Bailey Yard is the world's largest railroad classification yard. Employees sort, service and repair locomotives and cars headed all across North America. Owned and operated by the Union Pacific Railroad (UP), Bailey Yard is located in North Platte, Nebraska. The yard is named after former Union Pacific president Edd H. Bailey.
Bailey Yard illuminated at night
A classification yard, marshalling yard or shunting yard is a railway yard found at some freight train stations, used to separate railway cars onto one of several tracks. First the cars are taken to a track, sometimes called a lead or a drill. From there the cars are sent through a series of switches called a ladder onto the classification tracks. Larger yards tend to put the lead on an artificially built hill called a hump to use the force of gravity to propel the cars through the ladder.
Godorf Station, Cologne, Germany
Not all cars can be sent over a classification hump. This Union Pacific track maintenance vehicle is permanently labelled "Do not hump", because it is not designed to withstand hump sorting.
The retarders grip the sides of the wheels on passing cars to slow them down.
CNW towerman R. W. Mayberry operates the retarders at Proviso Yard in Chicago, Illinois, May 1943.
