A classification yard, marshalling yard or shunting yard is a railway yard found at some freight train stations, used to separate railway cars onto one of several tracks. 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. 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.
A switcher locomotive, shunter locomotive, or shifter locomotive is a locomotive used for maneuvering railway vehicles over short distances. Switchers do not usually move trains over long distances, instead they typically assemble trains in order for another locomotive to take over. Switchers often operate in a railyard or make short transfer runs. They may serve as the primary motive power on short branch lines or switching and terminal railroads.
Rail transport operations are the day-to-day operations of a railway. A railway has two major components: the infrastructure and the rolling stock
Severn Tunnel Junction railway station is a minor station on the western side of the Severn Tunnel in the village of Rogiet, Monmouthshire, Wales. It is 123.5 miles (198.8 km) from London Paddington and lies at the junction of the South Wales Main Line from London and the Gloucester to Newport Line.
A siding, in rail terminology, is a low-speed track section distinct from a running line or through route such as a main line, branch line, or spur. It may connect to through track or to other sidings at either end. Sidings often have lighter rails, meant for lower speed or less heavy traffic, and few, if any, signals. Sidings connected at both ends to a running line are commonly known as loops; those not so connected may be referred to as single-ended or dead-end sidings, or stubs.
Bailey Yard is the world's largest railroad classification yard. Employees sort, service and repair locomotives and cars headed all across North America. Owned and operated by the Union Pacific Railroad (UP), Bailey Yard is located in North Platte, Nebraska. The yard is named after former Union Pacific president Edd H. Bailey.
A motive power depot (MPD) or locomotive depot, or traction maintenance depot (TMD), is where locomotives are usually housed, repaired and maintained when not being used. They were originally known as "running sheds", "engine sheds" or, for short, just sheds. Facilities are provided for refuelling and replenishing water, lubricating oil and grease and, for steam engines, disposal of the ash. There are often workshops for day to day repairs and maintenance, although locomotive building and major overhauls are usually carried out in locomotive works.
Shunting, in railway operations, is the process of sorting items of rolling stock into complete trains, or the reverse. In the United States this activity is known as switching.
Tinsley was a railway marshalling yard near Tinsley in Sheffield, England, used to separate railway wagons from incoming trains and add them to new trains. It was sited immediately west of the M1 motorway, about one mile north of the Catcliffe junction. It was opened in 1965, as a part of a major plan to rationalise all aspects of the rail services in the Sheffield area; it closed in stages from 1985, with the run-down of rail freight in Britain. It was also the site of Tinsley Traction Maintenance Depot (TMD), which was closed in 1998; at its peak, 200 locomotives were allocated to this depot.
A RIP track, short for repair in place track, is a designated track, or tracks, in a rail yard or a siding along a section of a main rail line where locomotives and/or railroad cars can be placed for minor repairs. A RIP track allows for minor repairs to be done without removing the units from service and sometimes allows for these repairs to be done without removing a freight load from the car. In some yards, a RIP track may be used for staging locomotives or damaged cars for major repairs and some rail yards may have more than one RIP track to serve both functions.
Enola Yard is a large rail yard located in East Pennsboro Township, Pennsylvania, along the western shore of the Susquehanna River in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
A goods station or freight station is, in the widest sense, a railway station where, either exclusively or predominantly, goods, such as merchandise, parcels, and manufactured items, are loaded onto or unloaded off of ships or road vehicles and/or where goods wagons are transferred to local sidings.
There were a number of engine sheds and railway works located in York. The large York North engine shed became the National Railway Museum in 1975.
Maschen Marshalling Yard near Maschen south of Hamburg on the Hanover–Hamburg railway in Germany is the largest marshalling yard in Europe, its size only being exceeded worldwide by the Bailey Yard in the US state of Nebraska.
Feltham marshalling yard, also known as Feltham hump yard, was a large railway marshalling yard designed for the concentration of freight traffic to and from South West London, and for transfer to other marshalling yards in London. It was built on the Waterloo to Reading Line. It opened in 1918 and was closed by British Railways on 6 January 1969.
Healey Mills Marshalling Yard was a railway marshalling yard located in the village of Healey, south west of Ossett in West Yorkshire, England. The yard was opened in 1963 and replaced several smaller yards in the area. It was part of the British Transport Commission's Modernisation plan, and so was equipped with a hump to enable the efficient shunting and re-ordering of goods wagons. The yard lost its main reason for existence through the 1970s and 1980s when more trains on the British Rail system became block trains where their wagons required less, or more commonly, no shunting.
Basford Hall Yard is a railway marshalling yard near the town of Crewe, Cheshire, England. The yard, which is 0.93 miles (1.5 km) south of Crewe railway station, was opened in 1901 by the London and North Western Railway (LNWR). Initially used to marshal trains, the site now acts as a hub mainly for Freightliner intermodal trains, but also houses departmental sidings as used by Freightliner Heavy Haul, and other operators. For a period in the 1930s, Basford Hall was the busiest marshalling yard in Europe, handing between 28,000 and 47,000 wagons every week.
Cedar Hill Yard is a classification yard located in New Haven, North Haven and Hamden, Connecticut, United States. It was built by the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad in the early 1890s in and around New Haven's Cedar Hill neighborhood, which gave the yard its name. Electrical catenary for electric locomotives was added to the yard in 1915. To handle increasing traffic as a result of World War I, the yard was greatly expanded between 1917 and 1920 with additional construction along both sides of the Quinnipiac River. The construction project added two humps where railroad cars were sorted into trains by gravity. The yard was further modernized in the 1920s, becoming one of the busiest railroad yards in the United States, and the most important yard in the entire New Haven Railroad system.
Northup Avenue Yard is a rail yard located in Providence and Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in the United States. The location has been the site of a rail yard since at least 1899. It was significantly expanded by the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad between 1918 and 1921 and made into a hump yard. The hump was removed around 1970, after Penn Central Transportation Company took over the New Haven in 1969. Under Penn Central, the yard was downsized and the hump removed. Conrail superseded Penn Central in 1976 and sold off the yard to the Providence and Worcester Railroad in 1982.
