Golden Spike Tower and Bailey Yard

Bailey Yard is a classification yard, a place where freight trains are broken apart and their cars regrouped into new trains headed the right direction. Cars arrive from all over, are sorted according to where they need to go, and are coupled into fresh trains for the next leg of their journey. Doing this efficiently is the beating heart of a freight railroad, and Bailey Yard does it on a scale unmatched anywhere.

The yard covers a huge area and holds an immense network of tracks, receiving and dispatching a constant stream of trains carrying coal, grain, containers, and every kind of goods. North Platte grew up as a Union Pacific town, and the railroad remains the town's largest employer and its reason for being, with the yard humming twenty-four hours a day.

The clever heart of the yard is the hump, a small artificial hill over which cars are gently pushed. At the top a car is uncoupled and allowed to roll down the far side under gravity, where a computer-controlled system of switches steers it onto the correct track to join the train being built for its destination. Speed-control devices slow the cars so they couple gently.

Watching this from the tower, you see cars released one after another, splitting off in different directions like a giant sorting machine, which is exactly what it is. It is a mesmerizing process, an assembly line for entire trains, and it explains how a single yard can handle the volume that flows through Bailey.

The Golden Spike Tower was built to give the public a window into all this. Rising beside the yard, it offers both an enclosed viewing floor and an open-air deck, so visitors can look out over the whole operation and follow the movement of trains across the vast expanse of track.

The tower's name nods to the golden spike that joined the transcontinental railroad in 1869, and exhibits inside tell the story of Union Pacific and the railroad's role in North Platte and the nation. It turns a working freight yard, normally off-limits, into a genuine attraction for anyone fascinated by trains and the movement of goods.

North Platte's identity is bound up with the railroad. During World War Two the town became famous for its Canteen, where volunteers met troop trains and fed the soldiers passing through, day and night, a story of small-town generosity that is still remembered here.

Set in the Platte River valley, the town is also a crossroads of history and travel, near the old Oregon Trail route and the home of Buffalo Bill Cody's ranch. But it is the trains that define it, and the tower's view of the endless yard is the best way to feel the scale of the operation at the town's heart.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.