A (US) classification yard or (UK) marshalling yard (including hump yards) is a railroad yard found at some freight train stations, used to separate railroad cars on to one of several tracks. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located A rail yard, or railroad yard, is a complex series of Railroad tracks for storing sorting or loading/unloading Railroad cars and/or Locomotives |}A train station, railway station, railroad station, or station yard is a facility at which Passengers may board and alight from Trains A railroad car or railway carriage is a Vehicle on a rail transport system (railroad or railway that is used for the carrying of Cargo or First the cars are taken to a track, sometimes called a lead or a drill. From there the cars are sent through a series of switches called a ladder onto the classification tracks. This article primarily uses North American terminology British and Commonwealth terms are given in parentheses Larger yards tend to put the lead on an artificially built hill called a hump to use the force of gravity to propel the cars through the ladder.
Freight trains which consist of isolated cars must be made into trains and divided according to their destinations. Thus the cars must be shunted several times along their route in contrast to a unit train, which carries, for example, automobiles from the plant to a port, or coal from a mine to the power plant. A unit train, also called a block train, is a Railroad train in which all the cars making it up are shipped from the same origin to the same destination A factory (previously manufactory) or manufacturing plant is an industrial Building where workers manufacture goods ||-||-|-||-||-||-||-||-||-|} A port is a facility for receiving Ships and transferring cargo Mining is the extraction of valuable Minerals or other geological materials from the earth usually (but not always from an Ore body A power station (also referred to as generating station, power plant or powerhouse) is an industrial facility for the generation of This shunting is done partly at the starting and final destinations and partly (for long-distance-hauling) in classification yards.
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Types of classification yards
There are three types of classification yards: flat-shunted yards, hump yards and gravity yards.
Flat-shunted yards
Here, the tracks lead into a flat shunting neck at one or both ends of the yard where the cars are pushed to sort them into the right track. There are many medium-sized flat yards in the USA and also some which are quite large such as (Houston-) Settegast, Decatur, East Joliet etc. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the
In Europe several major classification yards in Italy have never had a hump, such as Verona Porta Nuova, Foggia or Villa San Giovanni (Fascio Bolano); other large European flat yards are for example Olten (Switzerland) or Valea lui Traian (Constanţa, Romania - this is an incompleted yard with 32 tracks which was planned to be a hump yard but has no hump). Italy (Italia officially the Italian Republic, (Repubblica Italiana is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest Switzerland (English pronunciation; Schweiz Swiss German: Schwyz or Schwiiz Suisse Svizzera Svizra officially the Swiss Confederation Constanţa (pronunciation in Romanian: /kon'stanʦa/ historical names Tomis, Κωνστάντια or Constantia, Köstence Romania ( dated: Rumania, Roumania In Argentina all classification yards with the exception of Villa Maria are flat yards, though some of them have approx. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Argentina topics. 30 or more tracks.
Hump yards
These are the largest and most effective classification yards with the largest shunting capacity — often several thousand cars a day. The heart of these yards is the hump: a lead track on a hill (hump) over which the cars are pushed by the engine. Single cars, or some coupled cars in a block, are uncoupled just before or at the crest of the hump and roll by gravity into their destination tracks in the classification bowl (the tracks where the cars are sorted).
The speed of the cars rolling down from the hump into the classification bowl must be regulated because of the different natural speed of the wagons (full or empty, heavy or light freight, number of axles), the different filling of the tracks (whether there are presently few or many cars on it) and different weather conditions (temperature, wind speed and direction). As concerns speed regulation there are two types of hump yards: without or with mechanisation by retarders. In the old non-retarder yards braking was usually done in Europe by railroaders who lay skates onto the tracks, or in the USA by riders on the cars. In the modern retarder yards this work is done by mechanized "rail brakes" called retarders. They are operated either pneumatically (e. g. in the USA, France, Belgium, Russia or China) or hydraulically (e. This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. The Kingdom of Belgium is a Country in northwest Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts its headquarters as well as those Russia (Россия Rossiya) or the Russian Federation ( Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) is a transcontinental Country extending China ( Wade-Giles ( Mandarin) Chung¹kuo² is a cultural region, an ancient Civilization, and depending on perspective a National g. in Germany, Italy or the Netherlands). Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. Italy (Italia officially the Italian Republic, (Repubblica Italiana is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest The Netherlands ( Dutch:, ˈnedərlɑnt is the European part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which consists of the Netherlands the Netherlands
Classification bowls consist of in average 20 to 40 tracks divided into several fans or balloons of tracks, in Europe usually with eight classification tracks following a retarder in each one, often 32 tracks altogether. In the USA also many classification bowls have more than 40 tracks up to 72 which there are often divided into six to ten tracks in each balloon loop, compared with eight in Europe.
