You have to go out to moon scape country to see this speed…I’m guessing if the radar gun in the video is accurate and not a prop.
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I expect that it would have to have some sort momentum or the like (maybe it’s going downgrade?) to reach a speed like that. If I remember correctly, the usual top speed for most diesels is something between 60 and 70 MPH.
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Well there is wind as well but I don’t know from what direction.
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That person would have freaked out at the Super C of the 70s when the Santa Fe literally ran a freight train at passenger train speeds from Chicago to LA. Or the mid 90s with their 9 series trains that did the same freaking thing. You’d see the 199 literally passing another train at speed.
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CSX used to have 70 mph speed limits west of Greenwich, Ohio. I regularly ran auto rack trains at that speed. I once had one up to 75 mph because of an inaccurate speed recorder. It checked ok at 60 mph but when it showed 70 the actual speed was 75.
The track wasn’t really good for 70 and was dropped down to 60 eventually. The higher speed really didn’t help much anyway since you just caught up to a slower train.
Mark Vinski
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I believe the ‘stated’ max speed for GE’s is 70 MPH, however, I think the traction motor overspeed is not tripped until 75 MPH.
Freight trains do not accelerated like Top Fuel dragsters and it can take miles to attain that final possible MPH with any given train - two trains can have the same loads, empties, tonnage and length but handled and pull dramatically different.
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Well here is one train you will never see do 72 mph…lol Rondout, IL. I can’t tell you how many times I waited on Amtrak for this puppy to clear.
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Quote from NTSB preliminary report: On December 18, 2024, about 5:00 p.m. local time, westbound Union Pacific Railroad (UP) train ZAILA-18 derailed after colliding with a northbound highway vehicle that was traversing the Cedar Street (or US Route 285) highway-railroad grade crossing in Pecos, Texas.
(…)
the third locomotive showed that the train ZAILA-18 crew initiated an emergency braking application shortly before the collision, and the train slowed from about 68 mph to about 64 mph before striking the truck. [6] The maximum authorized speed in the area for railroad traffic was 70 mph.[7]
Source: https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/RRD25FR005.aspx
There are more freight routes with a 70 mph speed limit.
Regards, Volker
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Agree there are more routes but it is rare for me living in Dallas to see them. They are usually in rural areas vs urban areas. So for me I have to drive usually about 2 hours from my homw to see them.
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The formal restriction for Class 5 track is 80 nominal mph (which is enforced as 79mph ‘maximum’). Not all railroads subscribe to the idea of notch restrictions to reduce fuel burn and “improve” some nominal OR.
Amusingly enough with all the recent PSR adoption and misapplication, there was a study out of Northwestern in 2013 that made a reasonable case for higher permitted speed:
which then developed into a FRA technical report in 2025:
https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/29154/dot_29154_DS1.pdf?
and a careful technical appraisal of a truck design for 170 km/h or better, in 2020:
This is by no means new; in a sense, the work that was done in modern three-axle truck design around the time of the 315K load proposals contained higher-speed compliance and damping, and there were those UPS tests with Genesis locomotives about what would be advisable with well equipment.
I had thought that 70mph speed was not uncommon in the Midwest and West, the issue here being where the extra ‘2mph’ came from. I think that was well enough explained with the reference to how modern units handle overspeed (to 75mph) … but I also have to wonder the usual sort of thing about how railfans posting proof of ‘over speed’, innocently or otherwise, might get the crew concerned in some kind of PSR-addled hot water.
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I watch YouTube a lot. Some of the railfans cross the line. I would never point a radar gun at anyone. There are other railfans posting videos and just running their mouth into what they are observing without a clue of what is going on. Both obnoxious behavior that predates the internet. What can you do? Happens with baseball fanatics as well I am sure.
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Although my collection of ETTs is about a decade or two old here is where freights were allowed then to go 70 mph in the US.
Virtually all UP mainlines.
BNSF in their southern SF and northern BN transcons only.
CSX on a stretch between Georgia and north Florida.
NS has no speeds over 60.
CN and CPKC have no speeds over 60 in the US although I believe CN does in Canada. Don’t know about CPKC in Canada.
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I don’t doubt the Z can do 70, or a little better. I would question if the radar gun is accurate. It could be, but I’ve had managers who had radar guns that were out of calibration.
If accurate, at 73 PTC will start warning about being overspeed. PTC will take action at 75, applying a penalty brake application and reducing power. PTC automatically sends notification of infractions to the proper company officer(s). Then the engineer has to fill out what happened and why.
On the modern locomotives, and maybe retrofitted older ones, they can download and review in real time what’s going on and look at the ineard facing camera. It’s how they give us our annual check ride now.
The biggest hindrance to 70mph running now for yrains allowed that speed is allowing how many engines can be used and throttle notch restrictions. Z trains are about the only ones that can hope to do 70 regularly.
Jeff
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