This is an attempt to show the vast size of the Bailey Yards in North Platte, Nebraska, the largest railway yards in the world. I took a number of photos from the viewing tower that is located at the center bottom of this map. The PiP point to some of the views taken.

The statistics are awesome:

covers 2,850 acres

reaching a total length of eight miles

Put end-to-end, Bailey Yard’s trackage totals 315 miles


Every 24 hours, Bailey Yard handles 10,000 railroad cars.

Of those, 3,000 are sorted daily in the yard

Two hump yards allow four cars a minute to roll gently into any of 114 “bowl” tracks where they become part of trains headed for dozens of destinations.

Together, these two yards have 17 receiving and 16 departure tracks.

The fueling and service center processes more than 9,000 locomotives each month

On-site Car Repair This facility annually replaces 10,000 pairs of wheels



Image courtesy of MapCarta

Screenshot and processing with GIMP