Lecture 2:
Capacity and Performance of Freight Railway Yards and Terminals
by Assistant Professor C. Tyler Dick, University of Texas at Austin, USA
Lecture description: The safe, efficient, and reliable movement of freight by the railway transportation mode is vital to the global economy. The ability of railroads to deliver a level of service demanded by freight customers is not only controlled by line capacity and performance of trains on mainline routes, but also by the capacity and performance of yards and terminals at network nodes. Central to this freight operation are facilities known as “classification yards” (marshalling yards) that process inbound trains of railcars from multiple origins, sort or “classify” these railcars into groups or “blocks” of railcars with a common destination yard or terminal, and assemble these blocks of railcars into outbound trains for specific destinations. This course module introduces fundamental concepts of freight yard capacity and approaches for estimating the performance of these terminals. Better understanding the interrelationships between available yard infrastructure and the complexity of arriving and departing train operations can aid railway planners in developing more efficient train plans that maximize the use of terminal resources. While this presentation focuses on the freight railway context, the general concepts are also applicable to passenger terminals, maintenance depots, and intermodal/port facilities.
About lecturer: C. Tyler Dick, Ph.D., P.E. is Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to joining UT Austin in August 2022, Dr. Dick spent ten years as Research Associate Professor, Lecturer and Principal Research Engineer with the Rail Transportation and Engineering Center (RailTEC) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Prior to his time at UIUC, Dr. Dick spent 11 years as a railway design engineer with HDR Engineering where he attained the title of Professional Associate in recognition of his expertise in railway yard and terminal design. Dr. Dick holds a B.Sc. (1999) in civil engineering from the University of Manitoba and a M.S. (2001) and Ph.D. (2019) in civil engineering from the University of Illinois. Dr. Dick lectures on railway design and operations topics, and supervises a team of graduate students engaged in railway systems research for a range of Class 1 railroad, agency and rail industry supplier sponsors. His current research is focused on railway mainline, yard and terminal capacity, design and interaction; railway network operations and performance resiliency; operations potential of advanced railway traffic control systems with virtual and moving blocks; railway energy efficiency and alternative energy locomotives; and technology-assisted train operations and self-propelled autonomous railcars. Dr. Dick is a licensed Professional Engineer in the State of Texas, and is actively involved in several TRB, ASCE and AREMA committees, and the INFORMS Railway Application Section. He is Chair of the TRB Joint Subcommittee on Railway Capacity and Performance, Secretary of AREMA Committee 16 (Economics of Railway Engineering & Operations), and is on the board of the International Association of Railway Operations Research.
