Argentine Yard. Opened in July 1997, Argentine Yard is a large BNSF hump yard in Kansas City. Apparently, this yard processes more rolling stock than any of BNSF's 8 hump yards. The Kansas Division of BNSF begins here, which runs all the way up to Ohio.
The biggest job of the Argentine hump yard is to disassemble manifest trains, break trains down and then rearrange them for other destinations. The hump yard is equipped with 60 bowl tracks, two hump leads and the latest computer-operated retarding systems.
I was lecturing in Kansas city in July 2003, so as soon as I was finished, I quietly left the meeting, grabbed my Nikon 35 mm and found Argentine Yard. It was 101 degrees, but I didn't care. The amount of traffic was amazing.
The pictures here are not the best quality as they are scanned pictures of 35 mm pictures.
Neff Yard. One of Union Pacific's active 11 hump yards, Neff Yard is located just west of Argentine Yard. A former yard of Missouri Pacific Railroad and named after President Paul Neff, UP acquired this busy yard when Missouri Pacific merged with UP. Under Mr. Neff's leadership, piggyback freight traffic gained impetus in American railroading and under his direction Missouri Pacific developed a specialized method of handling this type of business. It featured the use of demountable containers in truck-rail service, the trailer bodies being lifted off their wheels by gantry cranes and deposited onto flatcars for rail transport to destination. This service was inaugurated early in 1956.
I visited this yard the same day I visited Argentine Yard. It was hot, but the trip well worth all the sweating!