The world's largest classification yard is a hump yard: Bailey Yard in North Platte, Nebraska, USA. Bailey Yard is the world’s largest Railroad Classification yard. Other very large US hump yards are (Kansas City-) Argentine - 2nd largest, Elkhart Young Yard, (Chicago-) Clearing, (Houston-) Englewood, Waycross Rice Yard etc. The Belt Railway of Chicago, headquartered in Chicago, is the largest switching Terminal railroad in the United States Notably, in Europe, Russia and China, all important classification yards are hump yards. Europe's largest hump yard is that of Maschen near Hamburg, Germany; it is only slightly smaller than Bailey Yard. Hamburg (English, German: ˈhambʊɐk local pronunciation Low German / Low Saxon: Hamborg) is the second-largest city in Germany Most hump yards are single yards with one classification bowl but some, mostly very large, hump yards have two of them, one for each direction, thus are double yards, such as Maschen, Clearing, and Bailey yards.
However, due to the transfer of freight transport from rail to road and the containerization of railfreight transport for economical reasons, hump yards are generally in decline. In Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Japan and Australia, for example, all hump yards have already been closed. See also Kingdom of Great Britain Great Britain (Breatainn Mhòr Prydain Fawr Breten Veur Graet Breetain is the larger of the two main islands The Kingdom of Denmark ( ˈd̥ænmɑɡ̊ (archaic ˈd̥anmɑːɡ̊ commonly known as Denmark, is a country in the Scandinavian region of northern Europe Norway ( Norwegian: Norge ( Bokmål) or Noreg ( Nynorsk) officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Constitutional For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Japan topics. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Australia topics.
Gravity yards
These are operated similarly to hump yards but in contrast to the latter, the whole yard is set up on a continuous falling gradient and there is less use of shunting engines. Typical locations of gravity yards are places where it was difficult to build a hump yard due to the topography. Topography ( topo-, "place" and graphia, "writing" is the study of Earth 's Surface features or those of Planets Most gravity yards were built in Germany and Great Britain, sometimes also in some other European countries, for example Łazy yard near Zawiercie on the Warsaw-Vienna Railway (originally in Russia, now in Poland). Łazy is a town in Zawiercie County, Silesian Voivodeship, Poland, with 7242 inhabitants (2004 Zawiercie (zavʲertɕə is a City in the Silesian Voivodeship of southern Poland with 55800 inhabitants (2005 The Warsaw-Vienna Railway (Kolej Warszawsko-Wiedeńska was a Railway system which operated in Congress Poland, a part of the Russian Empire, from 1845 Russia (Россия Rossiya) or the Russian Federation ( Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) is a transcontinental Country extending Poland (Polska officially the Republic of Poland In the USA there were only very few old gravity yards; none seem to be in operation today. The largest active gravity yard is Nürnberg (Nuremberg) Rbf (Rbf: Rangierbahnhof, "classification yard"), Germany. Gravity yards also have a very large capacity but they need more staff than hump yards and thus they are the most uneconomical classification yards.
Bibliography
- International Railway Journal (IRJ), New York. Special editions about hump yards in various countries: issues II/66, II/70, VI/75, II/80.
- RHODES Dr. Michael: The Illustrated History of British Marshalling Yards. Sparkford: Haynes Oxford Publishing & Co, 1988. ISBN 0-86093-367-9. Out of print.
- KRAFT Dr. Edwin: The Yard: railroading's hidden half. In: Trains (vol. 62) 2002. Part I: VI/02, pp. 46. . . 67; part II: VII/02, pp. 36. . . 47.
- WEGNER Robert: Classification yards. Map of the Month. In: Trains IV/2003, pp. 42/43.
- RHODES (Dr. ) Michael: North American RAILYARDS. St. Paul (USA): Motorbooks International (MBI Publishing Company) 2003. ISBN 0-7603-1578-7.
See also
- Freight Yard Manager Freeware Freight Yard Simulation
External links
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