Train sheets and other documents have traditionally shown loads/empties for each train with those being the number of loaded and empty cars in the train. I just watched two BNSF trains crossing the diamonds at Rochelle and, since I caught the head end for once, old habits kicked in and I started counting cars. The first train was a manifest freight (116? cars) and was no problem. The second, though, was a stack train with articulated well cars and, just for good measure, a dozen or so articulated automobile carriers on the rear. Is a five-unit articulated well car one car or five? And all of these automobile carriers were two articulated units; one each or two?
Multiple platform stack cars are counted as 1 car. A ‘5 packer’ may have a car length of 300 feet and 12 axles. You can have a 20 car train that is 6000 feet long or a 40 car 12000 foot train.
Last Saturday a friend and I were photographing Pacific National train 4PS6 from Perth Western Australia to Sydney New South Wales, so Indian Ocean To Pacific Ocean. The 4 indicates the day of departure (Wednesday) and it arrived Saturday afternoon.
Counting platforms, there were 93 vehicles whch we estimated as 1.8 km, so about 1.1 miles long. This is the limit for current sidings on the trans Australian line. We followed it up grade to the crest of the dividing range, on double track.
The “3” were two 63 feet container flats and one 80 feet container flat. The “90” were 17 five pack single level articulated cars, mainly with two 40 feet end platforms and three 48 feet platforms and one set of five bar coupled 48 feet weel cars loaded with single containers.
Double stacking isn’t permitted for the last 500 miles in the East owing to restrictive tunnels.
Axle loads are limited to 22 tons, so well sets are generally bar coupled to avoid overloading articulated axles.
But the manifest of the train showed 21 vehicles, 18 five packs and three single wagons.
Balt says it’s one car…that works for the people selling the business–get as much into (or onto) one car as you can.
When stack cars would show up in our hump shoves, each well or platform held a spot on our sheets. (Don’t worry…as long as I was around, you can bet everything was handled properly!)
For braking purposes, you become worried about the number of brake cylinders, and things start to get interesting. A two-unit auto rack has two cylinders (and only shows up as one car on the sheets). A three-unit articulated well car has two cylinders, four trucks. A three-unit drawbar-connected well car has six trucks, three cylinders (same as a five-pack articulated car). You have to know the difference…if you miss one in an inspection or when bleeding off a train, you might be in trouble.
On paper, in train sheets and switch list, a 5 pack, or an older 3 set well car is counted as 1 car, as are articulated auto racks.
In real life, when handling these cars in movements, shoves, switching, the guys on the ground will generally, when giving car counts to the engineer, count them as 5, 3 or 2 cars…we use the standard 50 (approximately) covered hopper as a normal car length, so an articulated auto rack will be counted as two car lengths…remember, a lot of the time the engineer can not see the end of the train, he can only go with the distance given him via radio or hand signal…it is easier to say “come on back two more”, or “stop 'em in two more” , which is around 100 feet, and makes more sense than trying to tell him to shove back “one articulated auto rack”…he has no real benchmark to judge how long an articulated car is, but I promise you he knows within a few feet how far “two cars more” is.
Like Carl said, our train lists treat each platform of multi-platform stack cars separately. Counting each well as a “car.” Multi-platform spine cars on the otherhand, show up as one car. Both are identified as being multi-platform cars.
BNSF Lists had subsets A-E with the car number showing the container (sea cans in the well) or trailer (spine cars) on the list with extra (blank) lines.
I am a little surprised that so many cars still have a single brake cylinder per car (or per articulated unit). I learnt my trade, such as it is, in the Western Australian Pilbara where every car had four brake cylinders, two per truck, in the form of Wabcopac truck mounted brake equipment. In an area where labour costs were more than double the national average, just unscrewing the air hose to remove a truck was a good move.
Back in the rest of the country more recent single cylinder per truck designs (which look like something I wouldn’t want to think about working on under a car) have become much more common.
But the point I was thinking about was that from a braking point of view it isn’t the number of cylinders but the number of triple valves (or in this country the number of ECP controllers) per train. Our five packs would usually have two triple valves, and the sequential delay in application or release is due to the number of triple valves, not the number of brake cylinders.
Another point is whether the car has a single number or multiple n
Articulated well cars nearly always carrry the same car number for all platforms in the set. The end units are designated A and B (I believe the “B” unit is the one with the brake cylinder and associated apparatus, but don’t hold me to that). The middle units are designated C-D-E, depending on the number of platforms in the set. Permanently coupled sets (in other words, non-articulated platforms connected by solid drawbars) will typically use the same kind of numbering.
However, the answer of how the cars are counted depends on another question - why do you want to know? If you’re worried about train handling and braking, you may count them one way (probably treating each platform as, essentially, an individual car). If, on the other hand, you want to know in order to properly apply joint facility rates and car hire, you’ll probably count all platforms in an articulated (or drawbar) car as a single unit.
Two cars to indicate length (although the individual cars don’t look to be much over 40’)
Who knows?
The model builder, Jim Stanitz, and I are apparently soul brothers. I’ve always had this urge to kit-bash a GP-30 cab onto the running gear and superstructure of an SD-45 to create an SD-30. Then I’d sit back and listen to the nitpickers telling me that the XYZ RR (for which I decorated it) never had an SD-30 or that the prototype had more louvers under the cab or fewer doors on the long hood.[swg]
I’ve had conductors on intermodal trains count me down by saying things like “10 more numbers”. Well, 10 more numbers can be anywhere from 10 buckets (singles) to 50 buckets. Maybe even 60. Not really helpful.
For purposes of car counts when pulling down to a specific point, such as where the conductor is going to make a cut, most just count every well or platform as one car. In such a case those articulated auto racks usually would be counted as one car.
When giving car counts for distance when shoving, most figure using a 50 or 60 foot car. Sometimes, a conductor might say something like “two big ones.” A “big one” meaning the size of an autorack, about 90 feet. Distance can be a bit subjective when shoving. Some guys will look at the given distance and see X amount of cars, some one else Y amount of cars. The more you work with a specific person, the more you get to know how they view things.