Facility Overview: Willow Springs Yard [Chicago, IL] In the early 1990s, the Santa Fe Railway in response to the needs and concerns of their largest intermodal customer United Parcel Service, and also in response to capacity issues at Corwith Yard near downtown, entered into talks about construction of adjacent facilities somewhere in the Chicago area. The former Willow Springs General Motors stamping plant was chosen because it was located next to the Santa Fe mainline and was available. The plant was demolished and UPS and Santa Fe facilities were built on the site [photo-1]. The massive UPS facility which is called the Chicago Area Consolidated Hub CACH, is the largest in the nation and handles package sorting throughout the Midwest [photo-2]. Santa Fe at the same time built their Willow Springs Intermodal Terminal next to it. The yard was completed in 1994, a year before the BNSF merger. Unlike other intermodal yards, which are simply re-purposed carload classification yards, Willow Springs does not suffer from ramp space limitations that are common at most other Chicago terminals. The ramp tracks are widely spaced, which allows any track to be spotted and worked without interference from adjacent ones [photo-3]. I have included a BNSF company diagram of the yard to give you an idea of where things are located [photo-4]. A special feature of the yard are the UPS-only gates that go directly from the CACH into the intermodal yard. You can see them in [photo-5]. Having these gates allows UPS to by-pass the completely automated yard checkpoint [photo-6] and drive loaded trailers directly from their loading docks out to spots on the ramp for immediate loading onto trains minutes before they are scheduled to depart. This means UPS can bring trailers over to the ramp without delay [photo-7]. They can also pick up hot trailers directly from the ramp the minute they are grounded and take them to their facility for immediate unloading. Often times a UPS manager at the CACH will call the yard and inquire about the status of a particularly hot trailer. The yard is split down the middle, which is common to most intermodal facilities. The crossing down the middle allows yard tractors moving trailers on the ramp not to have to go to the ends of the yard track every time they are spotting or picking up a trailer [photo-8]. Although the facility was planned and built mainly with UPSs needs in mind, they are by no means the only customer the yard handles. Willow Springs is a [premium] intermodal yard and handles primarily hot loads that shippers are paying top dollar to move. Other customers who ship premium loads on through Willow Springs include FedEx, JB Hunt, swift, Marten, and US Express among others. When the yard was first designed and built, most premium intermodal traffic was hauled in trailers, or containers on chassis, so ample parking space was provided for in the original yard design [photo-9]. All loading/unloading and rail operations are controlled from the yard tower where activities between the various ramp personnel are coordinated [photo-10]. The yard handles Z-Trains, [photo-11] shows the line-up of a typical 24-hour day back in 2009 with 9 outbound trains, and another 14 inbound scheduled. Train count increases even further with the arrival of peak season starting at the end of October. Although it may look chaotic down on the ramp from the tower perspective, yard personnel are a well oiled machine and have this down to a science. But surprisingly, the only BNSF employees actually working here are three to four managers, which includes a trainmaster. All other personnel working at the facility are contractors, including ramp personnel, maintenance people, yard tug drivers, and crane operators. MiJack cranes* and a few side-lifters handling all the necessary work loading and unloading the cars [photo-12]. Meanwhile, an assigned BNSF switch crew works moving empty spines and well cars around where needed [photo-13]. In order to expedite operations, bad order spine and well cars can be repaired right on the ramp while they are still coupled to a train. Special fork-lifts lift cars up and replace wheels or entire truck assemblies in minutes, which means the car does not have to be switched out which delays loading times. Incidentally, there is no engine service facility located here so all power comes from, or goes to Corwith Yard located a few miles to the east. About 30-40 minutes before a train is scheduled to depart [all trains leaving the yard are westbound], the power comes out from Corwith and is backed onto the first half of the train [photo-14]. Usually the power will bring with it a priority block of cars loaded at Corwith to add to the Willow Springs train. The first half of the train is then backed onto the second half sitting on the other side of the mid-yard crossing. The air is pumped up and tested while car inspectors give the train a final once-over [photo-15]. The train gets an EOT device [photo-16] and a test is made to make sure it is sending properly. When everyone involved signals a go, the trainmaster in the tower [photo-17], who has been on the phone with the Chilli East Dispatcher for clearance, highballs the train...whos crew wastes no time in getting out of the yard! As a side note: In 2000, the Santa Fe Historical & Modeling Society held their annual convention in Chicago. Attending members got a tour of this yard. When we pulled in on the buses the switch crew had just spotted a line of empty spines on the ramp track closest to the tower. After our tour, which ended about 90 minutes later, those spines had been loaded, power had been added, the train had been put together, and was leaving westbound as we drove out the gate. I was so impressed by the BNSF that day that I went home after the convention was over and sub-lettered all my Santa Fe power BNSF and began purchasing pumpkins. I have been a BNSF modeler ever since. :-) *This article is a small tribute to new page member Bobby Master who runs one of the MiJack cranes at Willow Springs. Enjoy!
Posted on: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 00:36:25 +0000
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