Doubling up at Bellevue Yard

[NS Newsfeed]

Since the 1800s, freight trains have coursed through Bellevue, Ohio, a hub for Norfolk Southern predecessor roads Nickel Plate, Pennsylvania, and Norfolk & Western. Now, this railroad town has a new distinction: It is home to NS' largest and North America's second-largest rail car classification yard – only UP's Bailey Yard in North Platte, Neb., is larger.



NS' $160 million expansion at Bellevue, which nearly doubled the yard's capacity, is featured in the latest issue of BizNS, the employee magazine. The 2015 winter issue is available on the corporate website, and employees who receive the printed edition will see it in the mail soon.



The expansion project added 38 new classification tracks to the yard's existing 42 tracks and equipped it with a unique capability: It is the only one of NS' 12 major hump yards able to classify and sort railcars from two tracks simultaneously. Bellevue employees began humping cars into the expanded yard on Nov. 11, but NS is phasing in plans to increase traffic to allow employees time to adjust to the larger yard and get through the winter.



A spinoff benefit is that the Bellevue plan frees up capacity at NS' Elkhart, Ind., and Conway, Pa., hump yards, opening the door for new business possibilities in those locations.



The Bellevue investment is a big deal for NS. Here are impressions from employees quoted in BizNS:



"I feel very fortunate to be a part of this. When I think about the SPIRIT values, this project has given me and my team the opportunity to truly live what those values represent – safety, performance, teamwork – all of that," said Wil Washington, a 21-year NS veteran who became terminal superintendent in early 2013.



"I think this will bring business and people to Bellevue. This is job security for us," said yardmaster Jodi Barber, a Bellevue native who has worked in NS' Bellevue and Sandusky yards for 17 years.



"We want to be the No. 1 hump terminal in performance, not only in the Northern Region but across the entire network," said trainmaster Bill Krzyzak, who asked to be transferred to Bellevue from a small flat-switching NS yard in Manassas, Va.



"Once people get used to the place and how it can work, we're going to see the railroad run as well as it ever has on the Northern Region," said John LeStrange, director terminal operations.