I love humongous, gigantic trains and I have seen on various routes throughout Canada and the USA the trains getting longer, as well as here in the Lower Mainland. However, none compare to this one on video uploaded by Tim Stevens from his outing on February 21, 2021 near Mount Robson in BC:
As per his description, apparently CN 348 (manifest which runs from Prince George to Edmonton) broke down along the Albreda Sub and behind it was CN 834 (grains which runs from Vancouver to Edmonton and contained some potash cars at the front). As a result, CN 834 pushed 348 to Wynd just west of Jasper. The breakdown of the lengths are as follows:
348: 182 cars (11,733 feet)
834: 174 cars (9,851 feet)
Total: 356 cars (21,584 feet)!
In the 15 minute long video, there is a blip 12:31 into it misses about 14 cars, but still, this maybe the longest that has ever run in North America. CN trumps over UP now as the leader of humongous freights based on this video.
This is a common occurrence on the Albreda Sub, which has a 0.7% grade from the junction with Robson Sub just east of Valemount to the top of the hill just west of Redpass, this is the eastbound ruling grade on CN’s Canadian mainline and is almost twice as steep as any other grade trains will encounter.
Prince George and Kamloops yards both like to send out trains that are maxed right out or over the official tonnage rating for their power on this hill, because the train will easily leave the yard and once it is out on the main it is not their problem anymore. And these trains often do make it up the hill, spinning, chewing and clawing their way upgrade at less than 10 mph.
When a train stalls the most common solution is to get the next one to tie on and push, due the high traffic level there is usually someone else not far behind. It is rare to be told to double the hill but it can still happen, there is an ‘exchange track’ between the two mains just east of Redpass that can be used for this purpose (it used to be used for block swaps of Vancouver-Prince George traffic, hence the name). Usually the push goes no farther than Redpass, but in case it would seem they decided that 348 would also stall on the 0.4% grade from the east end of Moose Lake up to the summit of Yellowhead Pass (a wise assumption), so the pusher stayed attached.
Even though 348 was mostly empties they would have had a tough fight even with the second unit working properly, due to the snow (you can hear the lead unit spinning even though he isn’t in full throttle) and curve resistance of such a long conventional train, not to mention the sticking brakes that sometimes set themselves near the tail end as the brake pipe pressure jumps up and down a bit when the slack comes in and out. The old ‘Trudeau’ grain hoppers also seem to roll poorly in general compared to other cars.
CN’s operating practices are different than those I operated under on CSX. When I was working (pre EHH) CSX rules prohibited a following train from shoving a preceeding train intact. The following train had to cut their train off and secure it before shoving the preceeding train. Post EHH ???
We often have a train stall on our Blair hill and the next train behind gets to shove the stalled train over. Usually, the following train cuts off their power, but I’ve heard of some old heads (now retired) who would, if they had an empty hopper train, take it with them.
I think if one suggested “doubling the hill” now, that 1/2 of our people wouldn’t know what you’re talking about. It’s really starting to show all the knowledge and experience that’s being lost to retirements, etc.
Rio Tinto Alcan’s smelter in Kitimat, BC. A block of those is a common sight on M348 or M304, the two daily eastbound manifests that originate in Prince George.
I’ve heard that the Kitimat Subdivision is currently out of service due to a large mudslide, so anything that moves out by rail is probably getting trucked to Terrace. I hope CN choses to rebuild it, that line has been on life support ever since the massive Eurocan pulp mill closed in 2010.
For better or worse, doubling hills is still a fairly common occurrence on several of our branch lines.
Different divisions had different levels of rules enforcement.
I worked for a number of divisions - as B&O, as Chessie and as CSX. Under B&O and Chessie each division was effectively its own railroad with the Superintendent the ‘Capo d’capo’. The law unto themselves.
With CSX and Centralized Dispatching, there was a concerted effort to do things the same on ALL divisions within the Dispatching Center. Since Chicago Terminal, Indianapols and Selkirk were not broght to Jacksonville. they did their own thing. When Dispatching was decentralized in 2008 each division started going their own way with their own ‘interpertation’ of the same rules. After I retired and the operation was recentralized, I have no idea of the level of standardization that is being applied.
