North Platte, NE - Think I'm Cute? Check My Caboose

Sure and begorrah, you thought this was a family blog and I throw cabooses at you. Surprise. Actually, we stopped in North Platte today to see the world’s largest rail yard, certified by the Guinness Book of World Records. And, it is truly a marvel. We’ve had this on our lists to see but, we always seem to bustle through Nebraska on our way to other sights. Last year some friends of ours had stopped and told us to stop bustling through NE and turn in to see the Bailey Yard, Thus, today, we turned our RV into North Platte and stopped to see it.

Named after Edd H. Bailey, a former Union Pacific president, it covers 2800 acres, is 8 miles long and 1 1/2 miles wide, manages 10,000 railroad cars per day, sorting at least 3000 per day to ensure that they get into the right train going the right direction. There is the 8-story Golden Spike Observation Tower, with an open viewing platform on the 7th floor and an enclosed platform on the 8th with a volunteer docent to answer any questions. There is also a short film about the building of the yard displays of railroading paraphernalia and also a display about the North Platte Canteen (but that is a story for another time.)

But why North Platte? It’s in the middle of nowhere. But, that’s precisely why North Platte was chosen. Not only is it in the middle of nowhere, it is the center of everything, or, at least, in the center of the US. It was also close to good water, the Platte River.

So what’s this sorting thing that the Bailey Yard does? I certainly thought this the most interesting thing about the yard. If 10,000 cars come through the yard daily, someone somehow must see that each car is in the right spot on the right train to get to its destination. That is the job of the ‘hump.’ In Bailey Yard there are 2 humps, one for east-bound trains and one for west-bound trains. And, actually, the humps are just that: humps. The east-bound hump is 34’ tall while the west bound hump is 20’ tall. Cars are sent to the top of the hump and rolled down to what the Union Pacific calls a bowl where the actual trains are formed. They use gravity to make their trains up.

The white car in this picture is rolling down off of the hump towards the bowl. Usually only one car rolls down the hump but we also saw combinations of 2 and 3 cars rolling down.

And, here’s a picture of the west-bound hump and the bowl with all the trains being formed. It is called a bowl because it is actually a bowl in shape to prevent any train from rolling out of the bowl before it is ready.

Pretty fascinating and fun to watch the cars roll down the hump to their train. But just seeing the whole scene is a wonder. I’ve never seen so many trains in one spot and to watch how they are formed is neat. We enjoyed listening to the information that the docent had. He had never worked for the train company but has lived in the area for years and anyone who lives in North Platte, knows about the trains. I imagine they also know trail whistles.

We also learned that these diesel trains run on electricity. I kid you not: they run on electricity. Our docent told us that the diesel engine actually turns a generator which in turn produces electricity. Much more efficient this way and much lighter since these engines don’t need gears and transmission cases. We also saw the sand tower which is the tall tower on the left in this picture. Here each locomotive fills its sand tanks so it has sand which is the primary source of friction for the locomotives. Anytime the locomotive starts to slip ascending a hill or the engineer needs to make an emergency stop, he sprays sand on the tracks to cause friction to slow the wheels.

Here’s another neat fact: the wheels on a train are not connected to the cars themselves. The cars just rest on the axle and their weight holds them on.

By the way, I didn’t see a single caboose. They’ve gone the way of the typewriter. All I ever see are more engines in back of the trains, not cabooses.

We then hit the highway for again. Our plan was to stay overnight in Brush, CO where there is a city campground but, when we got there, we noticed that there was a ‘do’ across the street in a large field and that the campground was full. So, we toodled on to Fort Morgan where there is another city campground. We were one of the last RV’s to arrive and got the end electric pole. We soon noticed that our air conditioner kept cutting out. First we thought it was our air conditioner but then I noted that our microwave also kept cutting out. Thus we figured that it was the camp’s electricity - we were the last ones in a line of 8 or so and our power reflected that. We learned a valuable lesson: when the temps hit 100 degrees, best to be the first RV in line, not the last.