The yardmaster is a railroad employee in charge of a

rail yard A rail yard, railway yard, railroad yard (US) or simply yard, is a series of Track (rail transport), tracks in a rail network for storing, sorting, or loading and unloading rail vehicles and locomotives. Yards have many tracks in parallel for k ...

. Duties involve managing and coordinating all activities in combining

rolling stock The term rolling stock in the rail transport industry refers to railway vehicles, including both powered and unpowered vehicles: for example, locomotives, Railroad car#Freight cars, freight and Passenger railroad car, passenger cars (or coaches) ...

into trains, breaking down trains into individual railroad cars, and switching trains from track to track in the

. In the

United States of America The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguo ...

, yardmasters are eligible to join the Railroad Yardmasters of America.

Notable former yardmasters in the U.S.

Al Alquist Alfred E. Alquist (August 2, 1908 – March 27, 2006) was an American politician who was a California State Senate, California state senator from 1976 to 1996. Biography Born in 1908 in Memphis, Tennessee, the son of a Sweden, Swedish immigrant ...

at the

Southern Pacific Railroad The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials) was an American Railroad classes#Class I, Class I Rail transport, railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was oper ...

* Walter Ellsworth Bachman, Sr. (1879–1958) at the

Lehigh Valley Railroad The Lehigh Valley Railroad was a railroad in the Northeastern United States built predominantly to haul anthracite, anthracite coal from the Coal Region in Northeastern Pennsylvania to major consumer markets in Philadelphia, New York City, and ...

* John Walker Barriger III (1899–1976) assistant yardmaster at the

Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad ( reporting mark PRR), legal name as the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, also known as the "Pennsy," was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At its ...

* George B. Swan * Leon Weitgenant (1997- present) at the

BNSF Railway BNSF Railway is the largest freight railroad in the United States. One of six North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 36,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and over 8,000 locomotives. It has three Transcontinental railroad, transcontine ...

References

External links

Yardmaster information
from

United Transportation Union The United Transportation Union (UTU) was a broad-based, transportation labor Trade union, union that represented about 70,000 active and retired railroad, bus, mass transit, and airline workers in the United States. The UTU was headquartered in C ...

Rail yards {{rail-transport-stub