02-24-2009, 03:58 PM
If your railroad is a short line, the classification yard would probably be separate from the interchange track which is where your railroad makes connections to the outside world. I say "probably" because my railroad is the Los Angeles Junction Railway which is a subsidiary of the Santa Fe first and now of the BNSF. They have three yards on the railroad which occupies approx 10 square miles in the cities of Vernon and City of Commerce. The A &B yards are in Vernon and the C yard is in the City of Commerce. Their interchange tracks are the yards. In the old days, the S.P., S.F., & U.P. would just drop cuts of cars in one of the LAJ's yards and the LAJ would deliver the cars accordingly. The LAJ would then deliver cuts of cars to go out to Hobart Yard for the S.F., Main Street Yard for the S.P. or Washington St. Yard fro the U.P. Now of course, the U.P. has taken over the S.P. and Main Street Yard is no more. Hobart Yard is now BNSF property, so the LAJ delivers BNSF freight to Hobart and U.P. freight to the Washington Street Yard. Both of those yards are primarily intermodal, so I think BNSF hauls a mixed train from Hobart to Barstow where the freight is classified for trains going all over the country. I think U.P. does their classification at Colton Yard near San Bernardino and actually close by the California Speedway, but I'm not sure on that point because a don't know much about the U.P.