Eastern Railroad Discussion > How many Hump yards does CSX have?

With the closure of Tilford upcoming, me and a fellow TO member were discussing how many hump yards CSX actually has. I know I'm missing some.

We came up with the following:

Acca (Richmond)
Waycross
Osborn (sp?). Couldn't remember where that one was located.
Willard (Ohio)
Selkirk (NY)
Hamlet (NC)

Posted from iPhone



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/22/17 16:29 by Asheville_G.

I believe Boyles Yard (ex L&N) in Birmingham, AL is also one.

Posted from iPhone

With the closure of Atlanta's Tilford Yard, these are the current active CSX hump yards:

1. Rice Yard Waycross, GA 
2. Boyles Yard Birmingham, AL
3. Radnor Yard Nashville, TN
4. Hamlet Yard Hamlet, NC
5. Cumberland Yard Cumberland, MD
6. Osborn Yard Louisville, KY
7. Queensgate Yard Cincinnati, OH
8. Stanley Yard Toledo, OH
9. Willard Yard Willard, OH
10. Avon Yard Avon, IN
11. Selkirk Yard Selkirk, NY

Andrew

Conail had closed Stanley as a hump yard.  CSX reopened it?  Is adjacent Walbridge still being used as a class yard? Has Stanley absorbed some of its functions?
​Also, is Frontier (Buffalo) in a conditon where the hump could​ be reopened?
​How safe is Hamlet?
Andy

twropr Wrote:
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> Conail had closed Stanley as a hump yard.  CSX
> reopened it?  Is adjacent Walbridge still being
> used as a class yard? Has Stanley absorbed some of
> its functions?

Stanley's hump is indeed still active.  It handles the manifest traffic.  The adjacent Walbridge Yard is also open.  It's primary function is flat switching loaded and empty autoracks.

> ​Also, is Frontier (Buffalo) in a conditon where
> the hump could​ be reopened?

I believe Frontier Yard is still mostly intact.  However, I doubt its hump will reopen anytime soon, if ever.

> ​How safe is Hamlet?

Hamlet is a nice little town and a great place to watch trains.

Andrew

CSX closed Stanley hump back in the early 2000's and the net result was a total meltdown on the northern part of the railroad for many months.  Eventually the yard / hump was reopened.   Don't remember how long it was closed, probably under a year.

Here is my list with comments: NE to SW.
1. Selkirk (near Albany NY) Big yard with 11000 ft arrival & departure tracks. Been there. But i think there is a chance CSX might sell the old B&A to a regional as far as they now own it.
2. Toledo (Stanley), ex-NYC yard parallel to and less than one mile west of ex-C&O Walbridge, might have been a hump once (correct). Thought it might be closed but checked Google Earth and hump rails shiny and bowl well occupied. Walbridge was also full of cars. One issue with Stanley is all trains go in and out of north end. Rails to the south abandoned long ago a few miles down.
3. Willard, OH. Not the best but on the busy mainline to Chgo and makes many Chgo connection trains and blocks
4. Cumberland, MD. On a favored mainline in a critical location for intermodal too. Carload traffic patterns intertwined with Willard. System Class 1 loco shop. Think (hope) it will survive.
5. Indianapolis (Avon). Old but decent size ex-CR. Mostly classifies WB traffic for St Louis connections and some southeast.
6. Cincinnati (Queensgate), probably CSX's newest yard. But in downtown Cincinnati and unable to expand. Be interesting to see what happens to it.
7. Louisville (Osborne). I though the hump had been closed and converted to all automobile racks, but Google E shows hump rails shiny and freight cars in the bowl. Rather big yard. Autos in side yards.
8. Nashville (Buford). Near downtown and confined, but at critical juncture of five CSX lines. Hard to see how it could be closed.
9. Birmingham (Boyles). I was not sure if this was still open but yet again Google shows quite active. Not a big yard.
10. Atlanta (Tilford). Checked Google again, not sure of status but showed active for carload freight a few days ago. Not big; now it is closing, the first causality of the new CEO.
11. Hamlet, NC. Again this is almost stub end yard as all thru freights enter/leave from the south end. Only a big local to Raleigh in/out north. Seems to me it has to survive; but who knows.
12. Waycross, GA (Rice). This is a big yard, double hump.But Like Hamlet and Stanley, virtually all trains go in and out the east end as CSX's line to Montgomery at the west end of the yard shows on their recent maps in the 2017 letter as 'local service' which means line sale. 
Qualifiers:
a. I thought the ex-BOCT  'Barr' yard in Chicago was a hump but Google Earth shows it is not. But it is a good sized yard.
b. Buffalo, NY Frontier yard was closed after CSX got its CR portion. Loss of local industry and interline connections the cause.
c. Russell yard in KY on the old C&O was closed by merger rerouting of carload traffic and switch-able coal traffic.
d. L&N's DeCoursey yard in Newport,KY across from Cincy closed when Queensgate opened.
e. Hump yards are not forever. Some are old and tracks to short for today's longer cars.
Future: EHH will close more hump yards and routes that feed them. It will be sad for the folks that work there, but he doesn't care. It's just business. I see CSX with only seven hump yards in the near future.
 
