The $550 millon Brazos Yard, to be built in Hearne, Texas, is scheduled to open in 2020, Chief Operating Officer Cameron Scott says. It will be the largest investment in a single facility in the company’s 155-year history.
“The reason why we’re building a new hump yard in the middle of Texas is that as we look forward, both from the volume that’s coming out of the petrochemical complexes along the Gulf Coast, Texas itself, and our overall manifest growth down in that part of our network, we see that our existing infrastructure is going to be overwhelmed at some point in the future,” CEO Lance Fritz told Wall Street analysts on the railroad’s quarterly earnings call on Thursday morning.
UP is “very confident” that the time is right to build the yard, Fritz says.
“It will be the most productive yard on our network. It will be the lowest cost per-car switched, and the most efficient,” Fritz says. The yard will have the capacity to classify 1,300 cars per day.
To arrive at the decision to build a hump yard — which bucks trends in the industry, as CSX Transportation last year converted eight hump yards to flat-switching facilities — UP analyzed traffic patterns.
UP looked at how many cars it could bring to one location where they could be classified and then sent deep into its network or the systems of its interchange partners, Fritz explained. That analysis lets UP understand how many hump yards it needs and how many smaller, regional flat-switching yards are required.
“We have a very robust, large manifest network,” Fritz says.
Hearne, some 120 miles northwest of Houston, occupies a strategic position on UP: Seven lines radiate out from the area, heading north, south, east, and west.
The Brazos Yard project is part of UP’s $3.3 billion capital expense budget for this year.
To Donald Wadsworth:In Texas?
Saying this Hump yard is going to be built and seeing it completed are two different things. Historically, Uncle Pete is a little tight with the $$’s and infamous for starting some projects then letting them languish in a partially completed state for years. i.e. the double track and associated side work for the Alhambra Sub east of LA to West Colton. It’s was stated in about 2003 and is still not complete. They’ll likely start this hump yard then use it in a partially completed state, tinkering with it from time to time.
Time will tell.
Perhaps CSX has a surplus hump that could be sold to the UP. (-: (-:
It would be great if the UP doubletracked the railroad from Laredo to San Antonio, to speed traffic moving to and from Mexico. Three hour delays at San Antonio is intolerable.
Mr. McWiiliams: New or established industry is not dying. Maybe 30 years ago but not now. In business friendly states thing look pretty good.
W COOK EZ-Pass (or I-Pass) or not there are still toll booths. We drove to Massachusetts in 2014 and used our I-Pass on the Illinois Tollway, the Indiana Toll Road, the Ohio Turnpike, the New York State Thruway, Mass Pike, and the I-84 bridge at Beacon, New York, over the Hudson River. Mass Pike is an incredibly well built road – the original alignment and the original bridges from late 1950’s and early 1960’s, all in great shape. Here in Wisconsin, anything built in the 1970’s is crumbling if not already replaced. We also drove Mass Interstates I-290, I-495, I-95, and the little bit of I-84 that’s in Massachusetts – all the same – the original roads and bridges from the 1960’s and not a sign of decay. We also caught the old Route 128 just before its rebuild – it was shabby for sure but not derelict. That segment (Canton, Dedham, Needham, Westwood, Newton) dated from about 1961 with extremely heavy traffic, so it lasted about 43 years. Mass 24 in the Fall River – Taunton area looks a bit elderly but hasn’t disintegrated.
I figured they’re would be comparisons to CSX closing hump yards. One big difference is that CSX is located where established industry is dying, and you can’t build a new industry without a massive protest movement and all the added cost that go with it. The gulf coast is in the middle of a chemical expansion that is unprecedented, the traffic boom there will be pretty impressive.
the late Hunter Harrison eliminated almost all hump yards on the CSX, and now Union Pacific is adding a new hump yard how about that ! So whoes right and who is wrong and which one is the right move ?
CSX has a couple of hump yards it can sell them! Just pay the moving costs.
Charles, you have lost it. There are no toll booth on the Mass Pike any longer, They will mail you a bill with toll charges and a large surcharge if you don’t have EZ pass. Not sure if your other points make a point. It was not really broken to need that kind of “fix”. It just had someone running it that did not understand their customers work on a 24 hour basis as the world turns, Humans like working with a pattern, a daily pattern.
David Downie — Actually CSX will be America’s best-run railroad. A railroad like CSX with no customers, no traffic and no trains will never have a delay, a crash or a lost shipment. CSX will transition itself to the world’s longest bicycle trail, or, in New York State, a ski trail. Here and there, a rusting old GE locomotive in CSX paint as a monument to way back when CSX used to move freight. The visionary Hunter Harrison was half right. Instead of singe-tracking the Albany to Chicago main, CSX can reduce it to no tracks. That seems to be the CSX strategic plan. If you have ever driven the New York State Thruway in western New York, you will have noticed the old Erie Canal lock kept as a historic monument. To that, we can add a 500-foot segment of track that once was the New York Central Railroad. I look forward to riding Amtrak over Interstate 90, which will be a faster and more reliable ride than Amtrak now has over CSX. The view of the vineyards and Lake Erie from I-90 at Northeast, Pennsylvania, is precious. Question: can Amtrak fit through the MassPike toll booth at West Stockbridge, Massachusetts? And how will Amtrak fare over the I-90 Dead Man’s Curve in Cleveland?
Hey Charles Landry – WTF does that have to do with anything regarding the story that is posted here? Who gives a sh*t were you drove and that your EZ Pass worked? It has nothing to do with RR at all.
But – CSX says it is better to flatten the hump yards and flat-switch. Isn’t UP paying attention to the EHH way of doing things? (sarcasm completely intended).
Now they should build the one they talked about in Red Rock, AZ near Tucson and convert West Colton into a big perfectly located Intermodal facility. Then block swap somewhere around there for LA Basin carload traffic whose blocks are built at Red Rock, Roseville, Brazos/Hearne or North Platte.
I wonder what this means for the Englewood, North Little Rock and Pine Bluff humps. As well as Fort Worth, I don’t recall if It’s still a hump or not.
Mr. Cole I assume CSX meant for those particular fairly old and well used retarders. I should re-read the Trains article on Bellevue’s new yard and what new retarder tech is like.
I thought nobody made parts for a hump yard anymore. At least, that was one of CSX’s excuses for eliminating theirs.
Yes, build a new yard in a location in the geographic center of the country, so when CSX is taken over the network can handle the movements from sea-to-sea.
Pay attention CSX and learn how a railroad needs to be run.