Design for decongestion

Railway Age, August, 2003 by Frank Malone

The name of the mammoth new Union Pacific intermodal yard in a town west of Chicago reflects much more than its lineage from Globals I and II back in the big city. The $181 million Global III excels in three areas: congestion relief, operational and environmental engineering, and local government cooperation.

Global III extricates UP's Chicago intermodal facilities from excessive interchange, exemplifies design for fluid operation and for construction on flood plain, and exudes economic promise for a community that can't seem to get enough of trains.

Opening this month as the largest intermodal facility in the UP system, Global III will help UP to stay ahead of "steady" intermodal growth, says Ike Evans, UP president and chief operating officer. Currently totaling an annual 2.3 million units, UP container traffic is expected to grow 4% a year for the foreseeable future.

Occupying 1,200 acres, the site includes an 843-acre yard with ample room for expansion, plus mitigation area.

Decongesting Chicago ramps

About 30 miles west of Chicago's outer suburbs, Global III lies within minutes of east-west Interstate 88 and north-south Interstate 39--in an open area without the physical restrictions of five urban intermodal yards at or over capacity. Bigger than the five combined, the new facility can accommodate more than 25 trains and 3,000 containers each day.

The older yards handle up to 15% more interchange than those of other railroads in Chicago, at times involving more than half of UP intermodal traffic in that region. All were built in or near general freight yards and can't expand. Pre-blocking at Global III will reduce Chicago interchange and make service more reliable throughout the region. UP says all the existing facilities will stay open.

UP historically did not reach Chicago. Its intermodal yards there came with takeover of other carriers, including the 1995 acquisition of Chicago & North Western. C&NW had excelled in intermodal service, first with "Falcon" piggyback and then with doublestack trains, both in partnership with UP.

With Global I, which opened in late 1986, C&NW claimed the first pure container yard in Chicago. Combining C&NW's Wood Street yard and the neighboring abandoned yard of another carrier just west of downtown, Global I set the standard for conversion of old facilities into intermodal handlers. A few years later, C&NW carved Global II out of its Proviso classification yard in west suburban Chicago. UP's other Chicago intermodal facilities--IMX, Canal Street, and Yard Center--are on the south side. The two Globals remain the busiest.

Global III's impact on their performance and on the intermodal yards of other railroads should presage the overall operational improvement expected from the city/carrier Chicago Plan announced in June (RA, July, p. 32). One major goal of the Plan is to reduce rubber-tire interchange.

Pre-blocking leads list of qualities

The key to relief in Chicago is Global III's 13-track switching area, unique to UP intermodal yards. It parallels two 9,200-foot receiving and departure tracks along the main fine to the West Coast. All switching tracks can be extended east by 2,800 feet.

In service since November, the switch yard allows cars to be sorted and consolidated by destination. That expedites the resegmenting of trains and blocking of cars, especially for interchange with eastern carriers in Chicago. UP operates eastbound trains for daily interchange with eastern rail carriers and westbound interchanges from certain eastern rail connections. Also, a select block of cars moves between the three Globals for UP trains running between Chicago and the western U.S. The yard's switch locomotives move under remote control by personnel on the ground with equipment supplied by Cattron-Theimeg.

Global III's main body is two miles long and three fourths of a mile wide. Two 1.7-mile west end lead tracks include a crossover with two turnouts solar-powered with Siemens Transportation Systems technology. Running parallel to the switching area on its south side are these segments:

* Six 9,050 foot staging tracks for better scheduling of westbound trains' arrival at ports in line with container ship arrivals.

* Four 7,400-foot loading/unloading tracks, with room for a fifth, accommodating 94 doublestack cars at one time, employing five Mi-Jack overhead cranes and two side loaders for combined lift capacity of 720,000 units per year.

* Three trackside/ramp parking lots with 4,000 11-by-60-foot spaces.

* An administration building with a shippers' north wing looking out on the ramps.

* A 10 lane entrance with Automated Gate System technology, a combination of various computer systems to coordinate movement of railcars, trucks, and boxes, reducing truck at gate time to a maximum 90 seconds, compared with a national average of four minutes.

* A 50-acre storage yard expandable to 100 acres, for three-high stacking of containers.

Other major segments on the east and south sides are two 3.5-acre reload areas on 26-inch asphalt with PiggyPackers, engine ready track, and wye track, plus an expansion area for a future one track locomotive repair facility, a two-track locomotive servicing area, and two tracks for car repair and storage. (See "Global III vital statistics" for further details.)