Galesburg Yard
| Galesburg Yard | |
|---|---|
|
Northern part with depot (left, view to the north) |
|
| Data | |
| Operating point type | Marshalling yard |
| Design | Through station |
| opening | 1905 |
| location | |
| Place / district | Galesburg |
| State | Illinois |
| Country | United States |
| Coordinates | 40 ° 54 ′ 41 ″ N , 90 ° 22 ′ 57 ″ W |
| List of train stations in the United States | |
.png)
.jpg)
The Galesburg Yard is a marshalling yard of the BNSF Railway south of Galesburg in Illinois . It goes back to a freight and marshalling yard of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad (CB&Q), which was expanded from 1905 to one of the largest marshalling yards in the USA. At the beginning of the 20th century, Galesburg became the main rail hub of the CB&Q, through which the main routes from St. Paul to St. Louis and Kansas City (north-south) and from Chicago to Omaha and Kansas City (east-west) ran. Almost all passenger and freight trains of the CB&Q passed Galesburg, where there was also a large depot with several roundhouse sheds . The CB&Q went on in 1970 in the Burlington Northern Railroad (BN), which modernized the marshalling yard until 1984. In 1995 the BN merged with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway to form today's BNSF Railway (Burlington Northern Santa Fe), which expanded the Galesburg Yard to 62 directional tracks by 1997 due to its importance for the newly established network . By 2004, these were reduced to 48 to enlarge the entry group . After the Argentine Yard in Kansas City and the Northtown Yard in Minneapolis , it is now the third largest marshalling yard in the BNSF Railway network.
history
_(14758874374)_Illinois.jpg)
In the early 1850s, the Chicago and Aurora Railroad expanded their route further west towards Galesburg , which was reached in late 1854. James Frederick Joy later expanded the network by acquiring smaller railroad companies on the Mississippi River to Burlington and Quincy and subsequently expanded with the new Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad (CB&Q) to St. Paul in the north, to St. Louis in the south and to the Missouri River to Kansas City and Omaha to the west and beyond. Joy created one of the most successful railroad companies of the 19th century in America, whose most important junction between the north-south and east-west connections was to be the city of Galesburg in Illinois .
.jpg)
In addition to a freight and passenger station, a large railway depot with several roundhouse sheds was built here , which was further expanded with the increase in rail traffic at the beginning of the 20th century. In addition, the CB&Q built a large marshalling yard south of it from 1905 , which stretched over five kilometers along the connection to Quincy in the southwest. It consisted of two parallel flat stations with a drainage hill for traffic in north and south directions. The track fields following one another each had six tracks in the entry group, 21 tracks in the direction harp and six tracks in the exit group; the track length of the marshalling yard totaled around 50 km. In 1914 over 200 trains passed Galesburg every day, 130 of which were freight trains. Up to 7,000 freight cars were rearranged every day at the marshalling yard , for which 32 shunting locomotives were used. At the southern end of the marshalling yard there has been a production facility for railway sleepers since 1908 , where the wooden sleepers for a large part of the CB&Q rail network were reconditioned, impregnated and stored. The annual processing here was 1.5 million sleepers, the plant is now operated by Koppers .
.png)
CB&Q modernized the marshalling yard in the 1930s and 1940s and automated the operation of the two flat stations, which were expanded to a total of more than 60 kilometers of track. In 1947 around 6,000 freight wagons were shunted every day; in 1963 the number was 5500. Despite the decline in passenger traffic, around 80 trains a day passed the Galesburg Yard in the 1960s . With the expansion of the road network in the USA, passenger and freight transport increasingly shifted to the road, which from the 1960s onwards made the large railroad networks in North America increasingly unprofitable and subsequently led to several bankruptcies and mergers of the railway companies. In 1970 CB&Q merged with several other companies to form the Burlington Northern Railroad (BN), which modernized the marshalling yard again in the early 1980s. By 1984, the track system had been completely rebuilt for 80 million US dollars , with the original separation of the flat stations according to traffic direction as well as the successive arrangement of the track fields being abandoned. This made longer tracks possible in the respective groups, the entry and exit groups (5 tracks each) then lay above the track harp (32 tracks) and partially enclosed them with their foothills. This arrangement still exists today and the trains are transferred between the groups via appropriate pull-out tracks . The maximum daily capacity after the conversion was 2500 freight wagons.
