Bailey Yard
| Bailey Yard | |
|---|---|
|
Location and extent west of North Platte |
|
| Data | |
| Operating point type | Marshalling yard |
| Design | Through station |
| opening | 1948 |
| location | |
| Place / district | North Platte |
| State | Nebraska |
| Country | United States |
| Coordinates | 41 ° 9 '5 " N , 100 ° 49' 46" W |
| List of train stations in the United States | |
.png)
Bailey Yard is the world's largest marshalling yard . It is located immediately west of North Platte , a small town in the US state of Nebraska, almost in the middle of the country, on the railway line ( Oakland near San Francisco -) Cheyenne - Omaha (- Chicago ) and is operated by the Union Pacific Railroad (UP) operated. The section of this route leading through the station is not used for passenger traffic . It was named after a previous president of the railway company, Ed. H. Bailey. Union Pacific has over 2,600 employees in North Platte.
Previous buildings
A first actual one-sided marshalling yard with 42 directional tracks and a mechanized drainage mountain to the east was put into operation here in 1948 as a replacement for a smaller marshalling facility with 20 tracks without a drainage mountain and was later replaced by the current system.
Current train station
Station layout
Today's two-sided marshalling yard has an area of around 12 km² with a length of over 13 km and 507 kilometers of track. The two maneuvering systems are located on both sides of the main line. The shunting system to the east ( Bailey East section of the station ) was opened in 1968 and comprises 8 entry, 64 direction and 7 exit tracks in track harps arranged one behind the other . The other shunting system to the west (station part Bailey West ) was opened in 1980 and comprises 8 entry, 50 direction and 9 exit tracks in side-by-side track harps with drainage mountains to the east because of the predominant westerly winds there, which is why sawing drives over here to move the wagons during the shunting process the pull-out tracks are required. Therefore, this station is one of the few two-sided marshalling yards with the same instead of opposite working direction of the two flow systems. Reserve space for extensions is available. When East-West maneuvering is a further station part of a depot with 14 long and 18 short tracks front hand for the strong in this area coal - block train .
On the two mechanized drainage mountains, around 2,100 of the 15,000 or so freight wagons that run through the station every day are assembled into new freight trains .
Additional systems
In addition to the direction harp of the west-east system, there is a railway depot with a capacity for refueling and maintenance of over 8,500 locomotives as well as minor repairs of around 750 locomotives per month. Small repairs can be carried out on almost 50 freight wagons every day in the wagon workshop, which is located between the continuous line tracks and the east-west system.
Visitor center and tourism
Due to its size and popularity with railroad fans, a museum was built with an observation tower called the Golden Spike Tower.
See also
literature
- Donald K. Park: The Union Pacific in North Platte. At the Heart of the Railroad. Parkrail, Fort Collins 1992, no ISBN.
- Michael Rhodes: North American Railyards. Motorbooks International, MBI Publishing, St. Paul 2003, ISBN 0-7603-1578-7 . Pp. 69-75.
- Andy Cummings, Matt van Hattem, David Lustig: Inside the World's Largest Yard. In: Trains. July 2010, pp. 34-47.
All three publications each contain a track plan that is current at the time of publication . The marshalling yard also received a temporary entry in the Guinness Book of Records from 1995 due to its size .
