Question for you all. Do you feel the fast freight era for the most part died with the transition from steam to diesel? If so will it ever return? I’d like to read your thoughts on this.
There never was fast freight in the steam era. Between coal and water stops, as well as dragging tonnage up grade at less than 10 MPH. Getting a steam powered train over the road at any speed was an accomplishment.
Today’s ‘priority’ trains are faster than anything that was even contemplated in the steam eral Even the PSR land barges move more tonnage faster than any steam powered trains could get over the road.
Plenty of fast steam freight – the Speed Witch, the BSM, the trains pulled by the N&W As and Seaboard 2-6-6-4s… just about any discussion of AMC power but Nickel Plate freight in particular, right to the end. Arguably some of the wartime trains behind PRR Q2s. I do not have timings for the post-4-6-6-4 D&H but that was an operating ‘paradigm shift’ from Loree’s drag era.
In my opinion you could happily operate TrucTrain or Super C consists behind suitable steam, although the right kind of diesel-electrics were ‘better’. I would not have wanted to maintain fast timings with steam, though.
What the UP did with Centennials and Fast Forties would be difficult to imagine even with good Challenger power. We had a whole era of 70mph Z trains stopping and starting that would be difficult to achieve with steam. What changed was economics favoring slower speed, and (not the same thing exactly) not being willing to support the costs of higher speed directly.
One of the things about fast anything that I’ve seen mentioned here is the fact that disparate speeds really screw things up.
One need only look at the “halo” that surrounds an Amtrak train these days to see how that works.
The Central and the Pennsy both had four track mainlines that kept the speedsters (chiefly passenger) separated from the drags. That kind of infrastructure is rare these days, as are the personnle to make it happen.
It’s been said that running all trains the same speed is far more efficient. Since it’s not likely you’s want to run the “junk” freights at Super C speeds, that simply means everything slows down instead.
How long is a train? Many look at its length as specified on its consist in feet. To operate trains on Clear Signals - which is necessary for operations ‘AT SPEED’; a train is 3 or more Signal Blocks long - depending upon the configuration of the signal system and the spacing of signals upon the line that the train operates - any train - operating on that territory is Three to Four signal blocks long. How far behind Train 1 must Train 2 be to obtain a Clear signal that will permit ‘unrestricted track speed’ operation. When you start looking at a railroad through the lens of the signal system it is being operated with, what is required for Track Speed operations changes and that 100 mile track segment and the number of trains it will support ‘at speed’ is vastly different than the number of trains
I think “fast” is a relative term, as opposed to “drag”.
It surely is. Three Y6b’s dragging/shoving 10K tons up the Blue Ridge would only have been ‘fast freight’ on the Norfolk & Western. [8D] But as Overmod sez, put half that on flat ground behind a Class A and it’s a different story.
Don’t forget the Super C on the Santa Fe. IINM it advertised 40 hours LA-Chicago. Shippers were expected to pay a premium price for this premium service. The most popular theory was intermodal shippers didn’t want to pay and actually didn’t need it that fast. They have REPEATEDLY asked for consistancy more than speed. 100 years later, railroads continue to unheed the request. Truckers deliver that consistancy more often.
I think that experiment shows (along with the lost capacity) why other “fast trains” like the BSM which also lasted well into the diesel era aren’t around.
Fast freights certainly existed in the steam era and even with coal/water stops that were inherent in the mode of locomotion at the time; and they existed well beyond that era. A hotshot was determined by the consist, power and crew. There were and are designated “fast freight” symbols or numbers as determined by time-sensitve nature and equipment in the consist. And there were engineers who ran like the wind and never seemed to have any mishaps like knuckles and drawbars. A dispatcher could run one of these crews on a lower priority symbol on short headway with hotter symbols. Indeed, “high-spotting” was common and whether or not one wishes to debate its advisability, almost any train could be a fast freight in the right circumstance, given horsepower and good track; and certainly into the early 1990s at least. Still, nothing ever moved a consist like two or three GG-1s in full stride.
The railroads did pretty well running fast freight with steam power.
My favorite is the Illinois Central’s train MS-1, for Merchandise Special-1. It made an overnight trip from Chicago to Memphis. As an example, a customer could get freight to the Chicago freight house on Monday afternoon and have it delivered in Memphis Tuesday morning. The amazing thing is that the train also did several set outs en route. The IC offered similar services on other routes.
The SP had a fleet of “Overnights.” An example was a train that ran, with steam power, from Los Angeles to Phoenix overnight. Same type of deal. Ship it Monday afternoon and it was delivered Tuesday morning. The service ran more than on Monday.
Other railroads offered similar services. Of course, the government economic regulators did what they could to screw this all up.
The expedited services didn’t go away with the diesel locomotive. I broke in in 1975 as an intern with a freight forwarder at BN’s “House 7” on Western Avenue in Chicago. Despite being a BN facility, we primarily used the Santa Fe and CNW/UP. Both had 50-hour schedules to Los Angeles. We could do 3rd morning delivery in LA and no trucker could beat our time.
The unlikely route of CB&Q-Kansas City-MKT provided 2nd AM delivery from Chicago to Dallas/Ft. Worth. Again, that’s truck competitive time. When I was with the ICG we combined with the Frisco through St. Louis to do 2nd morning to Dallas/Ft. Worth. We had an 10:30 PM cut off in Chicago and the Frisco would get it to destination on the 2nd morning.
