The Northeast kingdom railroad
NER Railfan Trip to Selkirk Yard
The Albany Gateway was another fine NER convention, highlighted by terrific layouts and great railfan tours. Elsewhere in this issue is information on the contests and other convention activities, but I wanted to focus on the Selkirk yard tour.
The tour of Selkirk was one of the best railfan tours I’ve attended. It started out in the hotel lobby at 8:00 am on Saturday. Tour attendees waited in line for the buses, which were on time and very nice. The first two buses filled up and I was on the third bus, which was half full.
December 2001
NER Coupler
After signing the usual release for CSX (you know, the “whatever happens to you, it is not the railroads fault” form) we were on our way. It was a beautiful morning with blue skies, come big clouds and cool weather. We arrived at the CSX Selkirk facility and the three buses split up to go round-robin to the three tour areas.
The first stop for our bus was the locomotive shop. To get there, the bus went through a tunnel under the hump which also had tracks laid in it. We walked through the shop area while one of the workers explained what was going on and answered our questions. Plenty of locomotives were on hand, from Guilford and Union Pacific, to Conrail, CSX and LMS Leasing. Our group’s cameras got a real workout! The shop crew was working, so locomotives were moving around and plenty of activity was observed. Particularly nice were some of the shop personnel who spotted the two children in our group, my son and another member’s son, and gave them CSX lantern/flashlights as souvenirs. This was a big thrill for the kids, and I think the shop crew also!
With the tour complete, it was back on the bus for our return to the convention hotel. We arrived shortly before noon, just as promised. The whole group at Selkirk, the locomotive shop personnel, the dispatchers and the hump yard operators, was extremely friendly, knowledgeable and genuinely glad to welcome us and show us what they do. We all owe a big thanks to these railroad folks and to the people in the Region who organized and conducted the tour. Everyone had a great time!
This is an article I wrote for the NER Coupler. It is a recap of the prototype tour conducted during the NER Fall 2001 convention, Albany Gateway. The bus trip went to the nearby NS (Conrail) Selkirk yard for a guided tour. This article was published in the December 2001 issue of the Coupler.
Next we were off to our final stop, the hump yard control tower. This was the real highlight for me. The bus stopped at the top of the hump. A long cut of cars was being sent over the hump and classified automatically by computer controlled track switches and retarders, which adjust the cars speed to have it stop almost perfectly coupled to the cars already on the classification tracks. On the ground, next to the track going over the hump, a railroad worker was watching an electronic readout board telling him which cars to uncouple. He would walk along the cars and pull on the coupler cut lever to separate the cars. As the car went over the hump, gravity would take over and the car would uncouple and follow a predetermined path down amongst the dozens of classification tracks. Mostly single cars were humped, but occasionally 2 or more would be sent together.
Next we took the bus back through the tunnel to the main offices. There were a few moments of uncertainty for the bus driver as a train came into the yard and it was unclear if it was going to come through the tunnel! It didn’t, so we continued on to tour the dispatcher’s office. Here, a series of dispatchers work in a darkened room with video screens representing most of the trackage in the New York and New England area down to New Jersey. They communicate directly with train crews and other dispatchers to keep the trains rolling. Various colors on the screens indicate a train’s route and the dispatchers keep a written log of movements through the trackage that they control. A smaller group of supervisors oversee the dispatching and help resolve issues that occur.
We were invited to go up into the tower, giving us a bird’s eye view of the operation as well as a great overall look at the Selkirk facilities. The operators showed us the computer screens representing the cars and the sorting tracks. Information was displayed indicating the car number and reporting marks, the cars actual speed and desired speed and a graphical representation of the yard showing the cars routing to the proper classification track. One problem encountered while we were there was a stuck coupler resulting in a car ending up on the wrong track. We were informed that this happens occasionally and is usually sorted out with orders to a switching crew at the other end of the yard.
Web page written and maintained by Mike McNamara
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