Probly a dumb question, but

Could sumone tell me what a hump yard is? I havent the slightest clue!
Thanks in advance.

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RE: Probly a dumb question, but...., dpabrams, Dec-03-03, 02:01 AM, (1) RE: Probly a dumb question, but...., Newton Kid, Dec-03-03, 09:38 AM, (2) RE: Probly a dumb question, but...., CPR_Malice_96th, Dec-03-03, 10:02 AM, (3) RE: Probly a dumb question, but...., TomBeevers2000, Dec-03-03, 11:58 AM, (4) RE: Probly a dumb question, but...., davereage, Dec-05-03, 11:40 PM, (19) RE: Probly a dumb question, but...., DJShepley, Dec-03-03, 02:38 PM, (5) RE: Probly a dumb question, but...., andrewpickell, Dec-03-03, 02:40 PM, (6) RE: Probly a dumb question, but...., mquist, Dec-03-03, 03:33 PM, (7) RE: Probly a dumb question, but...., Stooopid_person, Dec-04-03, 02:43 AM, (8) RE: Probly a dumb question, but...., Tim Frost, Dec-04-03, 09:04 AM, (9) RE: Probly a dumb question, but...., henry3, Dec-04-03, 10:20 AM, (10) RE: Probly a dumb question, but...., Boweavel, Dec-04-03, 11:59 AM, (11) RE: Probly a dumb question, but...., Jonatan, Dec-04-03, 12:27 PM, (12) RE: Probly a dumb question, but...., truckboy1252, Dec-05-03, 00:20 AM, (13) RE: Probly a dumb question, but...., hhdawrs, Dec-05-03, 02:49 AM, (14) RE: Probly a dumb question, but...., Hack, Dec-05-03, 07:38 AM, (15) RE: Probly a dumb question, but...., pwillard, Dec-05-03, 09:41 AM, (16) RE: Probly a dumb question, but...., PatchCrew, Dec-05-03, 08:15 PM, (17) RE: Probly a dumb question, but...., erniep, Dec-05-03, 08:53 PM, (18)

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It's where boy trains go to meet girl trains and make little trains.Seriously, it’s a series of switches on a grade that allow for the use of gravity to send cars down the track. A string of cars is typically rolled down a grade and switched onto several other sidings in order to sort and create new consists.Pete

*(Pedro-Built)*

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Truckboy,A hump yard starts with a large hill at one end of a freight yard. The hill is normally man made. On one side are normally several very long tracks, one to two miles in length. On the other side is the switch yard. All the switches are contolled from a central point. Also on many of the track are "retarders". The purpose of the retarders is to slow the cars being "humped" down.The basic sequence of operations is:
Several engines, normally geared very low with speed control, pull a long string of cars that are going to be humped out of the yard. They then push the string of cars up the hump hill. At the top of the hill someone pulls the pin on the coupler. There is also a person or more commonly now a device that detects the car identificaion number. That number is then sent to a computer which determines which track the car needs to be sent to. The computer will then align the switches to get the car to that track. As the car rolls down the hump there are speed sensors which determine how fast the car is accelerating. As the car passes a retarder, which are deployed agains the back side of the wheels, the car is slowed down by a predetermined amount. The speed and retarding cycle can run several times before the car gets on the designated track. If done properly, the car rolls right up to the cars on the track and couples. If not done properly the car can stop before it gets to the designated track or can hit the other cars so hard that it derails something. The problems that can develop are one reason you see some cars with placards which say "DO NOT HUMP".Humps are interesting to watch for a while as a good crew and system may have two or three cars moving at the same time. The are also very dangerous as the cars are almost silent as they move along the track.Also, I do not consider this a dumb question. One of the main purposes of this forum is communication.

Newton Kid

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LMAO @ PeteLaterTim Kent
96th_Malice
" Power for You "

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These days they're all gone IIRC. There used to be a huge one at Carlisle Kingmoor though, the yard now lies in near-total disuse (though DRS use it a little IIRC).--
Tom Beevers
http://brj.rr.nu

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>The problems that can
>develop are one reason you see some cars with placards which
>say "DO NOT HUMP". And all this time I thought it was to keep overzealous foamers from doing something unnatural!

Dave Reage
Halifax, Canada

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A thing of the past!

