Trains for miles! Inside the world's largest rail yard (pictures) (2024)

A look at the aerial view of Bailey Yard, from Google Maps. The yard covers 2,850 acres, and has 114 tracks designated for specific destinations.

Rail cars headed to the West hump to be separated are pushed uphill.

Locomotive number Y823 slowly pushes rail cars uphill towards the West hump. Because many westbound cars are empty, or at least carrying lighter loads than their eastbound counterparts, less locomotives are needed to push the cars towards the West hump than for the East hump.

A Bailey Yard worker manually pulls a handle to separate a car from a train at the top of the East hump.

After the cars are separated, they roll gently downhill using only gravity toward their designated bowl track. When they pass a so-called "retarder," their wheels are squeezed hard enough to slow them down so that they roll easily and safely onto the proper track for their eventual destination. A computer routes the cars onto the proper track.

A closer look at a retarder, which is used to slow the railcars down as they roll unimpeded downhill towards their designated bowl track where they will connect with their intended train at 4 miles an hour or less.

A look down the East hump incline toward the 64 bowl tracks below.

One by one, cars roll gently down the East hump incline.

A Bailey Yard technician monitors traffic passing through the East hump. He and other technicians use sophisticated remote controls to operate the locomotives that push the rail cars up to the humps.

The technicians use remote controls like this one to operate the locomotives as they pass through the humps. The remotes give them all the control they would have if they were aboard the locomotives.

Long coal trains sit idle on the tracks at Bailey Yard while a multi-modal train heads in the opposite direction.

Often, when trains come into Bailey Yard, their rail cars are separated from the locomotives and are sent off to one of the humps to be re-directed to trains heading to their eventual destination. While that happens, the locomotives are brought to the diesel yard to be serviced.

Though Bailey Yard is off limits to the general public, visitors can climb the Golden Spike observation tower, where they can get a panoramic view of the world's largest rail yard. From the top of the tower, they can see rail cars all the way to the horizon.

Flying to Chicago to begin Road Trip 2013, CNET reporter Daniel Terdiman flew directly over North Platte and got a view of Bailey Yard from more than 30,000 feet.

Many rail cars that roll through Bailey Yard have damaged wheels that must be replaced and repaired. Here, near the maintenance area, dozens of train wheel axles are lined up in preparation for being used as replacements.

Rail cars that need maintenance are identified at a location a few miles outside North Platte and tagged so that workers at Bailey Yard know that they need attention.

Many locomotives heading east are sent through the East service track, where they are loaded up with, among other things, sand that they will use to gain traction when their steel wheels slip on the steel tracks. The sand is shot onto the tracks using nozzles mounted at the wheels.

This large tower along side the East service track is filled with sand, which is loaded into special tanks on the locomotives using cranes.

A locomotive getting serviced at the East service track.

The West service track is much smaller than its eastbound counterpart given the lighter trains that go from east to west.

Many people visit North Platte every year just to climb the Golden Spike observation tower and get a panoramic view of Bailey Yard.

This special facility -- the only one of its kind in the world -- is designed to inspect railcar wheels for small defects that would otherwise be invisible to the naked eye. Special ultrasonic sensors inspect each wheel to determine if there are problems that need maintenance.

Dozens of train wheel axles roll through Bailey Yard on top of a rail car.

A locomotive, most likely for a passenger train, sits idle and shrink-wrapped in plastic at Bailey Yard.

A pair of locomotives that have just pushed dozens of rail cars to the top of the East hump reach the top of the 34-foot-tall incline themselves.