Yards - Switching - "Bowl"

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Ay'tsch wrote:


>>

I suspect the height and grades in a hump yard are determined by length of bowl tracks and tracks in the bowl.  
<<

Harry,

What is the origin of that word "bowl" in railroad parlance?

I  >> never << heard it on the parts of the N&W I worked on.  Such an entity was called a "retarder yard" or a "classification yard."

Was the"bowl" thing Bellevue-speak, or Decatur-speak, fetched east when the Wabash and Nickel Plate guys taught the N&W men how to talk ?  

-- adb
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