Was wondering if anyone out there knows if any of the U.S. Class I railroads during the 1960s/70s operated or used Stub-end type railroad classification yards (has a ladder on 1 end of the yard body only, and other end of the yard body ends w/ bumpers). Did they have them and use them at all back then? And what railroads exactly? Thanks
The UP in Salt Lake City had several double ended yards that had one end retired when they were downgraded to industrial support yards, but I believe they were single ended in the 1980’s.
I would venture a pretty strong guess that every class one had stub end yards somewhere. They won’t be their division point yards where the railroad operates in both directions from the yard but some of the smaller ones. Don;t forget that blocking a train got more specific as it got closer to its destination. For example: traffic out of Chicago on the PRR is all going east so the only blocking really necessary is for the industries close to Chicago and before the next major yard. That yard is concerned with the industries east of it. Conway in Pittsburgh handles the Pittsburgh area to Altoona. Altoona handles the cars for altoona to Enola at Harrisburg. Greenwich blocks the cars for Philadelphia. Waverly for Trenton New Jersey and several in the New York area. So any cars blocked for Philadelphia any where west will be reblocked in Greenwich as to which smaller yard they will be further blocked. Near North Philly station was Margie yard, Estes Yard, C Street yard and Fairlhill yard in addition to the Chestnut Hill branch, Fairhill branch and Oxford branch and 87 industries in the mile and a half east of the station. Estes, C Street and Fairhill were double ended. Margie had twelve tracks and was sigle ended. In addition there were two or three locations where local crews could do some sorting with unnamed two and three track short stub ended yards. Add four mainline tracks and an eastbound and wetsbound local track and it got pretty busy there. So the bottom line is that train in Chicago would be blocked for local traffic, Crestline, Conway, Alttona, Enola, Greenwich, Waverly, and New York not caring where in that territory the cars went. That way it keeps traffic moving. Clogging a yard causes constipation of the railroad that takes phenomenal effort to correct. Stub end yards could be the smaller support yards.
Yes, on the Southern Pacific at there is a yard wedged between the Nimitz Freeway (I 880) and BART, ; I can’t recall the name. The east end had a normal throat while the tracks at the west dead ended at It was used for local industrial job. I haven’t been their in years, but on Google Maps it appears the UP rebuilt it into a double ended yard.
I hope this helps, Rob
Here is an idea for stub ended sidings.
Rich
Stub ended yards would be low production yards that would only handle one switch engine per lead. One of the purposes of a double ended yard is not to handle trains in both directions, but to be able to handle inbound (classification) and outbound (trimming) at the same time. So an engine on one end would be switching cars and the engine on the other end would be building outbound trains at the same time. That keeps the production at a high level.
Single ended yards only allow a switcher to classify or to pull tracks, but not both at the same time. Most single ended yards I have seen are not production classification yards, but industry and local support yards that only have one or two jobs per shift or day working there.
Rob. Very interesting you mentioned 5th Ave. yard in Oakland. It used to be single ended with the stubs at Fifth Ave.and I know they stripped it out completely, re-graded, ballasted and re-layed it about 10 or so years ago. I was not aware they had double-ended it. was that at the same time, or later?
Many years ago I worked that whole area out of West Oakland first in car repair, the as student and engine fireman. But that was only up until I was cut off in June '64 as not having enough time when they cut out fireman’s job. Many happy memories, though John
If used for car classification, in order of frequency of occurence compared to double-ended yards, probably not better than 1 in 1000. I think if you looked hard, it would be difficult to find any large Class 1 that did not have an example, but I can think of many small Class 1s that had no such thing. Rio Grande, for example, had 8th Street, 4th Avenue, and North Yard in Denver; Roger Yard in Pueblo, Alamosa East Yard and Downtown Yard; Salida Yard, Malta Yard, Leadville Yard, Minturn Yard; Grand Junction East Yard (hump) and Old Yard; Phippsburg Yard, Craig Yard, Helper Yard, Provo Yard; Roper Yard and the downtown Yard in Salt Lake City; and Transfer Yard in Ogden – all double-ended. I can’t even think of one on the narrow-gauge side of the house, either.
There are many small stub-ended yards used within industries, or to support industries, but these are not really classification yards.
RWM
Run for you lives! It is a horde of frogs!
I suppose the red marks on the side of rails are to mark fouling points.
John, I worked in through the mid 70’s and only passed there occasionally after. I always remembered it being stub ended at until I looked at Google Maps to answer this question. I assumed it had been double ended by the UP; a lot of yard reconstruction was done at when they took over. They dug up 13 unexploded 500 lbs bombs undetected from an ammunition train explosion during the Vietnam era under the yard throat at the Antelope end.
Rob
I have to assume these would have been stub ended sidings with the sytle of turnouts.
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1171464
Rich
[D)]Remind me not to visit there.