Eastern Railroad Discussion > Chicago Yards: fluid ops for mid-Feb 2017

Chicago freight yards are running like well-oiled machines for the week 2/12 - 2/18/17. However, CSX is holding 0.14 trains daily for delivery into Chicago but EHH can fix this.

Not sure what the takeaways are here other than BRC's Clearing yard is the busiest, which is no surprise. IHB's two yards, Blue Island and Gibson, handle two-thirds of the volume of Clearing Yard. Among Class 1's, CSX, CN, and UP handle the most carload traffic. Thoughts?

Report source: https://www.stb.gov/filings/all.nsf/ba7f93537688b8e5852573210004b318/9ff751a505cdc2c3852580cf006e71dc?OpenDocument



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/23/17 02:51 by JPB.

---

JPB Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Chicago freight yards are running like well-oiled
> machines for the week 2/12 - 2/18/17.

The exceptionally mild weather by Chicago standards has a lot to do with the smooth operations. We are now 67+ days with <1" of snow and what little we had has been gone for most of Feburary.

JPB Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Not sure what the takeaways are here other than
> BRC's Clearing yard is the busiest, which is no
> surprise. IHB's two yards, Blue Island and Gibson,
> handle two-thirds of the volume of Clearing Yard.
> Among Class 1's, CSX, CN, and UP handle the most
> carload traffic. Thoughts?

You also have to remember that two Class 1's have their principle "Chicago" yards outside the immediate Chicago area, namely NS's Elkhart Yard and BNSF's Galesburg Yard.  All the other Class 1's have their major carload yards in the area.  With that said, I'm willing to say that NS will run as much, if not more carload traffic in and out of Chicago than most of the Class 1's.

Andrew

An interesting note as to the yards themselves and the cars they handle...Barr Yard is a flat switch yard, Proviso, Clearing and Kirk are humps.  Also, Gibson is all autoracks.