Belt Railway of Chicago's Clearing Yard was built in 1902 by Chicago & Western Indiana and Chicago Great Western, and acquired in 1912 by BRC, owned by 12 railroads, including Santa Fe, Burlington, C&O, GTW, IC, L&N, MoPac, Soo, and predecessors of Conrail and Norfolk & Western. Clearing was promptly rebuilt, and at the time (1912) was the largest in the world, with 54 tracks in each of its westbound and eastbound classification yards, and was rebuilt again in 1937-38 Today (1995), there are 36 classification tracks in the westbound yard and 56 (since 1952) in the eastbound yard, with associated receiving (25 tracks east, 15 west) and departure (25 tracks east, 20 west) yards. In 1995, the yard was classifying 3,000 cars a day, and the line was switching over 150 industries in greater Chicago. There were 17 eastward manifests and 14 westward manifests originated a day, with only seven of those being transfer runs to other Chicago-area yards.
The yard lies east-west, between the IHB (and former Alton) at Argo and the former Wabash at 75th Street.
The 1995 traffic flows in the eastward direction were:
Neff Yard (Kansas City), via Dolton and St. Louis, with a block for North Little Rock (UP)
Croxton, NJ (Conrail)
Willard, with blocks for Grand Rapids, Cincinnati and Cumberland (CSX)
Selkirk (Conrail)
Bellevue (NS)
Conway Yard, Pittsburgh (Conrail)
Toronto, with blocks for Flint, Sarnia, Montreal (GTW/CN)
Flat Rock, with blocks for Battle Creek and Sarnia (GTW/CN)
Waycross, GA, with blocks for Danville, Evansville, Louisville, Nashville (CSX)
Macon, GA, with blocks for Fort Wayne, Knoxville, Chattanooga (NS)
Blue Island Yard (IHB)
Landers Yard (NS)
South Chicago Yard (BRC)
Barr Yard (CSX)
Glen Yard (BRC)
Bedford Park Yard (CSX)
Elkhart (Conrail)
The 1995 traffic flows in the westward direction were:
Vancouver, BC, with a block for CN intermodal (CN)
Vancouver, BC, with blocks for Thunder Bay, BC Rail (CN)
Pine Bluff, with blocks for Bloomington, East St. Louis, Eagle Pass (SP)
Kansas City (SP)
Roper (Salt Lake City), with a block for Pueblo (SP)
St. Paul, with a block for Milwaukee (CP)
Galesburg (BN)
Northtown (BN)
Neenah, with a block for Waukesha (WC)
Chicago Central
Bensenville (CP)
Cicero, with a block for Eola (BN)
Calumet (WC)
Proviso (C&NW)