When did Norfolk Southern shutdown the eastbound classification Yard at Conway and Why? I was just looking at it on bing.com maps and it looks like some of the tracks were taken out on the hump and the bowl tracks are being used for storage.
It was at least 3 years ago. The main reason was the capacity wasn’t needed. Upgrading Enola and the presence of Bellevue meant that Conway did not need to hump as many cars as it did in the Conrail era.
What is at Bellevue?
Bellevue, located in north central Ohio was the main yard facility for the Nickel Plate Road, subsequently taken over by N&W (NS). Found there is an engine facility, hump yard and a roundhouse that still stands but used mainly for storage. Great railfanning area.
Didn’t they shut down Enola too? Did they change their minds?
Conrail had pretty much stopped using Enola, originating most of the area locals out of Harrisburg in the mid-90s and doing most of the heavy-duty classification work at Allentown. With more north-south traffic, NS started doing some classification work there, and finally, rebuilt the hump.
BIG hump yard. Allowed NS to shut down Buckeye during the recession, too.
You would think they would just keep both west and east bound humps at Conway to make traffic flow easier.
Possibly if the traffic picks up they may rebuild the eastbound yard at Conway or invest in a state of the art intermodal terminal because it is probably easier for trucks to get into Conway than it is to get into Pitcairn.
Actually, the directional humps make it worse. Even with the best system blocking plans, about 5-10% of the traffic handled there wants to “change directions”. That is, it comes in on an eastbound train and wants to leave on a westbound, or arrived on a westbound and wants to go east. In order for this to happen, the traffic has to be crossyarded. It’s humped into a “crossyard” class track and then shuttled over to the other receiving yard a couple times a day - at the most. This generally delays that traffic 12-24 hrs or so. Going to a single hump eliminated these delays.
I can’t comment on traffic density or direction but wasn’t Conway used for westbound traffic reclassification in addition to eastbound? The old PRR main out here in the Chicago area does not exist anymore so no traffic is heading out of Chicago in that direction. It goes over the old NYC route probably to Cleveland and who knows where so Conway may have been isolated to some degree.
When Norfolk Southern rebuilt Enola yard they changed the yard throats at both ends to allow easier access and movement between the upper and lower yards. Every time I run up there (about 26 minutes north), the yard is ALWAYS full of cars and the service facilities are loaded with motive power.
The connection at Cleveland from the NYC main to the PRR’s Cleveland to Pittsburgh line (C&P) was a direct route to Conway, therefore the yard was not isolated. During Conrail days it was quite busy.
At Alliance OH the C&P connnects to the Ft. Wayne Line east to Conway. The C&P south of Alliance goes to PA via Mingo Junction.
Don’t forget about the yard in Elkhart, though I think it does more Westbound humping to make trains for the connecting roads in Chicago than it does for Eastbound traffic.
Both Conway and Elkhart handle lots of eastbound and westbound traffic. Elkhart’s main job is to classify traffic to and from the Chicago gateways, so they have a good balance of east and westbound traffic. Conway classifies traffic going to and from eastern points including traffic needing further handling at Enola, Allentown and Oak Island. It’s pretty well balanced east/west, too. Conway used to classify quite a bit of traffic to and from Buffalo for Conrail, but much of this is handled at Bellevue these days.
Now how is traffic governed in Conway? Does the Fort Wayne Line dispatcher handle all the movements in and out of Conway? Just how much movement authority does the yard tower at Conway have?
If you want to get some idea of the scene at Bellevue go over to Railpictures.net and select Ohio for state and Bellevue for City and you can see what the NS facility looks like looking both east and west from the Rt. 4 overpass.
Pittsburgh Division dispatching is in Greentree PA.,southwest Pittsburgh. I work west of Conway,We talk to 3 dispatchers out of the Crestline District. From Bucyrus to Alliance, Ohio its “Pittsburgh West” From Alliance, Ohio to Rochester PA. its the “Cleveland Line” dispatcher, and at the West Conway signals we talk to the “Conway Terminal Dispatcher” . On approach to Conway yard on “signal indication” You talk to" Conway Control" located in the large tower in the middle of the yard.
Thanks for the info.
So the yard tower at Conway has full control of the Conway hub including the mainlines through the yard? Then what did East Conway do? Was it just a trim tower?