international yards

[dodi4200]

hi all my friends i opened this topic for sharing our information about the biggest huge yards in our countries or the biggest yards that any one of yurs saw and let me begin
the biggest 2 yards that i saw in my life was at cairo the capital and at tanta city in tanta city i found ahuge yard with about 30 line width with along of about 10km and the ratio of passing trains is about train every 2 or 3 mintues.
in cairo the center of railways in egypt there alot of trains moving every where and alot of switchers where i thought that i saw one day where i were there 5 trains moving to one direction so u can imagine how big is the station.
so im now waiting for all of yurs replay and about yurs glory for yurs huge yards in yurs countries
mohamed :D

[bnsf sammy]

sounds cool! My yard to talk about is San Diego Yard. San Diego has a yard run by BNSF and SDIV (San Diego Imperial Valley). In the yard, you can see mostly autoracks, there is a car distributing area right there, and some mixed freight. If you come early in the day, you can see the BNSF locomotives that will be pulling the noon freight. It isnt big, but it still functions well. Most days, when the freight is gone, the yard gets pretty empty. All you can see left as far as locos go is some GP38 in BN, ATSF, and BNSF H1. well, thats the yard ;-)

[dodi4200]

thanks bnsf sammy for replay
i wanna to know how many trains passes in yur favourite yard aday
i think dat the minimum ratio of trains that passes in cairo central yard about 150 train aday without the frights.
and in tanta central yard about 200 train also without the frights.
if any one can attach pix to c his favourite yard or give us links for it that will be very cool.
mohamed :D

[bnsf sammy]

hmm...in san diego...not many =) only about 4 a day

[dodi4200]

the number isnot too small so i think dat this yard is less than 10 lines right?
also wat is the type of control mechanical or electrical?
waiting yur replay :)
mohamed :D

[dodi4200]

so wat about the other yards in yurs countries and states i wanna to know the most huge central yards in yurs areas.
and wat about the control system type in these yards?
waiting for all of yurs replays

[mbates]

Dodi,

I've posted a few aerial shots. UP's Centennial Yard and BNSF's Alliance Yard in Ft.Worth, Texas.

You might have already seen them.

I posted one of the KCS Deramus Yard in Shreveport, Louisiana, but it's still in queue.

[dodi4200]

yea they are already appeared in the database and they really very nice shots .
so how can u catch these nice pix?
and wat about the control system type in these yards that you posted ?
and also how many trains move through these yards in one day?

[mbates]

Dodi, I fly airplanes for a living and I never leave home without my camera.

I'm sorry to say that I don't know how much traffic is handled by the railroads I've photographed and what systems they operate.

Taking the pictures isn't as simple as just flying there and pointing the camera down to the ground.

The clouds have to right just like when you're on the ground and it can't be too bumpy. Even light turbulence is too much and results in blurry shots.

Besides, even when I slow the plane down to 100 kts, I'm still doing 115 mph.

That means I'm past my target real quick and have to make another pass.

I took one picture from 9000 ft, that's almost 1.7 miles up.

Even a little vibration with mess up the shot. I took 32 pictures on that flight.

Half of them were too blurry. I submitted what I thought were the 3 best ones of what was remaining and I'm very happy
that the screeners accepted them. :-) :-) :-)

[J]

Union Pacific's Bailey Yard at North Platte is the largest in the world.

The following website is the source of the photo. Some of the data from the source website is incorrect. For example the yard handles about 10,000 cars daily (many on through trains) not 17,000. You can get better data from UP's website:

http://www.uprr.com/aboutup/history/bailey/index.shtml

Photograph Source: http://grouptravelleader.com/7_2005/nebraska_nplatte.html

[dodi4200]

thats really ahuge central yard
you are right j its really the biggst one in that world i never saw any huge yard like this one and also its anice angel for catching the pic.
but i wanna to know the control system in this yard with the switches is it electrical or mechanical?
is this yard just for UNION PACIFIC company?

[mbates]

My guess for what types of switches are installed in all yards in general, is that the mainline switches and hump yard switches would most likely be electric.

There are probably also quite a few hand switches that the brakeman has to
throw manually.

Keep in mind that I don't work for any railroad and my guess is just that;
a guess.

[J]

thats really ahuge central yard
you are right j its really the biggst one in that world i never saw any huge yard like this one and also its anice angel for catching the pic.
but i wanna to know the control system in this yard with the switches is it electrical or mechanical?
is this yard just for UNION PACIFIC company?

In the US, the freight railroads are private companies that own / operate their own property. This yardis used only by UP and is strategically located at a point where many of their east/west lines converge. In the foreground you'll notice all the trains are "unit" trains for coal or grain. These trains are rarely broken up at the yard as all the cars operate from the same origin / destination. The empty coal cars will be heading west to the Power River Basin in eastern Wyoming where a number of low-sulphur coal mines are located. UP dispatches around 35 or so loaded coal trains daily, each weighing approximately 16,000 tons.

To the right in the photograph you can see general freight trains with the classification yard in the distance.

Main track switches, of course, are remotely-controlled but US railroads are installing more and more "remote control" yard switches that are operated by a push button right at the switch or perhaps on a nearby control box covering several switches. Some of these switches are battery-powered using solar cells. With the increased use of RCL (Remote-Controlled Locomotives) these powered yard switches are especially helpful to keep things moving efficiently.

[dodi4200]

thats really anice controling system
here in egypt there is some lines thats controlled by electrical method and most of the other lines are controled with brakmens like the lines here in my city.
also i heared about some kind of controling the switches by satelites like some switches here in egypt in SINAI area.
there is information that i read from about 10min about acomputer in NEW YORK that can locate the place of any car from 125000 freight cars with alenth of 16000 km in about 0.1 sec thats really avery nice cotrol system.
so wat about the BNSF and NORFOLK SOUTHERN central yards where is them? and also wat about the control system in them?

[J]

. . .so wat about the BNSF and NORFOLK SOUTHERN central yards where is them? and also wat about the control system in them?

All the roads have several large yards each. While UP's North Platte is the largest yard, they also have others in places such as Chicago, Houston, San Antonio, Los Angeles, Roseville (near Sacramento or San Francisco) Seattle, etc. etc. BNSF has large yards in Chicago (several) Kansas City, Fort Worth, Barsto (east of Los Angeles), St Paul. NS has main yards in places in or near Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Elkhart Indiana, Chicago, Roanoke. CSX has a bunch as well.

All have similar control systems for switches as described earlier.

[dodi4200]

All have similar control systems for switches as described earlier.
thanks alot j for these nice and helpful informations about american huge frieght yards and im waiting for more informations about the central huge other yards all over the world and control systems of them.

[tase]

ronatz yard (http://maps.google.com/maps?q=timisoara+romania&ll=45.777341,21.170611&spn=0.014928,0.029680&t=k&hl=en)
well, here's the biggest around my hometown: 100x900 meters, 1500 cars /day capacity but
rarely exceeds ~500.

follow the lines south and then east and you'll stumble on another one & the main station. there
are two roundhouses also. further east you'll find a long thin one and if you go further south from the first one you'll find two smaller ones and also a big coal offloading area for the power
station.

all city yards combined about 4000 cars/day peak capacity, again it rarely goes over 1000 and
that's a busy day.

[dodi4200]

thats nice information about central yard in your area so what about the control system there electrical or mechanical?

[tase]

thats nice information about central yard in your area so what about the control system there electrical or mechanical?

country-wide is all electrical,automatic, you name it, we have it. two years ago the state rail company and alcatel transportation systems started a project to go all-digital by 2010.