Rail Yard - Freight Yards

Freight Yards

For freight cars, the overall yard layout is typically designed around a principal switching (US term) or shunting (UK) technique:

• A hump yard has a constructed hill, over which freight cars are shoved by yard locomotives, and then gravity is used to propel the cars to various sorting tracks;
• A gravity yard is built on a natural slope and relies less on locomotives;
• A flat yard has no hump, and relies on locomotives for all car movements.

Hump yard and gravity yard tracks are equipped with mechanical retarders which control the speed of the cars as they roll downhill to their destination tracks.

A large freight yard complex may include the following components:

• Receiving yard, also called an arrival yard, where locomotives are detached from freight cars, cars are inspected for mechanical problems, and sent to a classification yard;
• Classification yard (US and by Canadian National Railway in Canada) or Marshalling yard (UK and Canadian Pacific Railway in Canada) where cars are sorted for various destinations and assembled into blocks (this is also known as sorting yard colloquially);
• Departure yard where car blocks are assembled into trains;
• Car repair yard for freight cars;
• Engine house (in some yards, a roundhouse) to fuel and service locomotives.

Unit trains, which carry a block of cars all of the same origin and destination, do not get sorted in a classification yard, but may stop in a freight yard for inspection, engine servicing, and/or crew changes.

Freight yards may have multiple industries adjacent to them where railroad cars are loaded or unloaded and then stored before they move on to their new destination.

Major freight yards in the U.S. include the Bailey Yard in North Platte, Nebraska, operated by Union Pacific Railroad, and the Corwith Yards (Corwith Intermodal Facility) in Chicago, operated by BNSF Railway.

Major U.K. freight (goods) yards include those in Crewe, Reading and Bescot, near Walsall; which are operated by EWS and Freightliner.