New Britain herald., 1917-08-22

freight for points on the east end of the system. power and crews were changed at Midway. With the gradual development of the system and of other lines. notably the Central New England route via the Poughkeepsie Bridge, the handling of freight became more complex and difficult Yards and terminals were built or enlarged as the demands of individual sections Or centers grew. The purpose of such yards and terminals, however, is to handle primarily the business local to their location, that is, traffic which fB destined to or which originates at the point where the yard is located.
 Avalanche in 1915.
 With the enormous and unprece- dented increase in business that de- veloped in the latter part of 1915, there was proportionate increase in the burden thrown upon these local yards and terminals. Before this in- crease Tn business developed, the New f1aven mad lying idle a large percen- tage of its freight car and locomo- tive equipment that had been put in thorough repair. At that time had | anyone predicted a 10 or 20 per cent increase in business, both business men and railroad officials would have been extremely doubtful. But the New Haven would have been ready and could have handled easily such ! an increase. But the expansion, when 1 it came, was extraordinary. In, many places in New England business was | more than doubled Terminals and yards had to be enlarged in quick order. But even such measures did not keep pace with the growth in business and the demand for railway facilities. As result yards and ter minals became overcrowded, trains were held up at the gateways, which in turn became congested, and em- bargoes had to be resorted to-
 l It soon became apparent to the New Haven officials that revolution ary methods of handling freight in ] New England had to be evolved. The | Montowese Yard is the result. In stead of crowding local terminals and yards and instead of delaying cars at the gateways and enforcing embar- l goes, trains will be sent into Monto- wese Yard from all directions where the cars will be classified and sorted and sent out in trains to the gate ways, if westbound, and to the local l y l New England points.
 The Montowese yard will be of the | hump type. There will be two dis tinct sections. one for eastbound and northbound traffic, and the other for south and westbound traffic. Each section will have three clusters of tracks. The first cluster will be the receiving yard into which arriving trains pull in. The tracks in the receiving cluster will practically elim- mate the standing of freight trains in the cuts and on the main line, both east and west of the New Haven sta ton. It will also prevent delay tc freight trains at other points in the vicinity of New Haven. The nex1 cluster is known as the classification yard There will be about 25 tracks in the east and northbound cluster and 15 in the west and southbounc cluster. They will be short tracks into which cars will be delivered by cutting them off at the hump at the apex of this yard and letting then drop into the various tracks by gray. ity Each track in these two classi
 fcation clusters will represent single
 classification.
 The third cluster is what is knowr as the departure yard. After beint classified the cars are switched into this yard from the classification clus
 ter are made up into trains, caboose
 attached, inspection made, outbound
 record of car numbers and seal