What is the Early Bird?

[JLJ061]

Quite often I hear Chicago East Dispatcher tell eastbound trains going into Elkhart to bring them on down to the Early Bird in the yard. What is it and what is it used for?

[musicmarine]

The Early Bird is a track that is located in NS's Elkhart Yard. The track exits the mainline and travel east dow nthe north side of the yard. It is a track that is used to put trains that are going to have a 1000 mile inspection or that have recrews that are not on duty until a while after the inbound train arrives. It has many other uses but those are the two most common. It also has another yard track called the Early bird pocket, where we place cars that are found to be in bad order status or engines to be added to mainline trains as the come through Elkhart. The Ealry Bird cac be exited at Milepost 423 back onto the double main or continue past 423 where the track name becomes the coach track. This track continues to milepost 421 where you enter the mainline again.

[RDG-LNE]

Sometimes terms in railroading long outlast their original owners. The New York Central advertised it provided "Early Bird Service" on freight cars at one point.

Drew

[esprrfan]

The bird (early) is controlled by the westend yard master at 423 and onto the coach track it's controlled by the hump yardmaster. The E/B departure yard leads also is off the earlybird.