Case Study
Using Simulation to Make Hump Yard Capital Expense Decisions
The Belt Railway of Chicago
Belt Railway of Chicago’s (BRC) Clearing Yard is among the largest hump yards in United States. BRC spends millions of dollars annually in projects aimed to increase capacity, reduce cost or improve efficiency. We developed a hump yard simulation system for BRC to use when making these decisions.
15%
Improvement in railway yard dwell
BRC hired Optym to build a hump yard simulation system so it could evaluate and investigate its capital investment and operational decisions before implementation.
Business Problem
BRC’s Clearing Yard near Chicago is among the largest yards in the United States and processes approximately 3,000 cars daily. BRC spends millions of dollars annually for capital expenditure decisions to reduce costs, increase capacity and improve efficiency. The company had previously made these decisions using experience and intuition, but decided to use science to supplement these business insights. BRC hired Optym to build a hump yard simulation system so it could evaluate and investigate its capital investment and operational decisions before implementation.
Our Approach
Key Benefits
- YardSym’s® enabled Belt Railway of Chicago to make informed major capital expense decisions.
- Thanks to YardSym’s® animation of train operations in the yard, yard managers were able to identify the causes for yard congestion and to determine their solutions.
- To reduce the time between two consecutive train arrivals, YardSym® suggested that a pair of receiving tracks should be extended up to the hump. This would improve the yard dwell by as much as 15 percent, if the yard’s volume were to increase by 10 percent or more.
