Just wondering if you live near one, or there's one in your town or city. Sadly, I don't live near one nor does my town has ever had a railroad track. But I do go to the Linwood Yard in Linwood,NC which has a good I say 35 tracks. I've been to the one in Charlotte, IT'S HUGE at least 50 tracks, Glenwood Yard in Raleigh, and the one in Roanoke,VA.
So tell me the name of it, and if you can an estimated number of tracks, switches, etc.
yes, about five blocks away. its called jennings yard. named after a guy named jennings who was division superintendent before r.r.robinson. it was, prior to completion of 'new' colton yard, sometime in the 1960s, the largest freight yard west of the mississippi.
being close enough to hear, if not see, the trains, was one of the factors in choosing my current residence.
there's an arrival/departure yard at each end, i forget how many tracks wide, where trains are final trimmed/made up prior to departure, and arrive on, waiting to be humped. in the middle there's the gravity yard or bowl, that i'm pretty sure has more then 50, though i'm not absolutely certain of it.
there are fewer arrival/departure tracks now then there had been, because osha, or somebody, decided they were too close togather for safety. they are long enough to make up 200+ car trains on (and this HAS been done). the tracks in the bowl, are, if i remember correctly, long enough to hold at least 50/60 cars each.
yup, its a pretty good sized yard.
the town i live in, roseville california, up until very recent decades, was all about the railroad, with almost everyone in town having someone in their immediate family working for it.
the area has grown and suburbanized since and been gobbled up into an ever expanding regeonal suburbia, with most of todays population not really knowing nor caring about all those tracks and trains that kind of divide the older part of town, the two origeonal downtown areas, down the middle.