gravity yard

Typical locations of gravity yards are places where it was difficult to build a hump yard due to the topography.

There are three types of classification yards: flat-shunted yards, hump yards and gravity yards.

Gravity yards also have a very large capacity but they need more staff than hump yards and thus they are the most uneconomical classification yards.

Hump yard and gravity yard tracks are equipped with mechanical retarders which control the speed of the cars as they roll downhill to their destination tracks.

The largest active gravity yard is Nürnberg (Nuremberg) Rbf (Rbf: Rangierbahnhof, "classification yard"), Germany.

Most gravity yards were built in Germany and Great Britain, sometimes also in some other European countries, for example Łazy yard near Zawiercie on the Warsaw-Vienna Railway (originally in the Russian Empire, now in Poland).

In the USA, there were only very few old gravity yards; one of the few gravity yards in operation today is CSX's Readville Yard south of Boston, Massachusetts.

Since Nuremberg Rbf has a downward gradient of the track (see Gravity Yard for an explanation), the locomotives are coupled with 6 axle flat wagon loaded with concrete weights that have been converted to brake vans so that it is possible to stop trains of up to 2000 tons in weight.