Best Regards...Don Shepley

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Since when Don? Lots of hump yards are still active, at least up here in the frozen wastelands above the 49th.- Andrew

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Very definatly not a thing of the past. Humps are very efficient and most of the major railroads will drag a car several hunder miles out of its way to use a hump yard rather than classify it at a flat hard. The BNSF Hump yard at Northtown in the Twin Cities is very busy with a large arrival yard feeding a hump with a steady stream of cars being sorted into some 36 bowl tracks with two or three switch locos pulling cuts to build outbound trains. A lot of early humps have been removed because of railroad consolidations and because some of the early ones lacked modern automation features. Most long haul cars will be homed once or twice during its one way routing. About the only cars not humped are unit trains which require no switching and cars which can not be humped such as container cars, autombile transporters, TOFC, tank and coverd hoppers with HAZMAT cargos, heavy load cars (flats with heavy equipment). Be Seeing you.
Michael

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>About the only cars not humped are unit trains which require
>no switching and cars which can not be humped such as
>container cars, autombile transporters, TOFC, tank and
>coverd hoppers with HAZMAT cargos, heavy load cars (flats
>with heavy equipment). And also the Acela JetTrain!

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Most passenger trains have no need to be humped anyways. They're short enough that assembling them on a flat is really rather trivial.Tim Frost
The Union Atlantic Railroad: Your stuff's important!

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LAST EDITED ON Dec-04-03 AT 10:55 AM (EST)

Even though there are still a number of hump yards in use in North America today, their numbers have been in a steady decline over the last 40 years. I can only think of only two operating hump yards in the entire state of Texas, and they're both now on the UP.In addition to oversize/overweight loads, regulations prohibit processing certain types of loads over the hump. LPG comes to mind as an example of such a load.Henry<Editied to make sense>

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One word.. "Maschen" http://www.trackplanning.com/photos/maschen.htmIts a bloody monster of a hump yard Click on the link 'Sorting Sequence' to see a series of images of rolling stock being 'humped'.Catchya's

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LAST EDITED ON Dec-04-03 AT 12:28 PM (EST)

>It's where boy trains go to meet girl trains and make little trains.ROFLMAO! Hilerious, just hilerious!Why do I think of Thomas the tank engine and Lady the golden engine all of a sudden? LOL/JonatanSteam rules!

Never trust computers. If you do, they will betray you.Keep those "diseasels" away from me!

My E-mail jonatan.gronoset@telia.com

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ok thanks for the help and remember class theres no such thing as a stupid question just stupid people!

There's no replacement for dicplacement!!!
If it ain't rear-wheel-drive it's WRONG-wheel-drive!
Friggin'
Rear
End
Device

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Like Henry says, carefully manage your load when humping in the yard, particularly in the presence of gas.Herb

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>carefully manage your load when humping in the yard, particularly in the presence of gas. Hehe - I'm not going to touch this one. Cheers!
Marc - 3DTrains
http://www.3dtrains.comPro Series SuperPacks

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ROFL!!!! HAHA ---> I'm not going to touch this one.Yup... no need. It's perfect.Pete Willard


http://www.trainsimstuff.com for beta releases, fonts, and project news.

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In addition to oversize/overweight loads, regulations prohibit processing certain types of loads over the hump. LPG comes to mind as an example of such a load.Really? That's funny because I see "hundreds" of tank cars loaded with Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) humped over Union Pacific's West Colton hump yard daily. There is no restriction on humping LPG cars.and cars which can not be humped such as container cars, autombile transporters, TOFC, tank and coverd hoppers with HAZMAT cargos, heavy load cars (flats with heavy equipment).Sorry but that's not entirely true either. At West Colton we "regularly" hump intermodal flats, single platform stack cars, and articulated stacks that are mixed in cuts with other freight cars. Of course there would be no need to hump an entire intermodal train but if intermodal equipment is mixed with other freight cars it gets humped. The same is true for autoracks. These cars are humped regularly. And there is absolutely no restriction on humping cars loaded with hazardous materials with the exception of cars loaded with explosives. Now flat cars with heavy equipment and high/wide loads are humped (or not humped) on a case by case basis. One type of load you never see humped would be large electrical equipment on depressed center flats. Anything else is fair game to get humped. There are no restrictions for the above mentioned freight cars.As for hump yards in decline, yes there are less hump yards than 20 years ago but that is because some hump yards were converted to intermodal yards and others were closed outright but many still survive and will for as long as the railroad(s) survive.PatchCrew
UP Engineer

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I've humped unit trains also. Every once in a while they hump a coal train to weigh each car. After they are uncoupled at the crest of the hill, they roll over the scales on the way down. in order to weigh them properly, they cannot be coupled to anything, so it's all single car cuts. cheers,
Ernie

It's good to be a snake in the grass...

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