That is one empty yard.....
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I wonder how long it will be before most of those tracks are removed.
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| Posted by on October 31, 2017 | |
Unmistakenly Bluefield! There's 3 less yard tracks now, no CPL's and those yard lights are gone too, and the bridge to nowhere in the background now too.
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I'll bet this rail yard was sight to be seen back in the hey day of steam and coal!
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| Posted by on October 31, 2017 | |
RE: "that's one big empty yard". Not really telling the whole story.
This is the extreme East end of the yard where it funnelled down from 9 tracks (7 yard tracks and 2 main tracks) to two main tracks. You never saw trains on these tracks unless they were coming into the yard or exiting the yard, or if occasionally one or two tracks were used as car storage.
Bluefield yard was always a huge crew-change yard. Not much freight was ever actually classified here, it held (mostly) coal trains awaiting a re-crew, or in some cases broke up exceedingly large empty hopper trains to forward on to mine jobs up the C-V or Pokey. So a lot of the time, yeah, the tracks were empty, but the capacity was in place to swap out several large unit coal trains at a time in each direction. In the steam days, also power would be swapped out here (Y's for A's Eastbound, A's for Y's Westbound) and serviced here.
Now, the 3 center tracks have been removed, just not needed anymore, but there's still plenty of capacity. This picture was taken in 1994 if you notice.
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