Patent ID: 8302535

Claim:
A method for transferring railroad cars from incoming receiving tracks to classification tracks for building outgoing trains, the method comprising: a) providing a railroad yard comprising: a plurality of incoming receiving tracks; a plurality of outgoing classification tracks; and at least two transfer tables for moving railroad cars from the incoming receiving tracks to designated outgoing classification tracks, each transfer table having a plurality of track segments; b) receiving incoming railroad cars on a plurality of incoming receiving tracks; c) uncoupling a first car from a next following car on each of the plurality of incoming receiving tracks having cars; d) moving the uncoupled first car from each of the plurality of incoming receiving tracks onto a corresponding track segment onto a first transfer table, whereby the next following car becomes a first car on the incoming track until there are no more following cars; e) moving the cars on the first transfer table to a second transfer table; f) moving the second transfer table to align a selected track segment with a classification track for the corresponding railroad car on that track segment and transferring the car to the classification track; g) continuing to move and align the second transfer table track segments with classification tracks for the corresponding railroad car on that track segment of the second transfer table as set forth in step f) until each railroad car has been transferred to a classification track; h) while steps f) and g) are being performed, transferring the next first cars from the receiving tracks to the first transfer table; and i) repeating steps c) through h) until only one car remains on the incoming receiving tracks and repeating steps d) through g) for the last car so that all of the cars on the incoming receiving tracks have been classified and transferred to classification tracks or held back for later transfer.