Ernest Norris Yard

Southern Railway System makes another major contribution to better railroading and improved service for shippers.

A freight car rolls off the hump into the master retarder.

Effects of multimillion dollar improvement will include faster handling of defense and civilian freight movements at one of the country's great centers of production which is also the hub of a great railroad transportation network.

Here in all its raw newess is the Southern Railway System's Ernest Norris Yard at Birmingham, Ala. Scars left by earth-moving equipment are yet to be covered with green grass; some auxiliary services buildings are still in various stages of construction. Opened on September 9, 1952, Ernest Norris Yard is complete in all its essential elements and the far-reaching effects of its being placed ill service are being felt wherever railroad freight cars travel on the North American continent.

Ernest Norris Yard is the most modern freight car classification yard to be built in this country. Equipped with car retards and automatic switching for cars passing over the "hump," it can handle readily the more than one-and-a-quarter million cars annually that Southern Railway System lines move in the Birmingham terminal area. And it has capacity beyond immediate needs to provide for expanding defense traffic movements and the steadily increasing railroad transportation requirements of all Southern industry.

View of receiving yard from yard tower at the hump.

As rapidly as funds permit the Southern is making major improvements at both large and small yards over its entire System. This is the second large retarder-style yard with automatic switching the first was built at John Sevier, Tenn., and opened 'in 1951.

Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on the Southern in recent years to improve its ability to give the best in railroad service. Beginning with its purchase of the first road-freight diesel- electric locomotive ever built, the Southern's thinking has been directed toward cutting down the time required to move cars over the miles they travel on Southern System lines. Today, its classification yards are considered as a part of the main line hot as resting or halting places for freight cars.

Some idea of the far-reaching effects of time saved at Ernest Norris Yard in railroad freight transportation throughout the country can be had from these statistics. The Southern interchanges traffic at Birmingham with 9.other railroads. Trains move out of Ernest Norris Yard hauling cars for other major Southern Railway cities where local deliveries and interchanges are made earlier than ever before because this new yard is in operation.

The classification yard has 56 tracks into which cars are "sorted."

Imagine the spreading effect of such timesaving even on 'other railroads with Southern connections. For example, the Southern interchanges traffic with the number of other carriers shown in parentheses after these city names: Atlanta (7), Augusta (5), Cincinnati (6), East St. Louis (25), Jacksonville (4), Louisville (8), Memphis (10), New Orleans (12), Potomac Yard (5). And these are only some of the points of interchange.

Cars moving through Ernest Norris Yard to or from these interchanges reach destination more promptly.

A fast diesel-powered Southern freight train leaving Ernest Norris Yard.

The Southern is proud of Ernest Norris Yard. Southern employees are using it as a "tool" in their job of rendering the best freight service possible to all shippers who route cars via Southern Railway System lines through Birmingham.