Classification yard

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A classification yard (American English, as well as the Canadian National Railway), marshalling yard (British, Hong Kong, Indian, and Australian English, and the former Canadian Pacific Railway) or shunting yard (Central Europe) is a railway yard used to accumulate railway cars on one of several tracks. First, a group of cars is taken to a track, sometimes called a lead or a drill. From there, the cars are sent through a series of switches called a ladder onto the classification tracks. Some larger yards may put the lead on an artificially built hill called a hump to use the force of gravity to propel the cars through the ladder.

Freight trains that consist of unrelated cars must be made into a train grouped according to their destinations; this shunting is done at the starting point. Some trains drop and pick up cars along their route in classification yards or at industrial sidings. In contrast is a unit train that carries, for example, automobiles from the plant to a port, or coal from a mine to the power plant.