An Economic Barometer of America

Looking across bowl tracks, where cars are sorted for many destinations.

Looking across bowl tracks, where cars are sorted for many destinations.

Bailey Yard handles daily an average of 135 trains bound for cities as distant as the East, West and Gulf Coasts of America, as well as the Canadian and Mexican borders.

Bailey Yard's goods tell the story of American commerce, for through here pass refrigerators, TVs, coal, automobiles, potatoes, fruit, wine, lumber, corn, sugar, steel, chemicals and hundreds of other commodities used every day. As goes Bailey Yard, so goes the nation, for it is an economic barometer of America.

More than $100 million dollars has been spent in the modern era of diesel-electric locomotive power to boost Bailey Yard to its position as the world's leading railroad yard.

North Platte is home to 2,600 Union Pacific employees, including those who work in the yard and shops and those who operate over-the-road trains.