The Heart of Railway Freight Transport: Marshalling Yards

[@ShakeyMac18]

That feel when a random youtube suggestion suddenly becomes inspiration for your next Factorio train setup.

[@thecalvindustries]

Literally exactly why I’m here

[@javierpowell4705]

this is one thing i wish was depicted by train management games like Open TTD or Transport Fever, marshalling yards.

[@thegodlessvulcan]

Apparently the sorting algorithms handling the yards are too complex for games to do and run decently. Least that's what I've heard/read.

[@denzzlinga]

@@thegodlessvulcan but in Transport fever it works with the load. You can built a huge freight station, with trains coming in from all directions droping their loads, and trains going out to all direction taking theese loads. So i don´t think it would be a big deal to programm, that not the goods are unloaded from one train and loaded to another, but instead the wagons are sorted like in a marshalling yard.

[@piazzollalucagordon4149]

Railroad Tycoon 3 in some way did this, it sorted freight wagons automatically from station to station if you wanted to

[@benrampling812]

Open TTD is long overdue an update imho. Would be great to see it come to xbox in the same way cities skylines has. Perhaps even a new game in which the two games are mixed together

[@leerman22]

@@thegodlessvulcan Doesn't look too complex to sort, but the size of the world to make these yards worth it would have a lot going on to begin with.

[@khent712]

My Dad was an engineer with Indian railways in the 50's and he would sometimes take me with him for the day shunting trains in Asansol, West Bengal. This brings back fond memories of trains and steam.

[@texaswunderkind]

As a native Nebraskan, I am glad to see the Bailey Yard is still #1 in the world. Union Pacific finally built a visitor center with a tower to help rail fans observe the operation. Also, if you are interested in history, the people of North Platte established a canteen for troops trains passing through the city that served meals, coffee, candy, and letters home to seven million troops during World War II.

[@fredact]

I visited there a few years ago. Very cool.

[@isaiahford5951]

When it comes to biggest what do they mean by how far it stretch out? How many railways or how many cars it can fit? I’m just curious.

[@SternLX]

Baily Yard is HUGE. I nearly got lost in there once back in the early 2000's. I drive a truck and was delivering some equipment to the Maintenance facility. Got bad directions at first, had to stop a guy in a pickup truck. He was one of the yard Bosses and he told me they should have given me an escort. lol Lucky for me they have lots of room to turn a tractor/trailer around in. Quite the treat for a Trucker that's also a huge railfan.

[@asphere7162]

dude try riding through it. Bailey is crazy, spent five hours there on a WB IM. Didn’t even do work just a Crew Change.

[@xymaryai8283]

Hump yards are the most fun thing in any daily operation infrastructure i can think of. i could watch them all day, just seeing them zip down the tracks into their categories

[@chiron14pl]

I enjoyed seeing the Bailey yard. They have a nice tower to show tourists the layout and watch wagons being sorted

[@TsaGo_1912]

I'm from Germany and always when I'm on my way to Hamburg by train I pass the Marshalling yard of Maschen. It's always amazing to see this big area, which consists of so many tracks. Most of the cars there are transporting containers, that are coming from the Container vessels that go to Hamburg.

[@jamesstuart3346]

CN's Maple ON yard had an observation platform with a model of the yard inside it...heaven for a young railfan!

[@dcgfmb]

Thanks for the great overview. I've worked in the Symington Hump yard in Winnipeg Canada and it's interesting to see how other yards operate.

[@10Peter25]

I've been to Bailey Yard and even have a golden spike as a souvenir of my visit. Quite an enlightening view of the daily operations of the biggest rail yard in the world.

[@Bonserak23]

ha The first clip is from my hometown of Spokane with the Intermodel going over the bridge, been on that frieght trip lots.

[@UQRXD]

The world is so full of so many things I never knew any thing about. I never stop being amazed. Makes one think how much we consume as humans and how much has to be moved around the world to keep us going. But why do we exist?

[@hugodesrosiers-plaisance3156]

Holy hell. The average person, like me, really has **NO IDEA** of the sheer intricate complexity of our modern transport infrastructures. This video right here just floored me. Very impressive. Thank you for posting, I learned a lot and I'll keep digging!

