I’ve heard that passenger trains are limited to 1500 feet in length. Is this true and if it is, why? What was the longest passenger trains either in the past or present?
Except for mail & express trains and the Auto Train, 18 cars on the Super Chief/El Capitan in the pre-Amtrak and early Amtrak period is the longest scheduled passenger train of which I’m aware. Platform lengths are often the limiting factor. There may be some factors related to braking that I don’t know about.
The Coast Starlight was 18 cars long when I rode it in 1976 and it was too long to fit on the platforms at Seattle’s King Street Station.
The Ringling Bros/Barnum & Bailey Circus train is about a half mile long - though not composed entirely of passenger cars.
I’m not aware of any rule limiting passenger train length, but the Amtrak website states that the Auto Train is the longest passenger train in the world with two engines and fourty plus passenger cars and auto carriers. If we knew the exact consist, we could figure the length in feet.
I remember the combined summer GN Western Star /Fast Mail often ran 22 - 24 cars anything over they seemed to run as separate trains. This was especially true at Christmas time when the separate Fast Fail could run to 22 cars alone. The Western Star at Christmas was often sixteen cars. What was especially interesting was the way the two trains were combined. Working mail cars followed the power with the Western Star next complete with streamlined Observation then the Storage Mail cars trailed that. On the rear was a special storage mail cars with the rear half equipped like a caboose.
Al - in - Stockton
In the late 50’s the combined Capitol Limited/Columbian would run at 18 to 22 cars, especially when the High School excursions to Washington DC were in season. Power was normally 3 E’s on these occasions.
Dunno if there’s a 1500-ft limit now-- except for the AutoTrain, nobody in the US runs trains longer than that now. But lots of railroads ran them longer than that before 1971, and Amtrak used to have a few too. Postwar passenger-carrying cars were mostly 85 ft long, so if you’re including the engine even an 18-car train would exceed 1500 ft.
1500 feet would equal 17-18 cars. Platform lengths??? Have you never heard of double stops, even triple stops…due to short platforms? Here in my home territory, SP Coast Line, The Daylights and Larks of the day ran to 22 cars routinely…and, on a Thanksgiving weekend, I rode a Starlight that ran 28 cars( and what seemed like a thousand Shriners going wild!). VIA runs the Canadian up to 30 cars regularly…and probably has to make QUAD stops. AA
I was going to make a comment on “the Canadian”, but I couldn’t find the exact numbers on car lengths…but I was sure peak seasons had VIA running at at least 30 cars…Heck, VIA’s “the Ocean” around Christmas time this year was running about 24 cars I believe, over some sections
You sure about those “quad” platform stops.
Think of jumbo jet airliners. They have gobs of doors, and the 1960’s vintage “Transportation of Tomorrow” writings (in which HSR was the up and coming thing) had multiple jetways to accomplish fast boarding through multiple doors. In practice, one jetway, one jumbo jet, and it just takes that much longer to get going. That is why I don’t look forward to the A380.
Also with Amtrak. Amfleets, or at least Amfleet I’s, have vestibules at both ends. You would think they would open all those doors for fast boarding. Nope, boarding still requires a step box of all things and a conductor or trainman supervising the boarding – no commuter-train swarm the doors and get in and out there.
My guess is that even with a 30-car passenger train, they are only boarding intermediate stops through limited numbers of doors. And if plane and train operations are that paranoid about who gets on the train, the idea that they would open a bunch of doors, call “All aboard!”, pull up step boxes, pull the train forward 8 car lengths, open other doors, put down step boxes, and repeat that process two more times, it just doesn’t compute that such a thing would happen.
I am thinking they stop once, open a limited number of doors, and make you walk inside the train.
Longest Passenger Trains.
I would think that UP’s City of Everywhere (mid 1960’s to just before Amtrak) across Wyoming. Someone once told me that UP would sometimes run upwards of 30-35 cars in the train.
Long enough that they had to deploy 2 midtrain steam generator cars.
Don’t quote me on this, as what I’ve stated is not something I’ve seen. I also remember seeing something in Trains many many years ago bout UP City of Everywhere.
Rgds IGN
Any length limit for passenger trains is most likely because of air brake issues. Too long and leaky and the graduated release won’t work. I had heard, years ago, that Amtrak has an 18 car limit.
You can get around this problem by using EP braking, where a wire replaces air for the application and release signal. RRs that ran looong passenger trains way back when probably had EP braking on their passenger fleet. They probably also had anti-lock braking, too, so they could run at higher speeds and get stopped in existing signal blocks.
On the NEC, the location the Amfleet I cars were primarily purchased for, they generally open all the doors at every stop. Easy to do with long, high level platforms.
[quote user=“Paul Milenkovic”]
You sure about those “quad” platform stops.
Think of jumbo jet airliners. They have gobs of doors, and the 1960’s vintage “Transportation of Tomorrow” writings (in which HSR was the up and coming thing) had multiple jetways to accomplish fast boarding through multiple doors. In practice, one jetway, one jumbo jet, and it just takes that much longer to get going. That is why I don’t look forward to the A380.
Also with Amtrak. Amfleets, or at least Amfleet I’s, have vestibules at both ends. You would think they would open all those doors for fast boarding. Nope, boarding still requires a step box of all things and a conductor or trainman supervising the boarding – no commuter-train swarm the doors and get in and out there.
My guess is that even with a 30-car passenger train, they are only boarding intermediate stops through limited numbers of doors. And if plane and train operations are that paranoid about who gets on the train, the idea that they would open a bunch of doors, call “All aboard!”, pull up step boxes, pull the train forward 8 car lengths, open other doors, put down step boxes, and repeat that process two more times, it just doesn’t compute that such a thing would happen.
