Citico Yard

Sixty classification tracks in Citico's yard permit "sorting" cars so that outgoing trains can be "built" with cars "blocked" for various destinations, some nearby Chattanooga, others hundreds of miles away. work done here is "tied in" with that of other System yards according to carefully studied plans.

Citico Yard in Chattanooga, Tenn., Southern Railway System's newest freight classification yard has made the transition from drawing board to reality.

The temptation is to describe this new facility in the glowing terms normally used by motion picture advertising copywriters. By any standards, new Citico Yard is the most modern classification yard in the South and among the best of its kind anywhere.

Pictures on these pages show what the yard is like - modern buildings, convenient track layout and the latest in electronic equipment. One glance at a map of Southern Railway System lines shows why the yard was built.

Southern's use of closed-circuit television at Citico-first such permanent installation by a railway in the South-permits the person on duty in the yard office to read and record the identifying initials and numbers of cars in incoming trains as they pass by TV camera installations at each of the three entrances to the yard. "Paper work is more promptly done this way and necessary details for classification of the train's cars can be more quickly dealt with by other employees.

Chattanooga is a vital traffic "hub" where several of Southern's main-line, heavy-traffic rail arteries converge. A large volume of traffic originates and terminates in this industrialized area. Both local and through movements contain traffic important to America's defense.

Citico Yard serves as a "clearing house" for these movements. It has complete, thoroughly-tested facilities for receiving, classifying and forwarding freight trains. And, in line with Southern's present-day concepts of railroading, the new yard, like others of its kind on our railway, has been designed to keep customers' shipments moving toward destination.

While this train passes by the television camera installation (in raised metal shed at right) at the south entrance to Citico's receiving yard, its image appears on a viewer in the yard tower television room about two miles away.

Much of the work done in Chattanooga in making up trains with "blocks" of cars in convenient "cut off' order saves time at points farther along the line. It adds up to better service for shippers and increased opportunities for the railway to attract freight business.

In our highly competitive transportation field shippers tend to favor the carrier that can give good service with minimum delay between originating and receiving points. We want the Southern to be that carrier.

Whether pictured in color or in black and white, the steady movement of freight cars over the hump at Citico is dramatic evidence of Southern's determination that necessary classification of cars for hundreds of destinations shall proceed smoothly and quickly as we provide the kind of rail service needed to meet today's transportation demands.

Track leads into the receiving yard have been designed to permit incoming trains to enter the yard with no delay either to the trains or to operations in the yard. Here, against the background of historic Missionary Ridge, the engine of a long Southern freight train approaches the television camera station (in raised shed at right of track) at one of the three entrances to the receiving yard.

At the crest of the hump the five-storied yard tower, the office building at its base, and the hump conductor's office (foreground), combine to form Citico's "nerve center" where most of the details pertaining to classification of cars through the yard are handled.

Built at a cost of $14 million, new Citico Yard represents a potent "tool" in the hands of Southern Railway employees. Southern jobs depend on the rail- way's ability to earn sufficient revenues. Citico Yard can, and will, improve that ability.

This new yard is one more example of the Southern's bold and vigorous program of improving its facilities to provide the territory it serves with the finest possible rail transportation. It is a program undertaken to serve the best interests of everyone who works for Southern, owns a share in it, or depends on it for transportation of raw materials and finished products. Anything that enables the railway to serve better and earn more benefits us all.

Lights flashing on this panel show the steady How of trains into and out of Citico yard as the South's transportation needs are met by our railroad. The Southern's yard building and modernization work since World War II still continues as it invests tremendous sums to assure shippers that freight turned over to the Southern for handling will "keep moving."

While switch engines shove cars over the hump, incoming trains can move into the receiving yard (center background} over the two outside leads without interfering with humping operations. Chattanooga's historic Lookout Mountain is in the background.

In the soundproof top floor of Southern's Citico yard tower, where much of the work of processing freight cars through the yard is carried on, "window walls" enclosing the office permit a "grandstand" view of carloads of the South's-and the nation's-products of factory, mine and agriculture moving without delay to where they are needed.

Railroads don't stop running when the sun goes down and Citico's lighting system, consisting of evenly-spaced overhead strings of powerful mercury vapor lamps, comes close to matching the sun's rays in brilliance during nighttime operations.