The Hump Yard

At between two to four metres, it is actually more of a hill than a mountain. Even the slight gradient of 30 to 60 per mil is enough to take advantage of gravity. The purpose of the hump yard is to rearrange the freight wagons in the wagonload traffic. It saves the shunters all sorts of hard manual work. 

How does a hump yard work?

Shunting locomotives push the wagons over the peak of the hill, where a worker then opens the couplings with a long metal pole. The wagons then roll down the hill by themselves on the sorting tracks to their destination: a new train set. When they dock, you can hear the impact of the shunting – the loud bang caused by the wagon hitting the train. With a weight of 10-20 tonnes, the forces at work are massive.

Not all freight wagons can withstand this process

Standard container carrier wagons, that are used in intermodal transport, for example, are not suitable for a hump yard. The weakly constructed container spigot, the coupler between the container, and the underframe would not be able to withstand the heavy impacts of the shunting. This means it is only possible to rearrange trains with standard containers and swap bodies at terminals. Some wagons can also be manually moved, though this process is very time-consuming.