I got a lot of questions about the Gibson Transfer Yard, the LCL yard, so here we go.
An LCL or Less-than-Container-Load yard is a space railroads use to hold cargo for multiple customers that does not fill an entire railcar or container.
What did they do? LCL operations consisted of truck shipments and packages from shippers, as well as their deliveries to the LCL yard. At the yard, clerks consolidated clearance and shipping documentation, resulting in cargo being loaded into railcars until the cars were full. Each railcar carried cargo for multiple customers traveling in the same general direction. Once loaded, workers sorted and placed goods on new trains for distribution to various customers or to a single location. This was commonly seen as more cost-effective from the shipper's perspective, as they only paid for a percentage of the volume they required for any given freight car. In other cases, shippers would share the cost of volume with one or more businesses.
Railcars were spotted on set tracks designated for particular destinations every day. If a LCL load arrived by train or a shipment arrived by truck, the company knew exactly where shipments would go once they arrived at the yard.
Let's say multiple trucks brought a shipment of barley destined for delivery to a brewery in Gary. At the LCL yard, that specific cargo would always be spotted on, say, "track 7". There could be 13 half-filled barley cars on track 7 that could be filled with the new shipment. Or, shipments can be broken into different "spots" on "Track 7." Say Brand X barely would be spotted on Track 7 at the 5th spot, and Brand Y would be spotted at the 12th spot on Track 7, etc. IHB would fill the cars until each was full. Once done, they would be delivered to the brewery, the empties would be brought back, and so on.
Sometimes the cars delivered would contain barley on one half of the car, and barley slated for another brewery on the other, or any variation thereof. Now replace barley with any deliverable commodity. Coal, gravel, barley, rye, ore, stone slabs, or wet goods such as milk, petroleum, water, rubber, etc. If they were local-bound, they were likely sorted in the LCL.
Sometimes, freight arriving at the central Gibson Yard would need to be unloaded into different cars at the LCL Yard. If a shipment of fish came into Gibson from, let's say, Blue Island, and that fish is destined for the IHB freight office in Gary. This car, or associated cars, would be detached from the initial train and transferred onto a train bound for the LCL yard. Once there, the fish would be transferred to another car spotted on a designated track, and the original car would be returned to Gibson later. Once in Gary, the fish would be unloaded into a truck for distribution.
IHB was not the only laborer in the yard. By the 1940s, much of this work had been contracted to brokers. These brokers hired workers to handle specific freight in the yard on behalf of the cosigner or company. These contracted grunts would load freight into cars owned by their employers. IHB would have rented out spots on certain tracks for these types of workers. This freight would be transported on LCL trains from a specific location.
Sometimes the destinations were not local, but were set to be transferred to another train for further transportation east of Gary, and IHB was the bridge between. There were also situations when specific freight required the car to be in a different spot on the LCL train multiple times until the car was empty. All of this work was done on precise schedules. Time is money on the railroad. The work was hard, long, tedious, and went 24/7. This was the time when a freight yard clerk position was coveted. They were the ones keeping track of all of this movement and work, without sophisticated software and computers to aid them. Trucks would also come to the yard to pick up shipments.
In the early 1910s, IHB was the only railroad handling LCL operations. The next railroad to enter that game was the Baltimore & Ohio in July of 1912. That same year, in response to a new LCL yard opening at Clearing Yard by then Chicago Union Transfer Railway and the Chicago and Western Indiana Railroad, New York Central announced its intention to build a brand-new LCL yard for IHB near Gibson. The City of Gary had not been touched by any major railroad entity about a new interchange and LCL yards. Kirk Yard and some smaller yards in its orbit were about the extent of this business. It was so new that its population didn't justify the cost of scraping out new rail yards within the city itself, especially for LCL business. The streetcar system was enough to handle Gary's traffic. The new IHB LCL yard, which began construction in 1913, was expected to meet Gary's future business needs, as it was anticipated to grow exponentially over the next decade.
By November 1913, grading was completed at the new Gibson Transfer Yard, and work began on the initial 14 miles of trackage. Numerous freight sheds were built to serve the IHB, Michigan Central, and Michigan Southern railroads. The yard had two units. A gigantic "wye" was constructed west of Kennedy Avenue, which would connect the new LCL yard with the main Gibson Yard, and provide passage for Michigan Central freights to the yard as well. They called this section "Unit 1." Unit 2 was east of Cline Avenue, beginning just west of Ivanhoe Interlocking. By spring, construction had included 32 additional miles of tracks, more office buildings, loading platforms, a two-story boarding house, a cafeteria, and employed 230 workers.
In 1917, a large sulphuric acid fire caused by unknown means resulted in the loss of a few miles of track and three smaller platforms. This hastened an additional investment in the LCL yard. It ensured that IHB's LCL Yard was, according to the Times, "the largest and most complete 'less than carload' freight transfer yard in the world." When 1917 rolled around, the LCL yard had a 200-foot-long building with loading platforms. The building had modern electric generators and other conveniences not typically seen in other LCL yards. It wouldn't be until 1924 that the entire yard would be completed, with an additional 30 tracks. Another fire destroyed an office building, destroying many records.
In 1958, New York Central began its new "flexi-van" truck-to-rail piggy-back service at Gibson Transfer Yard. It employed a new technique that allowed flat trailers to slide from the train car to highway wheels in about 4 minutes. When the truck reached its destination, it could slide back onto a railcar and start the process all over again. This was the first instance of this service anywhere in the United States. This service operated between Chicago and New York.
By 1960, there was too much competition with trucks and the further evolution of commercial interstate road systems. LCL freight movements fell rapidly due to trucking. IHB petitioned the Indiana Public Service Commission to discontinue LCL freight service. The petition was granted that June, and service immediately ceased. As the IHB railroaders aged, they lost their positions and subsequently began retiring in large numbers. In 1977, a railroad relocation project nearly saw the Chessie System utilize the Wabash 4th District to access the Gary & Western high line, allowing it to reach the old Gibson Transfer Yard, where it planned to repurpose the abandoned yard. However, this never materialized.
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