[@BruceCarbonLakeriver]

same here, I'm not a train buff and I would have never imagined a marshall yard is that complex. for me it was like a parking area for left over wagons of if they get used later and so on LOL

[@AmpoulePin123]

Thanks for the great video. I watched this with great interest because the marshalling yards became extinct about 30 years ago in Japan.

[@mimmom9362]

As things stand, intermodal terminals are now the heart of rail transport, or at least they will become. Here's an idea for a video. The largest intermodal terminals in the world!

[@GustavSvard]

That would be a good video, yes. Maybe also with an example of how tiny something that fulfills the technical definition can get!

[@LinwoodPowell]

Intermodal covers a wide range of transportation.

[@jirky015]

​@@LinwoodPowell Come on, man. He's obviously talking about containerization.

[@ww32]

With the shortage of long haul truckers and the inherent inefficiency of long haul trucking rail roads should be trying to lure customers back right now

[@BossSpringsteen69]

@@ww32 They are better at pushing them away.

[@HimanshuSingh-lk2my]

The best birthday gift that I can receive. Thank you for this video. Love from India 🇮🇳

[@RailwaysExplained]

Happy birthday! 😊

[@HimanshuSingh-lk2my]

@@RailwaysExplained Thank you sir

[@XmrdX]

Super interesting! I am a shunting planner for a passenger rail operator and it is very interesting to learn how the 'other side' of the network works.

[@RailwaysExplained]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@chanachon56]

Is it much different than what is shown in the video? Passenger rail shunting I mean.

[@XmrdX]

@@chanachon56 to a certain extent. Trains are generally much shorter, but space is also very limited (urban areas). However, I see some of the same logic/puzzle elements in both passenger and freight shunting. Oh and we don't roll our trains down hills ;)

[@ciCCapROSTi]

You know it's a good channel, when the monotone voice of someone does not detract you from watching the video at all. It's not about production value, it's about giving interesting info.

[@jovanweismiller7114]

I grew up next to a 'marshalling yard' in a division point on the Union Pacific Railroad in Kansas. I never heard it called a 'classification yard'. We called it 'switching yard'.

[@kalisankarmukherjee7182]

Nice to see and recollect the memories of my early days of railway.(1970-90) In India railways have gradually phased out the concept of marshalling yards with the improvement of rolling stocks maintenance which helped to increase wagon turn round drastically. Very few marshalling yards may now be in operation here.

[@mimmom9362]

As everywhere in the world.

[@thechazers]

What About Mughalsarai Yard

[@oadka]

How is that connected to marshaling? Please explain, im really curious! Dont we still need to sort different wagons from one train into different trains?

[@IstasPumaNevada]

@@oadka I'm wondering that too.

[@tonyromano6220]

@@oadka he is talking about consolidating.

[@jasminadragicevic4241]

I like those footages of Belgrade Marshalling Yard 👏

[@RailwaysExplained]

Indeed

[@albertvieira6635]

I'm going to tell a friend of mine about this man will like it after he got me to watch trains

[@markvogel5872]

I've pushed cars through a hump yard before......it was really fun!

[@mimmom9362]

How can that be fun?

[@markvogel5872]

@@mimmom9362 how could it not be?!

[@10Peter25]

@@markvogel5872 I wouldn't find it fun, but I'm glad you did. (I find fun in things you would find boring, so I guess we're even. 😉)

[@neurofiedyamato8763]

Never knew about this but thinking about it, it is very simple and logical to have marshalling yards and their operation is also kind of how I had imagined it would be. Thanks, learned something new indeed, very interesting.

[@BattleshipOrion]

Y'all should make a video going over the common DIESEL locomotives of the world. Also, I'm not counting rebuilds or locomotives that are aging. I mean newer units.

[@mimmom9362]

Well, having in mind that they made a video about steam locomotives, they could also make a video about the strongest diesel locomotives :D

[@BattleshipOrion]

@@mimmom9362 not the strongest...otherwise you'll have China & the US in the same category (the AC6000). Not trying to be political, just spouting facts.

[@RailwaysExplained]

It would definitely be a good video and we'll do it in the near future for sure. In the meantime, if you are a fan of heavy freight trains, check out this interesting video we made a long time ago: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nXTadXSwbLeonpY

[@prateeksharma729]

Yes, but include electrics as well, otherwise India will be left out :(

[@BattleshipOrion]

@@prateeksharma729 Nah, I said diesels. Electrics are there own beasts. Electrics also get the attention, and...I'm not to fond of India right now for reasons...the fake call centers aint one of them...

