A
classification yard (
American and
Canadian English) or
marshalling yard (
British,
Hong Kong,
Indian and Canadian English) is a
railway yard found at some
freight train stations, used to separate
railway cars on to one of several tracks. First the cars are taken to a track, sometimes called a
lead or a
drill. From there the cars are sent through a series of
switches called a
ladder onto the classification tracks. Larger yards tend to put the lead on an artificially built hill called a
hump to use the force of gravity to propel the cars through the ladder.