 

Thanks guys, I knew I was missing multiple yards.


I think he was asking "how safe is Hamlet" to remain a hump yard.

I'd say 50/50.

I can't see Ohio keeping three Humps....

Posted from iPhone



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/22/17 17:53 by Asheville_G.

Are there particular conditions which make hump yards superior to flat switches?

Lots of one off compared to strings of cars? Many destinations compared to a few?

Posted from Android

JLinDE Wrote

> 8. Nashville (Buford). Near downtown and confined,
> but at critical juncture of five CSX lines. Hard
> to see how it could be closed.

  Nashville's is RADNOR, not Buford.  Actually, the yard is south of the downtown area.



 

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
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> Are there particular conditions which make hump
> yards superior to flat switches?
>
> Lots of one off compared to strings of cars? Many
> destinations compared to a few?
>
> Posted from Android
​Some big flat switch yards include Decatur, IL (NS, former Wabash), Rocky Mount, NC (CSX/ACL) and Russell, KY (CSX/C&O).  When CSX first took over CR, their service design folks used to tell me that Rocky Mount was every bit as fast as the hump yards, but from where I sat at Selkirk I did not see this.  As long as Selkirk had enough power to keep the departure yard fluid, it was very efficient because it had very long tracks (back in 2001 and previous years, nothing was long enough to be doubled together - this may no longer be the case).  Selkirk had about 80 tracks in the class yard, making numerous blocks.  Inbound trains were shoved eastward over the hump into the class yard and East End "pullers" would tie onto the completed blocks and shove them onto the appropriate tracks in the departure yard.  Once the assembled train was complete, a crew would be called, would board the power at the fuel plant and tie onto their train.  The crew would usually be on the move within an hour or less of being called (unless there was a delay obtaining their paperwork).  I just don't see things happening this fast in a flat switch yard - especially if the departure track is not long and the train has to be doubled together from two or three tracks.
​Andy
​Andy

Thanks.

Enough power to get trains on the move, 1500 cars daily per EHH, long tracks.

A well managed hump yard will outperform a flat yard?

Posted from Android

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
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> Thanks.
>
> Enough power to get trains on the move, 1500 cars
> daily per EHH, long tracks.
>
> A well managed hump yard will outperform a flat
> yard?

Depends on the volume. Given all of the process steps you go through with a hump yard, you could expect a certain minimum time for a car to get through the yard. If you only have a few trains per shift to classify, you probably could switch them quicker in a good flat yard.

If you are not classifying at least 1500 cars per day in a hump yard, you are probably wasting your resources. EHH's thinking about about hump yards is certainly not unique. NS has closed a few over the years. Sometimes the traffic flows and the nature of the traffic changes, so a hump yard is no longer in the right place.

Here's a rule of thumb. Add a day to transit time for each yard that a car has to be humped at.

ts1457 Wrote:
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> If you are not classifying at least 1500 cars per
> day in a hump yard, you are probably wasting your
> resources.

If that's the case, all but one of CSX's hump yards are in danger of closing.  According to CSX's latest annual report, Waycross is the only CSX hump yard to exceed the 1500 car threshold.

In 2016, Waycross Rice Yard processed 677,003 cars, or 1855 a day on average.  Selkirk Yard processed 545,310 cars, or 1494 a day on average.  Nashville's Radnor Yard was a close third with 539,407 cars processed in 2016, averaging 1478 a day.

Andrew

How many cars does Tilford hump or see in a year?

svecellio Wrote:
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> How many cars does Tilford hump or see in a year?

I'm figuring less than 1000 a day.  CSX's annual report listed their 8 busiest hump yards.  The #8 spot was Louisville's Osborn Yard with 417,679 cars processed in 2016, or 1144 a day on average.

The 4 of the 12 CSX hump yards not listed on the annual report were:
Atlanta, GA Tilford Yard
Birmingham, AL Boyles Yard
Cumberland, MD Cumberland Yard
Toledo, OH Stanley Yard

Andrew



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/23/17 06:10 by florida581.

It's a safe bet the hump at Frontier will stay shut down (it closed in 2009); I had heard a while ago there were even plans to demolish it... Anyone who's been to Buffalo recently will know how painfully empty Frontier Yard is lately; you can often see clear across it, which you never used to be able to do... It was always stuffed full of cars under Conrail as I recall...

There were many days under CR when Selkirk humped more than 2,000 cars and some when 3,000 was topped.  Of course, there was a lot more carload traffic on the Massena Secondary (ex-NYC north of Syracuse) and on the former Boston & Albany than there is today.  Like so many other terminals in the US, there has been a tremendous shift from carload to intermodal and unit train traffic.
Andy

CSX merchandise carload (i.e., non-coal) has dropped 22% since the Conrail split (2000).

Hump yards do not play well with the idiocy of 10,000 foot trains.
Bring in a couple trains and you have plugged the receiving yard.
Then after you have humped the cars the departure yard is plugged waiting
for the company leaders to see that there are enough cars for a 10,000
outbound train.