Enola Yard is a large

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

located in East Pennsboro Township, Pennsylvania, along the western shore of the Susquehanna River at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Built in 1905 and expanded through the 1930s, Enola was the world's largest

freight Cargo consists of bulk goods conveyed by water, air, or land. In economics, freight is cargo that is transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. ''Cargo'' was originally a shipload but now covers all types of freight, including tran ...

yard in 1956. It remains in operation today, though it has long since been eclipsed in size and traffic, first by

Conway Yard Conway Yard (also known as Conway Terminal) is a major rail yard located in the boroughs of Conway and Freedom, Pennsylvania, northwest of Pittsburgh, along the Ohio River. It was the largest freight yard in the world from 1956 until 1980.Edwin K ...

outside Pittsburgh and later by

Bailey Yard Bailey Yard is the world’s largest railroad classification yard. Employees sort, service and repair locomotives and cars headed all across North America. Owned and operated by the Union Pacific Railroad (UP), Bailey Yard is located in North ...

in Nebraska.

History

The yard was built by the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) in 1905 with two

hump The mountains and hills of the British Isles are categorised into various lists based on different combinations of elevation, prominence, and other criteria such as isolation. These lists are used for peak bagging, whereby hillwalkers attempt ...

classification yard A classification yard (American and Canadian English (Canadian National Railway use)), marshalling yard ( British, Hong Kong, Indian, Australian, and Canadian English (Canadian Pacific Railway use)) or shunting yard (Central Europe) is a railway ...

s. Initially, the yard processed 7,000

cars A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, Car seat, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport private transport#Personal transport, people in ...

per day. The westbound complex had a 20-track receiving yard and 25 classification tracks; the eastbound, a 21-track receiving yard and 17 classification tracks. There were no separate departure yards. By the late 1920s, Enola encompassed 316 acres and had a capacity of 9,692 cars. Service buildings included a 43-stall roundhouse and a steel car shop. A 240-car yard to handle container freight was added to the complex in 1932.Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, Harrisburg, PA (1997). "Enola Yard: A Brief History." Brochure. Starting with the eastbound hump in 1938, the PRR rebuilt the component yards and installed automatic retarders. The eastbound yard was

electrified Electrification is the process of powering by electricity and, in many contexts, the introduction of such power by changing over from an earlier power source. The broad meaning of the term, such as in the history of technology, economic history ...

with 11,000-volt

alternating current Alternating current (AC) is an electric current which periodically reverses direction and changes its magnitude continuously with time in contrast to direct current (DC) which flows only in one direction. Alternating current is the form in whic ...

(AC) service. (''See''

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.) The average daily traffic load in 1939 was 11,207 cars, rising as

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

approached to 14,100 daily cars in October 1941. The yard's one-day record was 20,660 cars in June 1943. In 1944, the westbound complex was rebuilt with 16 receiving tracks (enough to hold 1,721 cars) and 35 classification tracks, followed by the eastbound complex with 15 receiving tracks (enough to hold 1,948 cars) and 33 classification tracks. Each had a hump yard that could hold 2,668 cars. The

engine house __NOTOC__ An engine house is a building or other structure that holds one or more engines. It is often practical to bring engines together for common maintenance, as when train locomotives are brought together. Types of engine houses include: * m ...

at mid-century had 46 stalls and two

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. A diesel locomotive shop was added in the late 1940s. In 1953, the yard comprised 145 miles of track and 476

switches In electrical engineering, a switch is an electrical component that can disconnect or connect the conducting path in an electrical circuit, interrupting the electric current or diverting it from one conductor to another. The most common type of ...

and handled 11,000 cars per day. In the 1950s, PRR rebuilt

near

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsylva ...

, which upon its reopening in 1959 became the railroad's major yard for east-west traffic. Traffic at Enola Yard declined. In 1976, Conrail took over operation of Enola Yard, whose traffic declined as Conrail began to route more trains over nearby tracks of the former

Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of letters, symbols, etc., especially by sight or touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process involving such areas as word recognition, orthography (spelling ...

and

Lehigh Valley The Lehigh Valley (), known colloquially as The Valley, is a geographic region formed by the Lehigh River in Lehigh County and Northampton County in eastern Pennsylvania. It is a component valley of the Great Appalachian Valley bound to the no ...

rail lines. In 1983, Conrail removed electrification equipment and closed the eastbound hump yard; it closed the westbound hump yard in 1993. The steel car shop closed in 1996.

Current operation

The yard is currently owned by the Norfolk Southern Railway (NS), which has operated a flat classification yard and increased operations since taking over from Conrail in 1999. In 2003, NS announced plans to resume hump yard operations.Harrisburg's historic Enola Yard is railroad hub
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, press release. 2003-10-13. Retrieved 2010-05-26. As of 2005, the yard was operating 79 tracks and handled 275,000 tons of freight a day.

References

External links

* Enola Classification Yard Track Diagrams as of: *
1963
*

{{Susquehanna Valley Railroads Conrail Norfolk Southern Railway Penn Central Transportation Pennsylvania Railroad Rail yards in Pennsylvania Transportation buildings and structures in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania

History

Current operation

See also

References

External links