Head of the Government Yard or Box Car Yard, 1960

Shows a view of the head of the government or box car yard. This yard has about 80 tracks, holding about 1600 cars. All of the tracks here are curved continuously. there may be as many as three different crews switching on three different lead tracks for the three main merchandise piers here. These piers handle as many as seven or eight ships. In addition, there are warehouses further up in the yard for handling commodities for overseas shipment or transfer. Because of these congested conditions, it is necessary to maintain a sharp lookout at all times for men on the ground, and other train movements; and, because of the continuous track curvatures, the firemen must frequently take signals form the ground crew and relay them to the engineer.