NS rail yards in Harrisburg, PA

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

I have been reading some material and I am confused about the yards in Harrisburg area.

I know that NS has two intermodal yards in the area; one in Harrisburg, the other in Rutherford.

I am confused on the classification yards in the area. I know Enola Yard was once a major rail yard with both West and East bound humps. It was closed and then one hump was rebuilt by NS. I have read that Harrisburg also had a yard or are they talking about Enola? Are there two classification yards in the Harrisburg are? One in Harrisburg and one in Enola to handle the manifest freight traffic?

2

Enola yard is very active. After NS took it over they rebuilt both yard throats to allow better movement between the upper and lower yards. A friend of mine is the roadmaster in Enola and he keeps me informed as to what is going on.

3

Here’s the quick history:

Rutherford was a Reading hump yard. Enola was a PRR hump yard with two humps. Harrisburg was a flat yard that was primarily used to support local and intermodal traffic. Conrail closed Rutherford and moved traffic to Allentown and Enola. Conrail closed the one hump at Enola, then the other, then moved the local traffic at Harrisburg to Enola to make room for more intermodal traffic. Conrail planned on converting Rutherford to an additional intermodal yard, but stopped, expanding Harrisburg some more. NS purchase occurred. NS builds out Rutherford to CR’s plans. NS reopens one hump at Enola and rebuilds it. So, there is one main classification yard - Enola, and two intermodal terminals, Harrisburg and Rutherford.

4

Don:

That almost made my head hurt, but it does explain the operations.

How many cars can Enola classify and how many do they average?

Ed

5

I have no idea what the capacity is, but they’ve in the 500 - 1000 a day range.

7

There is still a small amount of car load freight on the east end of Harrisburg yard a couple of Locals work out of there to serve a few customers, another yard that is pretty busy with car load freight is Shiremenstown yard outside of Harrisburg on the Shiremenstown Secondary this is where most of the newer car load customers have located in the Harrisburg Area. Enola is the main classification yard with one hump in use, it is also a major locomotive repair and service center. Also of note is the New Yard being built for intermodal at Greencastle about 1 hour south of Harrisburg. This a fast growing area with lots of new warehouses and light industry. CSX built a new Intermodal yard in this area also outside of Chambersburg.

Jim