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The New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad has built the Cedar Hill Yard, near New Haven, Conn., consisting of a twelve-track southbound receiving yard with a capacity of 1,176 cars and a ten-track westbound receiving yard with a capacity of 970 cars, both tributary to a forty-track westbound classification yard with a capacity of 1,392 cars, which is further tributary to a twelve-track westbound departure yard with a capacity of 1,192 cars, also a fourteen-track eastbound receiving yard with a capacity of 1,490 cars tributary to a forty-track north and eastbound classification yard with a capacity of 1,421 cars, which is further tributary to a twelve-track northbound departure yard with a capacity of 1,140 cars and a fourteen-track eastbound departure yard with a capacity of 1,410 cars, all of which is described in detail commencing on page 1166 of the Railway Age of May 10, 1918, and page 178 of the Railway Age of July 30, 1920.

This yard receives a maximum of four trains per hour in each direction and a total of twenty-four trains westbound and twenty-two trains eastbound for twenty-four hours, averaging sixty to seventy-five cars in length. There is an average of forty cuts per train westbound and forty-five cuts per train eastbound. A scale is located on each hump and cars are weighed in motion. Two engines, one in each half of the yard, do the work, acting as hump or trimmer engines as required. An average of fifty-five cars westbound and forty-five cars eastbound per hour is now being handled over the humps, although with sufficient business and additional riders the capacity of each hump is supposed to be one hundred cars per hour, or twenty-four hundred cars per twenty-four hours. Riders are brought back to the hump on gasoline speeders working on independent tracks, and one rider will handle a maximum of three heavy loads per cut, and an average of fifty cars per eight-hour shift. In accordance with copies of the switch lists, switches are operated by an electro-pneumatic system from towers located at the humps. Departure yards are required to permit of assembling full trains from the short classification tracks and to permit of inspection, air testing, etc., before the arrival of the road crews, thus minimizing terminal delays.

The New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad has built the Northup Avenue Yard at Providence, R. I., consisting of a nine-track westbound receiving yard, tributary to a seven-track westbound classification yard and a three-track westbound departure yard, also a four-track eastbound receiving yard, tributary to a seventeen-track eastbound classification yard, which is further tributary to a three-track eastbound departure yard. It is necessary on account of topography to classify eastbound trains through this yard in the westbound direction. This yard has a novel development in that a reclassification yard with a separate hump is located between and beyond the regular classification yards, so as to permit of re-humping cars without a second movement over the original humps.

This yard receives a maximum of five trains per hour, and a total of twenty-two trains per twenty-four hours in each direction, averaging

forty-six cars in length. There is an average of thirty-one cuts per train. A scale is located on each hump and cars are weighed in motion. Two engines, one in each half of the yard, do the work, acting as hump or trimmer engines as required. An average of forty cars per hour or one thousand cars per twenty-four hours is now being handled over each hump, and one rider will handle a maximum of five empty cars per cut, and an average of fifty-two cars per eight-hour shift. Riders are brought back to the hump on speeder cars working on independent tracks. In accordance with copies of the switch lists, switches are operated by an electro-pneumatic system from towers located at the humps.

The Illinois Central Railroad has planned and partially constructed Markham Yard, a very extensive terminal near Chicago. The ultimate plan provides for a twenty-track northbound receiving yard tributary to a northbound classification yard of seventy-four tracks, which is further tributary to a twenty-track northbound departure yard. Southbound units will consist of a twenty-track receiving yard, tributary to a southbound classification yard of forty tracks, which is further tributary to a twentytrack southbound departure yard, all of which is described in detail on page 1164 of the Railway Age of May 10, 1918, and page 313 of the Engineering News-Record of August 15, 1918.

It is anticipated that the yard will receive a maximum of six trains -per hour from each direction, an average of thirty trains northbound and thirty-five southbound per 24 hours, averaging respectively forty to seventy-five cars from the north and from sixty to ninety cars from the south. It is assumed that there will be an average of forty cuts northbound and thirty cuts southbound per train. A scale is located on each hump and cars will be weighed in motion. It is proposed to have two engines in each classification yard-a "pusher" engine crossing over hump, and the "make-up" engine to pull cars from lower end of classification yard to departure yard, making up trains. It is assumed that the average capacity of each hump will be 150 cars per hour, or 3,600 cars per twenty-four hours. Riders will be brought back to the hump on electric or gas speeders working on independent tracks, and it is assumed that one rider will handle a maximum of two cars per cut northbound, where loaded cars predominate, while in the southbound hump where empties will be in majority, riders may handle three, or even four cars. The average both ways will probably be seventy-two cars per eight-hour shift. In accordance with switch lists, switches will be operated by an electro-pneumatic system from towers located at humps.

