was Fairhill yard with seven tracks. Directly across from it on the westbound side was C street yard with about six tracks and about 1/4 mile west of C street was an unamed yard where the crews switching the wetsbound side could store and rearrange cars. That yard also held cars for the Acme super market warehouse just east of it. There were also four LCL freight houses run by the PRR. On return trips Fairhill C Street, Estes and the unamed yard all sent cars to Margie for weighing and outbound trains. Margie sent a lot of them to Greenwich. Greenwich sent westbounds to Enola and eastbound cars toward New York or Trenton

[trainboyH16-44]

In Calgary, where I'm asking about, there is a large, and busy Hump yard, and my yard has about 10 tracks 12 miles west. It is common to see GP38-2s switching grain cars there. It is also used to set out engines that will be put on westbounds to tackle the rocky mountains, and to reduce congestion at the large yards locomotive facility.

[tatans]

That yard to the west is located at Keith siding, just outside Calgary, it was originally a staging yard and also was an ice storing facility in the late 1950's when they got ice from the Bow river ponds that were there and the ice was cut and stored here and used on reefers and for air conditioning, the yard is still basically a staging or satellite yard.

[dehusman]

A satellite yard commonly switches cars for industries and interchanges in a local area. So you might have a large Hump or flat switching yard that processes the through trains and then other yards that support the local industrial areas. For example at Houston the UP has a hump yard and a large flat switching yard (Englewood and Settegast). Then the UP has several satellite yards which support the industrial operations (Market St, Coady, Baytown, Strang, Dayton, Lloyd (Spring) yard). The two major yards switch out cars for the satellite yards and then at the satellite yards they are broken down for each local or switcher.

Dave H.

[icmr]

[#dito][#dito][#dito][#dito]



ICMR

Happy Railroading

[trainboyH16-44]

QUOTE: Originally posted by tatans

That yard to the west is located at Keith siding, just outside Calgary, it was originally a staging yard and also was an ice storing facility in the late 1950's when they got ice from the Bow river ponds that were there and the ice was cut and stored here and used on reefers and for air conditioning, the yard is still basically a staging or satellite yard.

Wow, I had no idea about the ice thing!
All I know is it's where I got my first cab ride![:D][:D][;)][yeah]
Trainboy

[johncolley]

Back in the late '50's/early '60's in Oakland, CA the SP had two main freight yards, a passenger yard, and some sattelite yards. West Oakland had the Homestead ( was off of 7th st, west of Adeline), for Southbound traffic, and The Desert for North and Eastbound traffic ( was between the Army Base and the 16th St. Station). There was a fair size sattelite yard at east Oakland at 5th ave and the embarcadero, and another at Fruitvale which also had interchange with the Alameda Belt Line. There was another one out at Pleasanton for the Livermore rock jobs and Camp Parks.