Today I just watched Extreme Trains and saw the epoisode with the UP’s Pacific Fruit Express and I have a few questions about it. When it reaches the CSX system it is called Q090 if going eastbound and Q091 going westbound.
What day of the week dose it leave Washington State?
What day of the week dose it come through Berea Ohio, and what time dose it come through here?
If you know the anwser then tell me what day and time the eastbound Q090 comes through Berea and tell me what day and time the westbound Q091 comes through Berea?
By the time the “salad shooter” gets to Iowa, let alone Ohio, it’s impossible to pin down a DAY, much less a time, that it will reliably pass my location. It can vary wildly from Saturday morning to Sunday night.
As far as Ohio goes, there should now be two trains from California every week that are, for all intents and purposes, identical to the one from Washington. In fact, CSX calls them all Q090s. The three Q091s all look pretty much the same, too–exclusively ARMN reefers, and UP power–usually GEVOs. As others have said, it’s hard to peg them precisely, because of the variables that occur from time to time over thousands of miles of journey. The westbound empties’ times would depend on the eastbound loads’ arrival time at Rotterdam.
I suspect, but do not know, this has had a negative impact on the Express Lane trains. A few years ago, the one that originated in this would have anywhere from about 40 to 55 cars on it during summer. These past few years it appears to only have a couple dozen, and a bunch of empty grain hopper, ethanol tankcars, etc., on it. About the same time that I noticed the reduced amount of cars, I saw a post on here about how UP is no longer giving these trains priority over other trains.
On the other hand, Railex has added a second Delano train.
Eric, QNPSKP is still running daily; the past week has shown consists of anywhere from 53 to 93 cars, most of them loads (empties only totalling in the single digits). I don’t know that UP gives the railroad to anything in particular any more–kind of disheartening to see what’s supposed to be a hot manifest stuck behind a coal train with issues.
As to schedule maintenance, UP’s own publicity about these trains say that the service has had a 99.9-percent on-time record. That would suggest that a lot of delay time is built in (in tracking these trains, I’ve quite often noted that they reach Proviso a day or more ahead of schedule). I guess this service and performance is all right to Railex, else they’d be pushing for a tighter schedule. I’ve seen some weather delays, signal delays, crew issues, and so on, but most of the delays are simply caused by other trains–trains being met out west, or followed in the east.
The railroad’s publicity states that these trains beat the transit times of single-person OTR trucking. I’d have to assume that the railroad time they’re using is what the trains are scheduled for. Anything faster (as it is, in most cases) is icing on the cake. They also say that each car holds the payload of three trucks–the green argument.
The big new reefers that the railroad and Railex both tout have a disadvantage of their own–they make most trains come afoul of UP’s tons-per-operative-brake restrictions. If the average weight per car is over 100 tons, your 70-mph train is restricted to 65. Over 110, it’s 60. Over 120, it’s 50. That hurts. Since most of the cars are loaded fairly heavily (TPOB is almost always 120 or more), they have to be scheduled as a 50-mph train. The westbound trains (mostly empties, but occasionally a few backhaul loads) have no TPOB problems. I just saw one blow through this morning.
Now the good news: come fall, UP expects to add a second weekly Wallula train again, for six months during the peak growing season.
Well, all that’s most interesting - not only the comments on the service scheduling and performance, but possibly yet another argument against pushing the gross car weight higher (in addition to the accelerated rail wear issue). Even a 263K (131.5 tons) car will be over 120 Tons Per Operative Brake threshold - so what happens with a 286K (143 tons) or 315K (157.5 tons) car ? However, I recognize that the practical answer might well be, “Not much different”, because:
The 263K car is over the 120 TPOB and so is already restricted to 50 MPH. Therefore, going to the larger cars isn’t going to degrade the train speed much more - might as well take advantage of their larger capacities and economies;
Those larger/ heavier cars aren’t going to be in a service where over 50 MPH is necessary or desirable, so that speed restriction probably isn’t going to matter much anyway.
The result is that the availability of higher operating speeds are pretty much limited to lighter-loading or lighter-density commodities - feather pillows and distilled moonbeams, I suppose. I wonder what our trucking and logistics members here will have to say about all this.
i see P090 and P091 going through rochester ny. P090 use to go down the westshore line and P091 use to go up the westshore line, but now both stay on the chicago main line.