Sunday, February 28, 2016

Lincoln, NE: BNSF/CB&Q Hobson Railyard


This is the classification and locomotive service yard. On the northeast side of town is BNSF's Havelock Shops.  I also have notes on the depot.

Gary Binder posted
Here's another vintage view of the CB&Q hump yard and freight facilities at Lincoln, NE. Again we are looking east across the yard. The white building in the center distance is the ice house. Notice the clean ATSF boxcar and the meat reefers in the yard. Photo by W.E.Haydon, R.L. Schmeling Collection
[Note the string of at least five refers. I can easily see Armour. I think the bright red one four cars down is Swift. Because of "another", I searched the group for "Gary Binder," but I did not find any more yard pictures.]

Paul Biwer, Dec 2017

The distances in the above photos are really compressed. It took me a while to find the bridge in the foreground.
3D Satellite

Those "black things" in the hump yard are car retarders. They slow the cars so that they won't hit the cars in the hump too hard if a track has filled up.
Street View, Nov 2022

Given how many coal-fired power plants have been shut down in recent years, I went further down the overpass to verify that all of those coal cars were full and not just in storage. Except for one empty train rolling through, the cars are full. 
Street View

1964 Emerald and Lincoln Quads @ 24,000

Note only does the turntable still exist, but part of the roundhouse is still standing. Although the roundhouse is no longer used to service locomotives. Note that the turntable is a truss design rather than the usual steel-girder design.
3D Satellite

Hobson Yard classifies 900 cars a day into 32 tracks. There are four arrival and four departure tracks, each holding 120 or more cars. There are on-line fueling racks for the coal trains passing the north and the south sides of the yard. While 50 coal trains and some intermodal trains pass the yard each day, 17 to 20 daily manifest jobs originate or terminate here, with six locals serving the areas within 100 miles, and seven daily long distance freights each way to or from Minneapolis (Northtown), Galesburg, Kansas City, Denver, Pasco, Tulsa, and Casper, WY.

With the 32 classification tracks in the center of the yard, there are six receiving tracks to its west (beyond the hump), with the departure tracks to their north. The arrival tracks are south of the classification yard, with a six-track grain yard south of them There is also a flat-switching North Yard, with fourteen tracks, as well as locomotive maintenance facilities in the northeast corner of the yard.

[DonWinter]


Map via llcgs, which is a history of the railroads in Lincoln.

Originally, CB&Q's yards were downtown.
1897 Lincoln Quad @ 125,000

Hobson Yard moved the freight trains to the West by 1964. I copied a 1980 map to show that the passenger train facilities still existed in downtown.
1980 Lincoln Quad @ 24,000

I presume that this coaling tower was in this yard.
Gary Hosek posted
CB&Q #5344 - 2-8-2 - Lincoln Nebraska - 1951.

Since the passenger service facilities became obsolete, those railyards have been replaced with buildings.
Street View, Sep 2022



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