Freight car inventory at the Belt Railway of Chicago’s Clearing Yard has topped 5,000 for the first time in data going back to 2017, pushing up dwell times and prompting an analyst to sound an alarm about potential congestion at the busiest classification yard in the Windy City.
Volume at the twin hump yard has generally trended higher since CSX downgraded its Barr Yard and shifted much of its classification work to Clearing Yard.
“The BRC has inventory breakpoints that trigger remedial action. The first is a ‘yellow alert’ when average daily inventory at Clearing hits 4,800 and ‘red alert’ when it reaches 5,100. We’re now between the two,” analyst Rick Paterson notes in his latest State of the Rails Report, based on Surface Transportation Board data…