The Michigan Central Railroad has built the Niles Yard at Niles, Michigan, but your Sub-Committee has no detailed information in regard to it other than that commencing on page 287 of the Railway Age of January 23, 1920, and on page 81 of Engineering News-Record of January 8, 1920.

A further investigation on the part of your Sub-Committee indicates that the Peoria & Pekin Union Railroad has converted its East Peoria Hump Yard to a flat yard; that the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway has temporarily abandoned hump operation at Atlanta, and

that the Kentucky & Indiana Terminal Railroad has abandoned hump operation in its Youngstown Yards at Louisville. Further revisions necessary to bring the list on page 133 of Volume 15 of the Proceedings up to date, in so far as your Committee now has information, are the addition of:

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Hump Yard Design and Operation

An analysis of the information received leads your Sub-Committee to believe that no revisions are necessary in the present recommended hump grades. Although it is probable that these precise grades cannot be used in any given instance, they are a guide as to the grades which will probably be required under given conditions and, if installed, can readily be altered, as may be necessary to meet the exact conditions of any given climate or traffic.

Your Sub-Committee believes that where it is possible to economically construct a classification yard of sufficient length and number of tracks to permit of using it as a departure yard without interfering materially with its operation as a classification yard, a departure yard is not required and is an undesirable addition to the layout. When the volume of traffic is such as to require the constant use of the maximum economical classification yard, or when the tracks in the classification yard are shorter than the usual road train and cannot or should not be extended, a departure yard for the purpose of combining short cuts from several classification tracks into a single road train, and for the purpose of storing this road train during the interval between its assembly and the time of its departure, is of very great advantage in relieving congestion in the classification yard and in minimizing terminal delays. When a departure yard has been installed it may also be economically used for a

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certain amount of additional sorting of cars by flat switching after they have had a preliminary classification over the hump. It should not, however, be installed primarily for this purpose.

Additional sorting of cars by flat switching at the far end of the classification yard from the hump should be avoided wherever possible on account of the danger of collision between cars being so shunted and those moving by gravity from the hump. When re-sorting of cars becomes of considerable magnitude the number of tracks in the classification yard should be increased or, when this is prevented by topographical or other limitations, the mixed cuts should be re-classified by a second movement over the hump.

When the amount of business will not permit of re-humping cars, relief may be secured by building a flat sorting yard so located that cuts may be pulled from the classification yard by a sorting engine, resorted into these tracks, reassembled, and moved directly into the departure yard. If in any case the amount of re-sorting to be done should attain such magnitude that flat switching in this manner is no longer economical, a second hump yard tributary to all or any part of the classification yard, and located between the classification yard and the departure yard in such a manner as to permit of re-humping cars without interfering with the operation of the main hump might be considered. The number and length of tracks required in a sorting yard depends upon the amount of re-sorting to be done and the number of secondary classifications to be made.

Based upon the information now in hand your Sub-Committee believes that in many of the hump yards now in existence a departure yard is not required, and that only in isolated cases where a departure yard is used, would a sorting yard be an economical adjunct.

CONCLUSIONS

Your Sub-Committee is not yet prepared to make a definite recommendation as to when a departure yard, or a sorting yard for intermediate switching between the classification and departure yard, is required, but submits the foregoing as information.

Your Sub-Committee believes that no alterations should be made at the present time in the hump grades as now recommended.

Your Sub-Committee recommends the following definition for insertion in the Manual:

SORTING YARD.-A yard in which cars are classified in greater detail after having passed through a classification yard.

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Of the subjects assigned to the Committee on Electricity for study, report is made on the following:

(1) Revision of Manual

No revisions in that part of the Manual which comes within the jurisdiction of the Committee on Electricity are recommended this year.

(2) Electrical Interference

In Appendix A the Committee reports on the subject of Electrical Interference and its recommendations are given in the conclusions.

(3) Water Power

In Appendix B the Committee reports on the subject of Water Power for electric railway operation and its recommendations are given under the conclusions.

(4) Electrolysis

In Appendix C the Committee reports on the subject of Electrolysis and its effect on reinforced concrete and its recommendations are given under conclusions.

(5) National Electrical Safety Code

In Appendix D the Committee reports the result of its review of the National Electrical Safety Code issued by the U. S. Bureau of Standards and submits a commentary thereon.

(6) Overhead Transmission Line Construction

In Appendix E the Committee submits a progress report on the proposed plans and specifications for the construction of overhead transmission and distribution lines and its recommendations are given under the conclusions.

(7) Clearances—Third Rail and Overhead

In Appendix F the Committee submits revisions of the record tables which have been brought up to date and shown on Statement 1, page 1,

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