Well, while interesting, it’s really can’t be the longest train because it really is just two trains coupled together and separated prior to the next terminal, Jasper. (Though just as one train operationally…)
BNSF operated a real single-crew 21,000+ foot train in August of 2009 for about 320 miles.
At the end of July that year, Montana Rail Link was having trouble with its Mullan Tunnel under the Continental Divide west of Helena. Chunks started to cave in, and it was closed for a couple of days. Trains were detoured via Great Falls. As it was advertised that the tunnel was to reopen, detouring ceased, and the trains started staging on line for the reopening.
Then the big news hit: Another collapse - this time one end of the tunnel, and that the tunnel would be closed for at least a week (it was closed for the better part of a month). This created a huge backlog, because all the trains staged for the “opening” west of Laurel had to be returned to Laurel and detoured north. Since they had to get rid of SOMETHING right away at Laurel and had limited Great Falls crews available, three Pasco merchandise trains were assembled together with five C44 locomotives in a 2X2X1 distributed power configuration and launched for Great Falls.
The train certainly was an item of interest on that morning’s conference call. I remember the train was over 21,000 feet in length and a bit less than 20,000 tons. The question then became what to do with something that didn’t fit anywhere except double track.
The division General Manager at the time was kind of a quirky individual who was a semi-railfan. He asked me (the Power Manager, on the conference call):
Are you kidding!? A train like that was Hunter Harrison’s wet dream, and he was still running CN in 2009.
Since your train made it over 300 miles without problems, Hunterized CN would have started running them in both directions on a daily basis, siding length be damned, just make the crews do sawbys (they were actually a standard part of the northern Ontario operating “plan” for a surprisingly long time).
When saw-bys were “part of the operating plan,” were they running with tw-man crews? A third man can cut the saw-by time to a third. A meet between mile-long trains at a siding with a length shorter than a mile. but greater thsn half-a-mile can easily take excess of two hours with only two men. Iime and a terrific lot of hiking.
A saw-by is impossible with one-man crews. Unless additiional employees show up to provide protection.
Actually it’s very possible. Just get the two crews to work together and protect each other’s tail ends.
Also, you don’t have to ride the point if you have the right authority and there are no crossings.
My understanding is that northern Ontario was a purely Conductor-only operation by this time. Brakemen, utility employees, deadheads and additional crew starts were among the many, many things Hunter hated.
Were these “real” sawbys (as in neither train fitting in the siding)? I thought I read once where the CN “plan” east of Winnipeg was designated places where one of the trains would just double over for the meet…
While it was before I hired on, I was told by those who were there that real sawbys (two 10,000’ trains meeting at a 6,000’ siding) did happen on a regular basis. The official operating plan may well have intended to only use sidings with long backtracks or yards at terminals like Sioux Lookout, Armstrong and Hornepayne, but from what I was told that didn’t always happen.
One variation of the plan involved running long trains in only one direction. Of course this created deadheads, so I don’t think it lasted long.
Since then some sidings have been lengthed to accommodate the current 12,000’ standard train length, but there is still limited capacity for long trains so some run short.
Someone on TrainOdors years ago pointed out that… in theory… you could saw two trains by using an 85’ siding. If you have time, lots and lots of time but not an amazingly huge Tower-of-Hanoi or halting-problem time – I think the number worked out to about four days. That’s assuming of course there are no troublesome grades, handbrakes of dubious engagement, etc. And that you have some way to arrange necessary recrewing, etc. etc. etc. during that time…
It is not pleasant to think about doing this with steam. Or with a contemporary train made up with just the amount of hp/ton to get it over the road…
I assume the 0.7% grade starts at Spicer M.70.6 where the Robson Sub joins the Albreda Sub starts and the video is at M.54, I find it amazing that the lone working engine an SD75I 5693 could pull a 182 car train with many of them loads at all let alone make it part way up that grade!