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 Company (UP), Bailey Yard is located in North Platte, Nebraska. The yard is named after former Union Pacific president Edd H. Bailey.
Facilities
Bailey Yard is halfway between Denver and Omaha. and 17 receiving and 16 departure tracks. Union Pacific employs more than 2,600 people in North Platte, The bowl tracks are used to form trains headed for destinations across North America, including the East, West and Gulf coasts of the United States, and Canadian and Mexican borders.
The yard also includes 3 locomotive fueling and servicing centers called eastbound run thru, westbound run thru, and a service track that handles more than 8,500 locomotives per month, a locomotive repair shop that can repair 750 locomotives monthly,
Locomotives can be serviced in a NASCAR-like pit stop facility called a Run-Thru staffed by five different crafts—an electrician, machinist, fireman, oiler, and car inspector.
Because of the enormous amount of products that pass through Bailey Yard, Union Pacific describes the yard as an “economic barometer of America.” The early yard was a flat-switched yard with 20 tracks. After 105 years, passenger service was discontinued in 1971. Bailey Yard was updated after World War II in 1948 as a hump yard with 42 tracks. Another hump yard with 64 tracks was added in 1968, followed by a diesel locomotive shop in 1971, and a railroad car shop in 1974. In 1980, the 1948 hump yard was replaced with a new 50-track yard.