Willard hump has been closed

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atrainguy60
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Willard hump has been closed

Unread post by atrainguy60 »

Willard is no longer a hump yard. This leaves Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Selkirk, and Waycross. If I'm understanding EHH's comment right, they will probably be untouched.

http://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/20 ... ump-closed

admin edit: Updated the title of this thread to add "hump."

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AARR
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Re: Willard has been closed

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Will they continue flat yard switching at Willard?
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atrainguy60
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Re: Willard has been closed

Unread post by atrainguy60 »

Sounds like it. It's described as the latest yard to be converted to a flat switching facility.

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Re: Willard hump has been closed

Unread post by SousaKerry »

Sad sad day, not too long ago they expanded that yard. I have many a fond memory sitting on the foot bridge over the main next to the East bound hump watching endless streams of cars being shoved over the hump. This was in the 90's when as long as you weren't doing anything stupid nobody cared if you were there. If memory serves me this is quite a high hump, not nearly as high as Bellevue but a pretty good size hill none the less. It would take considerable work to remove it. Unless they just plan to use the trim end.
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hoborich
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Re: Willard hump has been closed

Unread post by hoborich »

Ummm, how do they save money by flat switching instead of humping? Those hump yards were built for a reason.
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Saturnalia
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Re: Willard hump has been closed

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hoborich wrote:Ummm, how do they save money by flat switching instead of humping? Those hump yards were built for a reason.
Because now instead of needing to hump 1400 cars a day you only need to class a small fraction of that since you now pre-block your trains. So it is cheaper to have the originating terminals class and block the traffic, then have that traffic only block-swap at midpoints instead of hump, than to hump a car everytime it passes a hump yard, the way CSX used to do it.
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SousaKerry
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Re: Willard hump has been closed

Unread post by SousaKerry »

Because now instead of needing to hump 1400 cars a day you only need to class a small fraction of that since you now pre-block your trains. So it is cheaper to have the originating terminals class and block the traffic, then have that traffic only block-swap at midpoints instead of hump, than to hump a car everytime it passes a hump yard, the way CSX used to do it.
Well considering the hump in Willard goes back to B&O days I think your statement about how they used to do it is a bit off. The entire reason why Willard was where it was is so that it could block trains coming from multiple origination points for multiple destinations. And get this work out of the big city yards where they had no time or space to do this work. The major cost of a hump yard is not labor, it is the plant itself. Remember everything in a hump is automated and it has to work 100% of the time if one key switch machine or retarder goes down the entire yard shuts down. Flat switching has higher labor but much less equipment to maintain as most of you switches are now manual or can be hand thrown without power if a motor goes down.

My guess would be that all the hump equipment will be mothballed in place in case things don't work out and they need to turn it all back on quickly.
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Saturnalia
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Re: Willard hump has been closed

Unread post by Saturnalia »

SousaKerry wrote:
Because now instead of needing to hump 1400 cars a day you only need to class a small fraction of that since you now pre-block your trains. So it is cheaper to have the originating terminals class and block the traffic, then have that traffic only block-swap at midpoints instead of hump, than to hump a car everytime it passes a hump yard, the way CSX used to do it.
Well considering the hump in Willard goes back to B&O days I think your statement about how they used to do it is a bit off. The entire reason why Willard was where it was is so that it could block trains coming from multiple origination points for multiple destinations.
We all know how hump operations work. That is NOT the question at all.

The whole point is that CSX is cutting costs by avoiding the humps, versus as previously where they used to basically funnel all of their traffic to every hump they passed. Traffic from GR to Upstate New York would have passed over the humps at Stanley, Willard, and Selkirk. That is a huge waste of time and cost, in Harrison's eyes...and I agree with him.

So the point isn't that humping is expensive. Humping itself isn't the enemy, it is more the wasted time when you hump cars more than once, maybe twice, while travelling your system. The cars save so much time when blocked that it reduces costs in no only car hire, but carmen and the rest who at hump yards have to bleed the air, and then put it all back together for a class one airtest. Block pickups and setouts, done with air on the cut, is a set, release, and run, in many cases.

Humping has its time and place...but CSX had way too many humps and with the new blocking montra, the need for Willard to hump is completely gone. Harrison is on record saying anything less than 1400 cars per day shouldn't have a hump. Willard fit that perfectly, with the new changes in place.
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hoborich
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Re: Willard hump has been closed

Unread post by hoborich »

OK. Given the drive to save costs, will the hump be removed, with all the costs of removal, or just bypassed?
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Re: Willard hump has been closed

Unread post by northstar16 »

if YOU read the CSX quarterly report in length Harrison is all about cutting. It is all about the shareholder keeping them happy means cut the slack. Cutting jobs, longer trains, cutting yards and yes hump yards. Meanwhile customers are not happy with wait times as they cannot get their goods on time. This is really becoming a issue one that CSX hasn't had but NS has had for over a year. NS has figured it out yet CSX has not just yet. Harrison is going to address this next month.

Harrison wants to shake up the top guys at the company as he see too much BS and not enough productivity. I would think heads are going to roll here soon as a new group of people will be hired in positions. It already started today!

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