In the course of the renovation, the old depot at the north end of the marshalling yard including the roundhouse was demolished and replaced by a modern maintenance hall for diesel locomotives . The rectangular shed with two continuous tracks - as well as other systems for refueling - are today on the west side of the area, above the directional harp.
Today's plant
.jpg)
In 1995, the BN merged with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway to form today's BNSF Railway (Burlington Northern Santa Fe), which expanded the Galesburg Yard several times due to its importance for the newly created network, while maintaining the existing layout of the track fields. The marshalling yard has been occupying almost the same area for over 100 years, extending from the southern outskirts of Galesburg over five kilometers in a south-westerly direction. Starting in the north, the track systems are now divided into the entry group and the exit group, each with eight tracks of over two kilometers in length, followed by the directional harp. The drainage mountain is located at the southern end of the group and the freight wagons are pushed towards the north into the direction tracks . The direction group was enlarged to 48 tracks in 1996 and a year later to 62. In addition, the entry and exit groups received additional tracks. As early as 2004, there was another redesign, with 14 direction tracks being removed in order to extend the approach group to over 2.4 km in length.
On the west side, next to the exit group, there is the depot for the maintenance of the diesel locomotives and opposite on the east side a smaller maintenance hall for freight wagons. There are also several bypass tracks on the east side that are used for block trains with bulk cargo . For these there is no need for on-the-go treatments and in Galesburg only the train crew is changed. At the southern end there is still a maintenance area for railway service vehicles for track control and maintenance (maintenance of way) as well as the railway sleeper factory operated by Koppers today .
See also
- List of marshalling yards
- BNSF Railway marshalling yards: Argentine Yard , Barstow Yard , Corwith Yard , Northtown Yard
Web links
- Dennis DeBruler: Galesburg, IL: BNSF / CB & Q Railyard and Backshop. Towns and Nature Blog, December 10, 2016.
- Dennis DeBruler: Galesburg, IL: Coaling Tower and Roundhouse. Towns and Nature Blog, January 27, 2015.
- BN 1970 yard maps (see Galesburg (1) to (4)). Friends of the Burlington Northern Railroad.
Individual evidence
- ^ Mae Gilliland Wright: December 7, 1854: The Day "The Reindeer" Arrived at Galesburg. National Railroad Hall of Fame, December 7, 2017. Accessed July 14, 2019.
- ^ Drop Pits for a Burlington Roundhouse. In: Railway Age. Vol. 34, No. 7, 1902, pp. 165 f.
- ^ New Freight Yard of the Burlington at Galesburg. In: The Railroad Gazette. Vol. 39, No. 10, 1905, pp. 218-220.
- ↑ HT Murry: Keeping Cars Moving in a Large Yard. In: Railway Age Gazette. Vol. 57, No. 1, 1915, p. 10 f.
- ^ The Burlington Tie-Preserving Plant at Galesburg. In: Railway Age. Vol. 45, No. 19, 1908, pp. 667-670 (and illus. P. 666).
- ^ The Timber Preserving Plant of the Burlington. In: The Railroad Gazette. Vol. 44, No. 2, 1908, pp. 54 f.
- ↑ Tom Wilson: Galesburg hub of CB&Q half century ago. ( Memento of July 10, 2019 in the Internet Archive ) The Register-Mail, July 13, 2013.
- ^ A b c Michael Rhodes: North American Railyards. Voyageur Press, 2014, ISBN 978-0-76034-609-9 , pp. 15-17.
- ^ Gary Tomlin: A trip through the yard. ( Memento of July 13, 2019 in the Internet Archive ) The Register-Mail, June 29, 2014.
- ↑ Map of the Month: Two ways: Chicago to Galesburg, Ill. Trains Magazine, April 2014, p. 20. Retrieved July 15, 2019.
- ^ ATSDR Public Health Assessment: Koppers Wood Treating Company, Galesburg, Illinois. Illinois Department of Public Health, May 19, 2004. Retrieved July 15, 2019.