Another step in my attempt to learn more about railroading, but disappointing. The agency I work for is in the process a buying a railyard, so I was hoping to get some insight about what went on there. Alas, although the book claims to be about railyards, it’s really about a subset - an important subset, but still a subset - freight classification yards. What’s more - or less - although copiously illustrated with pictures and diagrams, and comprehensive in treatment, the author never really explain what goes on at a classification yard. Terms like “hump yard”, “flat yard”, “bowl”, “classification track”, and “automatic retarder” are dropped in without explanation (although you can work it out from context). An introductory chapter explaining why freight car classification is important and how it’s done would double the value of the book. As near as I can tell, the intended audience is model railroaders who want to duplicate a yard in their layouts (good luck with Proviso or North Platte); not much use to anybody else. ( )