Enola Yard: Once the World's Largest Freight Yard

Just across the Susquehanna River from Harrisburg, the Pennsylvania Railroad broke ground in nineteen oh one on what would become the largest freight classification yard on earth. Enola Yard opened in January of nineteen oh five with two hump hills that cars rolled over so gravity could sort them by destination. By the late nineteen twenties the yard covered three hundred sixteen acres and held nearly ten thousand cars at once, threaded through one hundred forty-five miles of track and four hundred seventy-six switches.

At its peak during World War Two, Enola processed more than twenty thousand cars in a single day. It held that world-largest title until nineteen fifty-six, when the Pennsylvania Railroad finished an even bigger yard outside Pittsburgh. Conrail took over in the nineteen seventies; Norfolk Southern runs the property today. The hump yards still operate, though at a fraction of their mid-century volume. Enola itself is a small community that grew up to house the railroaders who kept all those cars moving.