Montour American. (Danville, Pa.) 1866-1920, 1910-03-31
NEW YARDS WILL
Be IMMENSE

Leveling farms that for years have
supplied produce to the cities, cutting
away huge hills and filling valleys, the
Pennsylvania Railroad company is
transforming the country adjacent to
the little town of Northumberland in
to one of the largest and most COM
plete and modern railroad classitica-
tion yards in the United States.
The completion of the yard will
greatly facilitate the movement. of
traffic through Sunbury, where four
divisions of the company's lines now
converge, the old yard at that place
being found inadequate for the in
crease of freight traffic. The shifting
and classifying of cars at Sunbury
have to be done on tracks which are
crossed at grade by number of i'm
portant streets, thus preventing the
enlargement of the present yard. The
maximum movement at Sunbury has
been as high as 1000 cars day.
The new yard work ON which was
started last July, will probbaly be COM
pleted next December. At the present
time between 2200 and 25O0 men are
employed showing the magnitude of
the construction. 1t is necessary to re-
move 1000, 900 cubic yards of dirt.
| But little rock has been encountered.
! The construction work also involves
$4,000 cubic yards of bridge and cul-
vert masonry, the change in location
| of a public road, one and one-half
miles long, the erection of thirty
six-stall round house, power house,
machine shop. transfer shed and some
smaller buildings.
! The yard, which will cost, when COM
plete in the neighborhood of 81, O0O,
600 will be three miles long and one
| half wide, changing fertile and wood
ed district into one great level plain
of steel rail and yard equipment. The
yard is eighty and 100 tracks wide, of
which it contains eighty miles, the
total area covered being about 700
acres.
1t will contain yard house with
storage for 100 locomotives. storage
room for 1870 cabins, a coaling station
with a capacity of 1000 tons day,
freight transfer shed 80 by 600 feet,
cal repair shops, a power plant for
furnishing light and air for operating
switches and testing trains, standing
capacity for $500 cars and receiving,
classification and departure yards.
The following points of superiority
over all the other yards in the United
States are noted. Arranging engines
without turning; freight classification
and advance yard keeping the cars
steadily in motion; arrangements
whereby cars going i'll opposite direc-
tions may be turned so as to be placed
ON receiving tracks going in correct
direction.
1t said that the yard, when complet-
ed next fall, will show a fill of forty
feet at its highest point, the "hump.
The object of this is to "shuffle" cars
and form solid trains for the same de-
stination or trains made up as near
solid as possible.
There will be an eastern and western
receiving yard, an eastern and western
classification yard and an eastern and
western departure yard in the one
composite yard.
Trains will be brought into the re-
ceiving yard at either end and the
road engines cut loose. The train will
then be taken in tow by yard engine
and a crew of cutters and riders and
pushed over the hump Each car will
be marked, and when it is cut loose
the incline from the hump will cause
it to run down grade. An operator in
the yard tower, noticing the destina-
tion of the car from the mark, may,
by pushing button, turn the right
switch by means of pneumatic pres
sure and send the car to the train
where it is desired. The system is the
most modern known and will include
new wrinkles in the classification of
cars.
That the new yard will be boon to
Northumberland is certain. The peo-
pie are of opinion that the town will
spring into a city 1t is not known for
a certainty whether the shops will be
moved from Sunbury to the site of the
new yards.
1t is understood that a number of
industrial plants are figuring on est
| ablishing at Sunbury when the remov-
al of the yards across the Susquehanna
is made AT the present time the rail
road occupies a section that has grown
rapidly and the shuffing" of cars
across the city streets will lessen the
danger that now turks in that vicinity
for the pedestrian. The daily average
for the movement of cars at Sunbury
in 1907 totaled 2790.
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