UPRR and North Platte are truly synonymous terms.
Union Pacific Railroad’s Bailey Yard in North Platte, Neb., is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s largest railroad yard.

The massive yard, which was named in honor of former Union Pacific President Edd H. Bailey, covers 2,850 acres, reaching a total length of eight miles. If the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers were to play here, they’d have enough room for 2,800 football fields.

Every 24 hours, Bailey Yard handles 10,000 railroad cars. Of those, 3,000 are sorted daily in the yard’s eastward and westward yards, nicknamed “hump” yards. Using a mound cresting 34 feet for eastbound trains and 20.1 feet for those heading west, these two hump yards allow four cars a minute to roll gently into any of 114 “bowl” tracks where they become part of trains headed for dozens of destinations. Together, these two yards have 18 receiving and 16 departure tracks.

Bailey Yard handles daily an average of 135 trains bound for cities as distant as the East, West and Gulf Coasts of America, as well as the Canadian and Mexican borders. Besides sorting cars to build new trains, Bailey Yard also accommodates a growing number of “unit” trains, which carry only one commodity to one customer. Seventy percent of the traffic through Bailey Yard is of this nature.
Energy growth has also required construction of 10 westbound departure tracks and the coal yard, where 450 coal cars can be stored on seven spare tracks until needed to fill trains to contract length.
At North Platte’s fueling and servicing centers, 180 service track employees process more than 8,500 engines per month. In an average day, 300 locomotives are serviced.

One of Union Pacific’s largest locomotive repair shops is located in Bailey Yard. The structure is large enough to house three football fields. Its 600 employees can repair 750 locomotives monthly, operating 24 hours a day. Eleven tracks, remote-controlled overhead cranes and elevated work bays help speed the work.

Bailey Yard mechanical forces fill locomotives with 14 million gallons of diesel fuel every month.

A car repair facility with three completely equipped “one-spot” tracks repairs an average of 50 cars daily. The shop replaces 10,000 pairs of wheels yearly and has a fleet of cars to repair small defects in trains. Its employees do 1,000-mile car inspections. Light repairs are completed in less than an hour so cars can be quickly moved back into trains. The shop can repair 18 to 20 cars per hour, with shifts running 24 hours.

The Bailey Command Center controls all movement through Bailey Yard, utilizing the latest computer-based controls. Bailey is tied to the Harriman Dispatching Center in Omaha, which controls hundreds of intercity trains operating daily throughout Union Pacific’s 23-state system.

Union Pacific employees in North Platte are paid about $100 million annually. Besides 2,600 UP workers and their families, North Platte is home to 1,500 UP retirees. North Platte and Union Pacific are truly synonymous terms.

Disclaimer – The information in this story was compiled from the Union Pacific Railroad website at www.uprr.com.