Yards are aggregations of tracks at terminals and other points which are provided for the storage and handling of cars which accumulate at those points. Various arrangements of yard tracks are employed, each arrangement being adopted to serve certain purposes and to meet certain conditions of traffic and of form and area of yard space. At the ends of stub tracks a bumping post (q.v.) is a necessary structure to prevent the cars from running off the end of the track. Another essential structure is a turntable for turning locomotives and sometimes cars. Track scales are an important item in railway-yard equipment. They resemble very closely the familiar platform scale used for weighing hay, coal, etc., in wagons, but are much larger and stronger so as to accommodate heavily loaded cars. To facilitate the handling of locomotives ash pits are provided into which the engines may dump their grates when necessary, and also water tanks, as are shown in the illustration. Station platforms are also usually classed as a part of the track construction.
RAILWAY WATER TANK FOR SUPPLYING LOCOMOTIVES.
So far reference has been made only to track
construction, but track maintenance is quite as
important an item. The work of maintaining the
track of railways in good order costs in America
all the way from $500 to $1500 per mile, and is
from 8 to 20 per cent. of the total operating
expenses. The number of employees engaged in
track work by American railways averages about
150 per 100 miles of line.
Buildings. Railway operations require the use of buildings in vast numbers. Of these passenger stations and freight depots are among the most important because of their number and cost. Passenger stations vary in size and character from small combination depots used at local stations of minor importance to large terminal stations of masonry and steel, and often of almost monumental magnificence. A combination depot is one in which both the freight and the passenger business is carried on under one roof. For the freight business a freight room is required, with platform space along a wagon road for transferring freight to and from wagons: and also the necessary facilities for handling freight to and from cars in freight trains or cars standing at the depot. The passenger business is served by the introduction of waiting rooms. Generally the structure is a one-story frame building sheathed with boards and roofed with shingles. Flag stations are stations of minor importance at which only a limited number of trains stop, usually upon being signaled by flag. The buildings at such stations range in importance from a single roofed platform to a combination depot.
Where the volume of traffic is sufficient the freight and passenger buildings are separated. Passenger stations in these cases may be divided into local stations and terminal stations. The distinction between the two is that in terminal side stations the tracks, or a number of them at least, terminate at the station, while in large first-class local passenger stations the tracks pass by the buildings. Local stations vary greatly in size, character, and cost, many of them in large towns and cities being elaborate stone and steel structures, but the largest of them seldom equal in size the largest terminal stations. Terminal passenger stations are those erected for the accommodation of the passenger service at large passenger terminals of railways. Frequently several railways entering a town unite and use conjointly a so-called ‘union depot.’ It follows, therefore, that terminal passenger stations are located in large cities and towns, or at ferry terminals or at important junction points of several railways. These stations possess all the accommodations provided for large local stations, but in more capacious and luxurious forms and in addition many others, such as hotels, bars, cab, and carriage stands, parlors and reception rooms, rooms for gatemen, porters, police, watchmen, doctor's office, etc. Terminal stations are denominated side stations when the building is situated at one side of the tracks and head stations when the building extends across the dead ends of the tracks. Usually the tracks enter the station in pairs with a platform between each pair of tracks. These tracks and platforms are commonly roofed over in terminal stations. Train-shed roofs are sometimes made up of large steel arches spanning the tracks without intermediate supports, and sometimes they consist of two or more spans of steel roof trusses carried by side walls and intermediate columns.
Except at combination depots and flag stations special buildings are provided for handling the
