Buffalo, NY: CSX/NYC Frontier Yard and Bailey Ave Tower

(Satellite)

Randy Szucs posted
My home before they scrapped 36 tracks out of the center of the yard.
Tom Weightman: Lots of ladders!
Ronald Galena: Tom Weightman 7 groups of 9 tracks.
[800 cars per shift with three humper crews.]

Dennis DeBruler commented on Rany's post

I grabbed a satellite image while it is still showing all of the tracks.

https://www.google.com/.../data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4...

 

3 of 9 photos posted by Paul Bauer with the comment: "Some nice shots coming home. Especially- three for the train corps!!!"

Brian R. Wroblewski: The stand out for me is all the missing track in Frontier yard. They ripped out so much of it that it took me an xtra second to ID what I was looking at.

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Tim Baldwin posted
Frontier Yard - Bailey Ave tower - circa 1982
Ron Held: West end carknockers shanty just beyond the tower. [Back before the PSR railroads had not laid off many of their car inspectors.]

WESTERN NEW YORK RAILWAY HISTORICAL SOCIETY posted thirteen photos with the comment: "The Hump Tower at Frontier Yard in Buffalo was demolished over the past couple of days and the hump itself is being removed as well.  I am glad to report that the WNYRHS was able to save and preserve the control panels from the tower that controlled the hump and the 63 yard tracks in the yard that the NYC built in 1957.  The control boards are now in storage at the Heritage DiscoveRY Center Buffalo."

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Steve Lucas: Looks like the way that General Railway Signal would have built this in the late 1950's.
WESTERN NEW YORK RAILWAY HISTORICAL SOCIETY: Yes it is a GRS machine

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Summer 2016
Jeff Marx: After my classroom training in Atlanta, this was my view of the very first day of on the job training in Frontier yard in 2004 as a "switch tender" trainee. At that time there was a Hump yardmaster and switch tender in the Hump tower. The unauthorized furnishings were a TV, radio, Gas grill with many a good meals, a plethora of girly magazines. And I'll admit when this building closed, I saved the Vargus drawings of the pin up girls!

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This panel controlled the routing of the cars to one of the 63 yard tracks.

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This panel was shown in operation in a NYC Publicity film, Three Giant Steps. Check out the film on Youtube. This panel's operation is shown at the 7:00 Minute mark. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fs3FQMOFDh8

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Ron Smolen posted
Buffalo
CSX Frontier Yard in the City of Buffalo last night [Dec 1, 2022].
Jim Polaski: I woulda thought the two locomotives would have won that one!
[That was my thought as well. That hopper must be loaded.]

Bill Blake posted two images with the comment: "October 20, 1956, and today - NYC Electronically controlled freight yard in Cheektowaga."

[Actually, looking at a map, the east half of the yard was in Cheektowaga, and the west half was in Buffalo.]

David Vierschilling: Most of it is ripped up now. Hump lead and most of the bowl tracks are gone.

Jk Ricker: One might blame csx for some of the track removal, but the taxes imposed on the railroad industry in New York state are responsible for the loss of many miles of tracks. Many years ago I was told, by an individual who was in a position to know, that the state got $18,000.00 per mile per year for every mile of track in the state. That, plus the taxes on the various industries that depended on rail service, is a major factor that resulted in the decline in the state.

Brian J Carlson: The yard that was obsolete soon after it was built.

Adam Vester shared

Brian R. Wroblewski: Frontier always was a compromise. They sandwiched it into their existing East Buffalo & West Shore yards to save on downtime so they could leave Gardenville open longer to cover the work. To do it, they had to cram Frontier with all kinds of crazy curves that made things twist & turn all over the place.

Gregory Lund: Brian R. Wroblewski not to mention humping into the wind. Ask anyone who worked frontier about “sailboats” (bulkhead flats).

Brian R. Wroblewski: Gregory Lund sounds like the Dunlop plant. We'd kick a car towards the river at the West end of the yard & watch it roll to a stop half way to a couple, & then reverse itself & roll right back out to us at the switch on a perfectly flat piece of track. Never saw anything like that anywhere else.

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Johnny Irish commented on Bill's post
Here it is a few months ago [that would be Winter 2025]. Railroad doing their best to get rid of it. Alfred E. Perlman is spinning.