Yards - Switching

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John Rhodes:
It's a shame I don't have any hard figures I can offer you regarding  heights
and lengths.  Following are some estimates, but I'm a poor  estimator.
 
The receiving yard at Bellevue, called the "A" Yard, had eight tracks  about
1.5 miles long, so a crew shoving to the hump might have 150 car  lengths.
Two hump crews worked each trick except Monday 1st trick  (maintenance
day).  The power for each hump jobs was an  SD-40's and  two slugs  Because
the Ohio Route 4 overpass crossed between the "A" Yard and the  hump,
these units were outfitted with a cab signal because a signal on the  hump
wouldn't be visible.  From the bottom of the hump to the apex -  probably
10 car lengths.  Height of the hump ?  Sixty feet, give or take a  few 
thousand
feet.  Longest bowl track - 8/10ths of a mile.  There are 40-some  tracks in
the bowl.    On the bowl-side of the apex is a sensing  pad.  It measures
seven different factors and adjust retarders accordingly.  SOME of  the
seven factors are:
 
1- Length of car
2- Cars already in the track car is coded for.
3- Free roller ?
4- Wind.
 
Wind is a real problem at Bellevue because when the car crosses the  sensing
pad, it may be bucking a 15 MPH head wind off the lake.  The wind  stops
blowing and the car sails into the track and makes a hard coupling.
 
Portsmouth - certainly not modern, as you specified.  There were only  eight
tracks in the bowl (as I recall), but then there weren't that many  
classifications
to make going west of Portsmouth (when built before merger mania).   Height of
hump - my guess is 20 ft.   Classified only westbound time  freight traffic 
and
only worked one or two shifts/day.  Usually humped Nos. 85 and 77 to  make
Cincinnati's,  Columbus's, Bellevue's, Chicago's, etc. Hump power  ?  i've
forgotten.
 
"Bowl" was a concoction of the Bellevue people - post NKP merger.   We're
talking N&W people here - Winston Haynes, Glen Kilgore,  B.J.  Hoops.
They also concocted the name "Spike" -- not the nickname of Abe's  father,
but a reference to an accumulation of "this and that" accumulating in
the old (original) NKP yard that was recycled to the ""A"  yard for 
reclassification.
                                                               Harry Bundy 
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