USA: The Surface Transportation Board has directed expanded weekly reporting at Chicago’s Clearing Yard after railcar inventory rose 57% and average dwell climbed 72% year over year.

Aerial view of freight cars and intermodal containers at the Belt Railway of Chicago Clearing Yard.
Freight cars and intermodal equipment at Clearing Yard in May 2025. Photo: Tylervigen / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 4.0

Clearing Yard dwell reaches 31 hours

In an August 3 letter, the Surface Transportation Board asked the Belt Railway Company of Chicago to explain the deterioration in service metrics and outline how it will work with Class I carriers to restore normal operations.

For Week 30, average railcar inventory at Clearing Yard reached 5,048 cars, compared with 3,212 in the same week of 2025. Average dwell increased from about 18 hours to 31 hours over the same period.

The trend also appears in the comparison with early April 2026. Since then, average weekly inventory has risen 26% from 4,012 cars, while average yard dwell has increased 63% from 19 hours. The STB said the simultaneous rise could indicate growing congestion across the wider Chicago rail complex, but the letter did not declare that congestion had been confirmed.

BRC describes Clearing Yard as a 5.5-mile facility covering 786 acres and supporting more than 250 miles of track. The terminal railroad says it dispatches more than 8,400 railcars per day and interchanges with every railroad serving the Chicago hub.

Don’t miss…Hunter Street Station Cavern Opens for Public Tour

Reporting will continue until both measures normalize

BRC is to submit its first expanded report by noon ET on August 10 and continue reporting every Monday. The weekly data will cover dwell, inventory, cars humped and re-humped, cars received and departed, and the percentage of on-time departures.

The reports must also break out performance by interchanging railroad, including on-time departures, inbound and outbound extras and annulments, denied requests, cars received against BRC quotas, and “haulbacks” in which cars arrive and leave on the same railroad.

Reporting will continue until average daily dwell and inventory have both returned, on a sustained basis, to the corresponding 2025 weekly levels. The STB also requested a detailed explanation of the trends and BRC’s recovery plan with the Class I railroads.

The six BRC owners are BNSF Railway, Canadian National, CPKC, CSX, Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific. The STB copied each railroad’s chief executive on its letter.

The rise in Clearing Yard metrics has coincided with CSX reducing its use of Barr Yard in favor of Clearing and, to a lesser extent, Indiana Harbor Belt for Chicago-area interchange classification. CSX has said the volume it sends to Clearing has remained steady, and the STB letter did not attribute the deterioration to that operating change.

News on railway transport, industry, and railway technologies from Railway Supply that you might have missed:

Don’t miss…Suburban Rail Loop TBMs Set for Burwood Tunnelling