From its outset, Tinsley was to be a "network yard": a major railfreight node where wagon-load freight trains would arrive, be split and sorted into new trains for onward departure to other network yards, directly to the many rail-connected businesses in the area in "trip" freights, or to the freight terminal for unloading and forwarding by road. To assist with this, it featured gravity-assisted shunting and a new computerised system of wagon control, along the lines of large US rail freight yards.