I am thinking they stop once, open a limited number of doors, and make you walk inside the train.
Paul, Have to admit you “got me” there with the quad stops(I have never actually experienced one)…But, do you never ride trains? I have experienced countless double stops, and quite a few triple stops as well. Basically it comes down to this: there is potential for head end, coach and sleeping car traffic, and, for example, you have a 15 car train and a 5 car platform…one might get lucky and only need a double stop, but the potential for a triple is there. You may not “compute” that these events occur, but they do
Toward the end of UP passenger service, it combined all the Cities trains into one over the Milwaukee into Chicago, and this often ran to 28 or 30 cars. Also, after the 20th Century was ended, between Albany and Buffalo, the NYC ran one train with coaches and sleepers from both New York and Boston to Cincinnat, St. Louis, Chicago via Cleveland, Chicago via Detroit, and Toronto, and this ran to over 24 cars. Other NY - Buffalo trains were the short coach-only “Empire Service” consists.
The original Autotrain probably wins the category but it has an asterik with that. When first started they ran the autocars at the head end followed by the passenger cars. Overall it was probably close to 40 cars. After two wrecks it was determined that there were different types of brakes on the autocariers which contrubuted the wrecks. When I rode it in 1976 they ran two trains from Lorton with the cars leaving an hour or so before the passenger train. The louisville version was still being clenaed up from a massive wreck. That was in May, 1976. When you got to Sanford most of the autos were already unloaded.
In response to a question from a teacher, we all went 'round and 'round on this last year.
It is hard to find definite answers (should Auto-Train be classed a passenger train or a mixed train??), but in general, drawing on Amtrak and pre-Amtrak experience, and allowing as how I have to be a little inexact, and not counting locomotives or baggage,
. a train might be limited to as few as 12 cars to fit a station platform in a smaller town, or a longer train would have to make multiple stops, our would have to “herd” passengers a couple of cars at either end…[fill in your own scenario!] (Obviously I am not counting “platforms” such as Abbott’s Platform near Waukegan or Sweet Briar platform, which the Southern Rwy. made a flag stop pre-Amtrak.)
. a train of 16 or so cars would probably call for two stops at all but the biggest (longest-platformed) stations.
. when it gets up around 20 or more cars total, it’s time to think of different sections of the same train. At least, this seems to have been the response of the ATSF during Super Chief/El Cap days. Yet some trains like the WESTERN STAR mentioned abovehandled 22 to 24-length, as mentioned above, so perhaps platform length varies(varied) from one RR company to another.
BTW does anyone have real-life experience about Amtrak? Are they often forced to make multiple stops of the same passenger train? Do they ever have to send out separate sections in times of peak demand? How long are trains like the Empire Builder or Southwest Chief in summer? I have seen about 15 cars on the Silver trains in Florida, and that was off-season. Are the Silver trains quite long in the winter??
Is there any truth to the rumor that Amtrak occasionally makes passengers exit directly onto the gravel (i.e., beyond the reach of the platform), or is that just rumor or "ur
Long-distance trains may have greater lattitude in length where it can be doubled or tripled at terminals. Just a few adjacent cars in one area of the train handling shorts. This restricts the train from sharing a station with commuter service in the peak hours.
Metra trains are limited to the length of the platform tracks to keep from fouling the leads to adjacent tracks and reducing terminal capacity. Since terminal tracks are of varying length, use and alternatives must be planned. Many stations up line, away from Chicago, are shorter than the longer trains that may stop.
Getting more finite, train length also depends on the electrical load of a block of cars connected to a hotel alternator and the capacity and voltage drop of the trainline; and of the number of blocks of cars in the consist.
I can’t remember which stations, but the California Zephyr has a couple of small town stops where they pause twice for unloading. It seems to be when there are both sleeper and coach passengers to be let off. Since, on my last trip, we had only 7 cars (3 sleepers, diner, lounge & two coaches) the platforms must be pretty short to require this.
I know Elko, NV has about 4 cars worth of platform. Double stop anytime there are sleeping car passengers. (They normally only have one door open for coach passengers.)
I can tell you the longest passenger train I’ve ever been on, and probably always will.
It was spring of (IIRC) 1993 and since MARC didn’t run on weekends, I had to use Amtrak to go to and from D.C./Union and Balto/Penna.
On a whim I had booked “first class” accommodations D.C. on to Baltimore, thinking that if Amtrak sold 'em, they must have them (yes, I was stone ignorant). The train looked only average-long at first, several cars with passengers, good load, single seats only. I still thought maybe there was something like a parlor car up the train.
I walked through several cars (none locked) and noticed that they were no longer the Amfleet type but more the type the railroads ordered in profusion about post-World War II. About the fourth coach I decided to stop. But I had gotten a pretty good luck at the train because I stuck my heard out for a look (and probably feeling guilty and half hoping a trainman would see me and get me down with everyone else). So from the vantage of seven or eight coaches up, the head-end of the train was not to be seen (again IIRC there was a very gentle curve to the platform but I couldn’t see past about 15 cars all told).
Later I asked an Amtrak employee what the deal was, and he told me with some sheepishisness that Penn Station/NYC was FINALLY getting rid of the last of the manually-thrown switches and the coaches had to be shuttled down to D.C. for a while because they would be in the way of the work.
Don’t know whether to make a crack about Amtrak. No, no reason really.