[@89Ayten]

Drake 'nah': The blockchain Drake 'yeah': The blocktrain

[@plantfeeder6677]

My dad's Bomb Group wiped out a bunch of these in Northern Italy, Austria and Germany in WWII. He said watching the bombs take out tracks was like they were dropping fragmentation bombs as all you saw was thousands of pieces of train track and train cars flying everywhere leveling stations, roundhouses, and maintenance buildings.

[@Clancythecat]

I'm sorry, but just couldn't help but laugh every time you referenced "humping"

[@raymondleggs5508]

From above it looks like a model train display!

[@AISPs]

China has a lot of yards for most cities, but Japan has abandoned this type of thing nearly 40 years ago. Anyway, their layout always look fascinating, and they have specific rules about what type of layout should be adopted for any classification station.

[@vaiyaktikasolarbeam1906]

wait so how does Japan cargo transport work?

[@KeVIn-pm7pu]

@@vaiyaktikasolarbeam1906 44% by ships and 50% by trucks only 5% is delivered by Train.

[@vaiyaktikasolarbeam1906]

@@KeVIn-pm7pu so japan doesnt have marshalling yard anymore ? what kind of device to substitute the yard? I mean I know 5 % is very low but still, don t they need at least one yard?

[@KeVIn-pm7pu]

@@vaiyaktikasolarbeam1906 i am sure they have a few but not in the extent they used to

[@AISPs]

@@vaiyaktikasolarbeam1906 Their freight trains are either containers or a unit of several fuel tanks. Most of the yards are either dismantled or reformed to container loading docks. Here are few old maps of those yard stations, collected by japanese rail fans senrohaisenzu.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/2010/07/post-1708.html Higashi-Aomori station, serving the Aomori-Hakodate ferry for Hokkaido Island railwaytrackdiagrams.web.fc2.com/tokyo_north/musashino/musashinosou.html Musashino Marshalling Yard, on the outer ring of Tokyo, once the biggest in japan, only served 10 years. kzbin.info/www/bejne/kHTXgYBqZbqHf5I here is a video for that senrohaisenzu.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/2011/02/post-f277.html Suita station, serving the second largest city Osaka

[@uncinarynin]

Nice overview. Note that tank wagons and numerous others have a brakeman stand so a person can ride the wagon as it is rolling down the hump, operating the handbrake to bring it to a standstill at the desired location. That requires more manpower and is done for dangerous goods.

[@Skullair313]

That does not sound right. I have never seen this practice in use in modern shunting yards

[@thomasm1964]

In Europe, automatic trackside retarders are used. They automatically read the speed of the wagon and apply trackside braking if required.

[@calibrazxr750]

Have you ever tried to apply one of those handbrakes? It takes quite a bit of time, far too long to have any accuracy when it come to stopping one. The stand that you refer to is not for a brakeman, it is to allow access to that area of the wagon, which includes the handbrake. Anyone who rides on a wagon, stands on a small step, which also has specific handles/ grips for that person to hold on to. Also, if a wagon is used for dangerous goods, it is not allowed to run into other wagons, nor have other wagons run into it.

[@artembolyak117]

В России (могу сказать только за нее) запрещено спускать цистерны с горки. Так как это может привести к катастрофе.

[@RailwayNetworks]

Thank you for this video, great job...

[@RailwaysExplained]

Thanks for watching!

[@deltabravo1257]

1:09 It took me about half a second to know that the opening drone footage here is Spokane, WA.

[@Silver_Turtle]

@Delta Bravo Even though it's been 40 years since I was in the area, I must agree. I mean, it sure looks like Latah Jct. to me... For those not familiar -- Latah Jct., on the west side of Spokane, is where BNSF lines split/merge -- one leg goes to Seattle, the other goes towards Portland. It's a big railfan location [if one can get to the right spot]

[@artembolyak117]

В моем городе есть сортировочная станция. Над ней проложен пешеходный мост до озера. Чтобы пройти по нему нужно полчаса. Летом можно идти и смотреть на поезда. Автоматические тормоза горки издают визг, который разносится на всю округу. Его ни с чем не спутаешь и не забудешь.

