How long was the longest train in the United States ?
The longest of which I’m aware was a 500-car coal train operated as an experiment by N&W in the mid-1960’s. It was powered by 3 SD45’s upfront and 3 SD45’s as midtrain remotes. N&W came to the conclusion that trains on that scale were not worth the effort since they required too much supervisory support and they were too big to be handled by the yards.
The length of that train was 4.5 miles. The longest passenger train was in Belgium at 1,895 yards, but no platform existed that was long enough to park it so it was short lived as well.
Ron
As far as I know, maximum train lenght in the US is now 8000’. For longer trains, one has to check Quebec & Cartier Railroad (Quebec, Canada), or Pilbara RR in Australia (a test has been carried out a few years ago with 660 ore cars or so, 10 GE AC6000 in dpu, with a total lenght of 4sm / 7 km, and total weight 107000 tons.).
http://www.railways.pilbara.net.au
Dominique
8000’ is nothing, 10,000 is quite common, and 12,000’ is not unheard of.
But in 2001 the N&W’s record was beat but I dunno who beat it. Chicago Great Western was the first midwestern railroad to run more than 100 cars. CGWs longets train was 256 cars.
I worked out of Portsmouth, Ohio on the N&W 1963-1966. Longest train I ever handled was 281 mixed loads and mty hoppers from Portsmouth to Williamson (set off 81 cars at Kenova and went to Williamson with 200); 275-car mty hopper trains were standard, Portsmouth to Williamson, W. Va. Biggest loaded train I handled out of Williamson was 254 loads, 24785 tons…
Rode a test train from Portsmouth to Columbus with 3 SD35s and 267 loads. The SDs got down to 11 MPH on Delano hill, but kept on coming with them. I don’t remember the tonnage.
Old Timer
Dear Beaulieu, please read again my post: I didn’t write 10700 tons, but 107000 (yes, one hundred and seven thousands), as shown a few years ago in Trains Magazine.
Dominique
I read it. I was replying to the first line of your paragraph “As far as I know, maximum train lenght in the US is now 8000’.” , this is what I was refering to.(left with typo)
Oups, sorry, here I meant 8000 feet lenght.
Dominique