Such expedited services still run. But they have to be justified economically. You don’t operate a t
[quote user=“greyhounds”]
The railroads did pretty well running fast freight with steam power.
My favorite is the Illinois Central’s train MS-1, for Merchandise Special-1. It made an overnight trip from Chicago to Memphis. As an example, a customer could get freight to the Chicago freight house on Monday afternoon and have it delivered in Memphis Tuesday morning. The amazing thing is that the train also did several set outs en route. The IC offered similar services on other routes.
The SP had a fleet of “Overnights.” An example was a train that ran, with steam power, from Los Angeles to Phoenix overnight. Same type of deal. Ship it Monday afternoon and it was delivered Tuesday morning. The service ran more than on Monday.
Other railroads offered similar services. Of course, the government economic regulators did what they could to screw this all up.
The expedited services didn’t go away with the diesel locomotive. I broke in in 1975 as an intern with a freight forwarder at BN’s “House 7” on Western Avenue in Chicago. Despite being a BN facility, we primarily used the Santa Fe and CNW/UP. Both had 50-hour schedules to Los Angeles. We could do 3rd morning delivery in LA and no trucker could beat our time.
The unlikely route of CB&Q-Kansas City-MKT provided 2nd AM delivery from Chicago to Dallas/Ft. Worth. Again, that’s truck competitive time. When I was with the ICG we combined with the Frisco through St. Louis to do 2nd morning to Dallas/Ft. Worth. We had an 10:30 PM cut off in Chicago and the Frisco would get it to destination on the 2nd morning.
Such expedited services still run. But they have to be justified eco
As has been mentioned, I don’t know that there ever was a “fast freight era”? In the 19th century, locomotives were small so mainline freights weren’t very long - a 2-8-0 with 30 cars maybe. Longer trains required two engines. With the creation of articulated / Mallet engines early in the 20th century, you had the “drag freight era” which is a term often used to describe the era. It was more economical to have a small-drivered 2-8-8-2 pulling 70 cars at 10 MPH than it was to have two smaller engines doing the same work - even if they could do it faster.
In the “super power era” that began in the 1920’s, it was recognized that now you could build steam engines that were both powerful and fast, and freights could now be run at much higher speeds. I don’t know that diesels really changed anything, you might have a 4-6-6-4 replaced by an A-B-B-A set of F-units, roughly the same horsepower and same speed potential.
It may be that freight train speeds increased so much over time that at some point ‘normal’ freights were so fast that you really didn’t need designaed ‘high speed’ freight trains?
Other than refrigerated produce, how much “fast freight” was actually needed?
One thing the ‘steamologists’ want to gloss over is the number of fuel and water stops steam engines made, especially in freight service when they were being worked at anywhere near their maximum potential.
UP’s Big Boys consumed 11 tons of coal and 12000 gallons of water - PER HOUR. Yes stops could be extended by using large tenders - most railroads ‘big’ tenders were on the order of 25 tons coal capacity and 25 or 30 thousand gallons of water capacity. Smaller engines were still hungry and thirsty and had much smaller tender capacities. Remember the CARDINAL rule of steam railroading - NEVER RUN THE BOILER OUT OF WATER.
Brings up a memory of a Chicago produce market “old head” I grew up knowing. He would talk about how he would order carloads of fresh Louisiana strawberries during their short season that the Illinois Central would add to their Chicago-bound fast passenger trains. He said he could depend on them being delivered to the produce market in Chicago like clockwork by the IC.
Passenger is not ‘fast freight’.
Most major passenger carriers also operated a number of ‘Fast Mail’ or express trains. The B&O operated a pair between New York and Chicago and another pair between New York and St.Louis. Trains would generally be storage mail and REA Express and sometime have a working RPO. The mail trains would have a ‘rider coach’ carrying the markers and giving the rear end crew a place to ride - most rider coaches were not air conditioned, cars in mail trains were equipped for trainline steam heating.
Those B&O 4-8-2’s were classy.
A book written by a retired Milwaukee Road engineer, hired out in 1944 and retired in 1982, talks about handling a train of strawberries with steam.
He was a fireman, the cars were express reefers, but were handled by freight crews. (One of my old Rock Island agreement books has reference to a dispute as to how a train of express reefers loaded with freight should be handled in regards to pay. Should it pay passenger rate or freight rate? I believe it was decided it should pay the freight rate of pay.)
I think fast freight has been superceeded by priority freight trains. They tend to be run faster then other freights. Mostly it’s because they usually don’t have the artificial speed constraits caused by fuel conservation or energy management systems. Especially during peak season.
Other trains may have the same authorized speed, but without the service sensitive (UPS for us) loads they don’t get the same breaks.
Jeff
Consider NYC Fast Freight schedules. In 1949, during the steam era, the fastest Chicago to New York schedule was around 38.5 hours. In 1965, with diesel, it was 32 hours. Those were Depart and Arrive times for trains. Today’s CSX and NS intermodal schedules aren’t much faster, if at all. CSX I-010 lists 32 hours Bedford Park to N. Bergen, NJ (Cutoff to Available). NS shows 33.5 hours for 20E and 20K.
It wasn’t all about train speed. Yard dwell time was more important, especially during the carload freight era when NYC’s trains spent many hours at DeWitt.
- Ed Kyle