[@ferrofilos]

Thats the H0 trains modelers nightmare hahaha, good video men! Cheers

[@railwayjade]

Enjoyed this thoroughly

[@TheCrunchifiedOne]

I like these videos about the actual operation of the railway. I also like the infrastructure videos. I guess I'm saying I like your channel ahah

[@therealjordiano]

The thought of designing one of these things, or at least part of it, is so interesting

[@filipbujaroski9221]

Thank you so much for this awesome work, as always!

[@RailwaysExplained]

Thanks

[@Arturino_Burachelini]

in 1520mm railroads marshalling yards are called "sorting stations"

[@mimmom9362]

Really?

[@iiigraghu]

Excellent Enterprising Emerging Evolving Endeavor. Hearty Greetings from India 🇮🇳 💐🤝🙏

[@mrmarkle7088]

Who remembers engineer dave and conducter becky making the tall about trains show back in the day?

[@xyabc1463]

Finally.. i was wondering for so long

[@MrRusty-fm4gb]

1:10 LMAO! That’s Spokane WA, and that’s my neighborhood on the other side of all those bridges. Out of all places.... lol 😂 Edit: And In the Bailey yard in North Platte, and the rest of North America, there’s no wagons, or we don’t call them wagons, only “freight cars” or “train cars”. In the US we call an old carriage with wooden wheels that is pulled by horses or oxen a “Wagon”. And a radio flyer is called a wagon... and our train cars have Atleast 4 axels, and not 2.

[@calibrazxr750]

And you also call a liquid, Gas. Never forget, you speak English, we don't speak American.

[@jasonreed7522]

@@calibrazxr750 we call oil petroleum and shorten the specific petroleum product of Gasoline to its truncated gas, you shorten petroleum (a group of products) to petrol. Blame whoever named it gasoline in like the 1800's when is was considered a dangerous byproduct of kerosene production. Honestly it makes more sense than calling it petrol which is basically the same as calling it oil. Granted our education system is terrible so i bet a scary percentage of Americans don't even know that gas is short for something. (I honestly suspect our system is intentionally garbage)

[@unjustifiablyneglectedtopi8293]

Another excellent video, thanks 🙏

[@RailwaysExplained]

Thanks again!

[@klausgartenstiel4586]

"hey! no giggling during class!"

[@darickymeister]

Every time he says "vegan", take a shot of whisky....

[@jameswingrove7421]

I work in one, Doncaster Woodyard/UpDecoy as a shunter. And thank god I’m going driving soon, it can be horrendous.

[@1st_ProCactus]

I didn't know what a vagon was until the end, ahhh a vagon

[@MrSaemichlaus]

From an engineering perspective, hump yards are ideal because they supply each wagon with a set amount of momentum and then the wagons coast down the tracks at near constant speed. Running a gravity yard looks like a nightmare to me, as wagons would speed up all the way and the wagons already in the classification tracks would definitely need to be secured too. I can't begin to imagine how that would be safely managed while also being reliable, efficient and profitable.

[@TaterRaider]

Platte rhymes with hat. Keep up the excellent vids. Subbed.

[@jirky015]

Bailey Yard is impressively large. If you hang out on the east side of the yard, you can easily catch a train every 10-20 minutes.

[@BossSpringsteen69]

I've never seen skates used like that humping at the crest.

[@delurkor]

For anyone interested the channel Trainfart has published videos streams of mostly Swiss hump yards; both in real time and time lapse.

[@themark3000]

Thank you! Great explanation. I love all things train and i certainly enjoyed watching this.

[@RailwaysExplained]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@adrianmillard6598]

From the thumbnail, I honestly thought this was a factorio video :D

[@rudolfreiter3089]

Always interesting! Learned a lot from your videos.

[@EntertainmentWorldz]

great train video

[@martinhertog5357]

In the Netherlands we have Kijfhoek as marshalling yard.

[@softwerksaol]

Your videos are really good, and I use them in university teaching.

[@RailwaysExplained]

Great to hear!

