This yard was an expansion of the Bellevue operation. According to a couple of topo maps, this yard was built between 1959 and 1969. The previous yard was closer to the town.
(Update: on page 10 of the Sep 2020 Trains magazine there is a half-page article about shutting down the hump yard and switching to flat switching.)
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| Shawn Cook posted
Moorman classification yard Bellevue Ohio
Largest classification yard in America. Idled now.
[Actually, it is the largest in the East. UP's Bailey Yard is larger.]
Author
The left side is part of the $113 million dollar extension. It used to be a two track single hump but with the extension the turned it into a double hump I believe.
It’s a 2 Hump...Chump
Payback is a MF. We at CR's Buckeye called Moorman "Disneyland." When NS took over Buckeye yard in Columbus, we knew we were doomed. As an employee that started on the PC, went the distance with CR and survive Nazi Southern, anytime a NS yard is idled, a big cheer goes up from former CR employees.
Didn't they just expand that? Why is it idle?
It looked like a smart place for a yard as a major junction area (like Enola), but it wasn’t actually.
So what are they gonna do with it? I firmley believe that NS is going to combine Toledo and Cleveland IMFs into one larger Bellvue IMF.
PSR stupidity.
The western roads will make 2 northern blocks for NS, which NS selects as Elkhart and Conway. If you get a Bellevue block instead, you add another handling to Pittsburgh region traffic.
Bellevue’s region isn’t a major source of traffic., so it doesn’t have a natural flow of many locals.
Bellevue looks like a system node on the map, but in reality, anything you’d sort there is just as easily sorted at Conway or Elkhart, or already has been sorted at a Conway or Elkhart.
[It sounds like railyards are like airports --- just because you build them doesn't mean traffic will come to them.]
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| Shawn Cook posted Moorman hump extension that NS just idled 5 years after the $113 million 60 track extension.
Ns never used bellevue to its full potential before the expansion , adding the expansion set up the yard for more dwell time and really didn't speed anything up because of yard Management's lack of planning and shabby crew usage , if they would have built something on the chicago line and set up bypass tracks around the existing yard , freight would have been moving on time and not cause crew problems.
Doesn't Moorman allow them to classify all Chicago Line traffic in addition to all Nickel Plate traffic? I wonder if a larger modern Enola hump could take the place of Conway and the already reduced Allentown.
not really alot of Chicago line freight goes right past the bellevue connector and goes to Cleveland and conway.
Rockport yard and conway do more work than moorman.
Allentown serves a very large local industrial base stretching as far as Scranton, Reading, and north Jersey, so there will always be a large yard there. It’s system function can be handled by an enlarged Enola if desired. Allentown would just be a very large version of Abrams then.
[I wonder if the NS executives who decided to build the expansion got a bonus and then got another bonus when they decided to close it. The shareholders, as well as the employees, should be outraged by this level of incompetence. I guess a problem is that management-by-walking-around would require the executives to leave their air conditioned office and travel to towns that don't have 5-star restaurants.]
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| Craig Hensley Photography posted The sprawling 620 acre, 5.5 mile Moorman yard in Bellevue, Ohio. Opened by Norfolk & Western in 1967 following its acquisition of the Nickel Plate and Wabash three years earlier, in 2014 underwent a $160 million expansion that doubled its capacity. The project involved adding a second hump track and a classification bowl with 38 tracks, boosting its maximum daily classification to 3,600 cars from 1,800. NS main lines converge on Bellevue from five directions, making it the perfect spot to classify merchandise traffic bound to every corner of the NS system. The facility was renamed Moorman Yard in 2015, when CEO Wick Moorman retired. DJI Mavic Air2s - 2/11/22 - Bellevue, OH John Fry: That place looks like it has changed a lot. I hated staying at the dorm that used to be near where the fuel tanks are now. Used to have to listen to the hump 24/7 while trying to rest and waiting for the call to go back out. There was nowhere around to walk to so it felt like prison |
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| Logan Detwiler posted In 1971, an unidentified photographer captured a remarkable scene at the Norfolk & Western yard in Bellevue. The hump, a crucial part of the railroad's operations, was home to three locomotives: an Alco RS11 and two ex-Wabash re-engined FM Trainmasters. These powerful machines were responsible for moving trains around the yard, ensuring that cargo and passengers reached their destinations on time. Joe Krepps: Wait!! What?? Re-engined Trainmasters??? What did they re-engine them with? EMD? Alco? That would be a MAJOR redo of the MU system too, right? Ken Miller: Joe Krepps Alco. |
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| This photo has been moved to "Bellevue, OH: 1882+1947 NS/NW/NKP Roundhouse (Remnants)" |
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| This photo has been moved to "Bellevue, OH: 1882+1947 NS/NW/NKP Roundhouse (Remnants)" |
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| This photo has been moved to "Bellevue, OH: 1882+1947 NS/NW/NKP Roundhouse (Remnants)" |
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| This photo has been moved to "Bellevue, OH: 1882+1947 NS/NW/NKP Roundhouse (Remnants)" |
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| This photo has been moved to "Bellevue, OH: 1882+1947 NS/NW/NKP Roundhouse (Remnants)" |
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| This photo has been moved to "Bellevue, OH: 1882+1947 NS/NW/NKP Roundhouse (Remnants)" |
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| 2:19 video @ 0:24 |
Moorman Yard: "80 different classification tracks....The heart of NS." Posted by NS to Facebook.
A second post of the video. This was posted after they closed the new hump.
A second post of the video. This was posted after they closed the new hump.
Shawn Cook
nowhere near as many trains as a year or two ago though.
Author
Brandon Lee
not even close. A year ago you were seeing upwards of a 100 trains a day and now maybe 40-50.
Shawn Cook
I believe only 9 trains originate there now.
Author
Brandon Lee
damn.. worst than I thought. I grew up there actually right next to the tracks south entrance but haven't lived there in years now. I go down and visit now and again but I usually talk with friends and they fill me in on the updates. I was saying total traffic in and out tho. But if its down to only 9 then they are hurting bad. Losing the railroad will all but sink that town!!
Shawn Cook
I'm a contractor for NS in Columbus. I hear all the Doom and Gloom from the guys up there. |
| 2:31:45 video @ 3:19, I didn't watch the whole thing |
This link has views of the Juniata Locomotive Shop in Altoona, PA and the Horseshoe Curve as well as the Moorman Yard view.
2:19 video about the hump (source)
Two years after they closed the hump in 2020, they reopened it again! [FreightWaves] The hump in the Brosnan Yard in Macon, GA, is another one that was closed in 2020 and reopened in 2022.
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