[@stevesalter3859]

Great presentation

[@robertbatty8263]

I learnt something today. Thank you

[@dodgydruid]

If you ever wanted to see the perfect system, British Railways when it had the BRS or British Road Services auxiliary network which enabled anywhere in Britain next day container delivery as well as covering all the road side of parcel and goods delivery plus warehousing, picking and packing, stores, labelling, inventory and all under one very well run system. Factories didn't bother to package luxury goods as BRS did that, using the rail network wherever possible and Royal Mail for up to certain sizes for doorstep delivery, larger goods could be stored, classified, picked and packed and moved onto waiting customer and the whole thing was very smooth with day after next a usual delivery spot to Europe and BR/BRS had its own cargo and ferry ships that sailed daily around the world so international orders were very swift indeed. But the government behind Dr Beeching had their pockets filled by businessmen who wanted to break the railways monopoly and so the road hauliers spent a LOT of money in breaking the railways, wrecking BRS and forcing massive cuts to railways in Britain that saw the network withered wiping out whole communities and disrupting the rail freight system irreparably.

[@neiloflongbeck5705]

BRS was a separate entity to BR both were under the British Transport Commission along with the canals and ports. There was never a requirement for BRS to use BR for long distance transportation of freight.

[@oadka]

Next day container delivery???? wow

[@neiloflongbeck5705]

@@oadka according go the Beeching report the average time in transit was 1.5 to 2 days with an average journey distance of 67 miles, so while next day or same delivery was possible it wasn't achieved in the majority of cases. One cause of delays was the marshalling and remarshalling of trains. The report also states that the average wagon spent 11.9 days between loadings.

[@jasonreed7522]

@@neiloflongbeck5705 im sure "next day delivery" was a premium option you could get. But it does help that Britain is a tiny island about the size of Michigan. And average trip of 67miles confirms as much, actual transit time wouldn't be very high (going at 40mph would get you to most destinations in under 2hrs) so all of the savings would need to be done in sorting and loading/unloading of containers. Of course for low priority goods like grain or coal you can leave the wagons in a sorting station for a couple weeks and build up a longer more efficient train and this is one of rail's most common good types to move. (Bulky low value density goods like coal, ore, grain, ect that the buyer will never be in critical need for) If you really need something fast a truck or plane will do but i doubt Britain has much need for internal cargo planes when loading probably takes longer than the flight itself.

[@neiloflongbeck5705]

@@jasonreed7522 there were parcels services that gave a next day delivery but most freight services were not next day delivery. Coal was one of the problem freight loads with the NCB using BR's wagons as out head storage and not paying for the privilege. Funny you should mention grain as that was by the end of the 1960s one of the few overnight freight flows in the UK from East Anglia to Scotland. As for speeds unfitted trains were limited to 25mph, semi-fitted trains were limited to either 35mph or 45mph depending on the number of fitted wagons and fully-fitted were limited to 60mph. The air-braked Freightliner container trains could run at upto 75mph, but these didn't come in until after Beeching.

[@neilLLLLL]

I watched this video the first time and had no idea what was going on because I didn't know what a wage-on was... and then it clicked, he was saying wagon the whole time. Went back and watched it again swapping wage-on for wag-on and it makes perfect sense now 🤣. It's wag, like a dog wags his tail, wagon ✌️🤠

[@raybin6873]

I can almost understand this.😄

[@Mirage5892]

One thing I'm curious about. How do they prevent the airbrakes from engaging and it stopping the wagons during the humping process? Unless I'm misunderstanding how they operate. Wouldn't uncoupling the wagons drop the air pressure and cause the brakes to kick in?

[@dannyCOTW]

You are correct. Normally when switching the cars in a yard the air is totally bled off, leaving the brakes on the wagons fully released.

[@ScepticPJ]

@@dannyCOTW Is it not the air pressure that keeps the brakes disengaged? I thought that was how air brakes worked.

[@jimskinner9234]

Air brakes on a train work opposite from trucks. Air pressure on a truck keeps brakes off. Air pressure on a train applies the brakes.

[@B-and-O-Operator-Fairmont]

@@jimskinner9234 That would be air pressure from the car reservoirs. A reduction of air in the train line (brake pipe) initiated by the engineer using the brake valve causes the car control valve to admit air into the brake cylinder from the car reservoir. In case of a failure in the trainline (busted hose, accidental uncoupling) or the engineer making an emergency application, ALL of the air in the train line shoots almost instantly and all of the air stored in the reservoirs dump into the brake cylinders. That is what makes the automatic air brake "fail-safe". It is also true that the cylinder air can and probably will bleed off, so it is often prudent to set a few hand brakes to keep things from rolling away if a recharge and departure will take more than a few minutes, especially on grades.

[@fredact]

I don't understand the purpose of the separate departure area. What is that used for that couldn't happen in the classification area?

[@milosstanojevic5834]

Good job 👏

[@RailwaysExplained]

Thank you very much!

[@ChuckSannel]

Oh fudge that is a huge ammount of rails!

[@Владислав-ю5ч4г]

In next time, want to know, who manage this process and which the program are use?

[@jamesherrick3751]

Please do more like this

[@cliffwoodbury5319]

CAN U DO A VIDEO EXPLAINING THE INFINITY LOOP YARD

[@adamchurvis1]

This is fascinating. If it were up to me, I would build a grand-scale model railroad that was a functioning Marshalling Yard. I wonder: since these were all designed many years before modern electronics and computer technology were born, have there been any futuristic ideas regarding newer, higher-tech Marshalling Yards?

[@simonpender8331]

Very good, thank you

[@olivier2553]

And in French it is called "sorting yard" which is very self explanatory.

[@michaelteasdill6410]

Great Video - For some reason, everytime WAGONS was said I heard VEGANS - Isnt that funny

[@whiteknightcat]

I'm glad I wasn't the only one!

[@niltonlacle]

Yeah... The author could've at least checked with Google how to say "wagon" the correct way in English. Good tip for next time.

[@gedias1]

Conjunction Junction, part 2.

[@neiloflongbeck5705]

Say US but shows a UK shunter applying the wagon brakes.

[@sjcsystems]

Very interesting

[@TDCflyer]

There is *ONE THING* you have to change about this format: The opening jingle is *WAY TOO LOUD!!!*

[@chrism4008]

That's really cool!!

[@baliharsingh2315]

Good job bro bless you

[@RailwaysExplained]

Thank you

[@spbalance]

I feel like I am getting flight safety instructions

[@filanfyretracker]

the yard system sounds a lot like airports in the hub and spoke system, Smaller aircraft feed hubs and bigger aircraft go between hubs. I feel like as we buy ever more crap online these yards will only get busier, Because even UPS Ground puts their trailers on trains for certain distances, I have even seen Amazon trailers on a train.

[@0mn0mable]

Hey, I just found your channel with this vid and I really liked it! 🚂

[@RailwaysExplained]

Welcome aboard!

[@MADHIKER777]

Well explained video!

[@Mizai]

this looks nice

[@Camionetadelapuebla]

What about spanish railway?

[@RailwaysExplained]

Will be very soon

[@Bammer2001]

Does this remind you of that in Resident Evil 2? 😁

[@kartoffsun]

Took me 10 minutes to figure out what vegans he was talking about. :D Great video tho!

[@robopup1]

Another name used in the US is drop yard.

[@RailwaysExplained]

Thanks for the information 🙂

[@Aesir5]

@8:40 sounds like my teen years

[@GeorgeLiquor]

We call them hump yards in the US, and I'm glad I didn't hire out of one

[@odiliusrailfans]

Why Japan Korea Tunnel hasn't explained?

[@ricardovelasco3976]

Very interesting and useful, even though I still wonder what are those "vagens" he talks about.

[@Izhual1]

Nice video! What are the sources for your this video? Is there maybe a ‘behind the scenes’ for your work? I would be interested in that

[@B-and-O-Operator-Fairmont]

The late E. Hunter Harrison would have bulldozed ALL of these hump yards.

[@dragan4600]

Super video momci, da li ste diplomirali na Saobraćajnom fakultetu?

[@RailwaysExplained]

Hvala puno. Jesmo 🙂

[@dragan4600]

@@RailwaysExplained Samo nastavite ovako, odličan je kanal! Konačno neko ko će da priča o železnici i njenim potencijalima. Nadajmo se da će se i kod nas sve više razvijati ovaj vid saobraćaja, jer ima ogroman potencijal i ima mnogo da se radi. Pozdrav od kolege sa SFa. 👍💯👏😎

[@clevelandarearailfan]

The nearest classification yard to my house is in Bellevue Ohio USA 70 miles from my house