I caught a west bound empty coal at Ravenna O. back in the mid 80`s with 250 cars with a single SD 40 on the old B&O main
That would have been quite the site. Unfortunalty, I live in Phoenix which is a dead end run for UP or BNSF. I get down the Sunset Line on occasion but there, I think length is pretty limited to the sidings. I am not sure if I have ever seen on over 8000.
I hear that BNSF is working on a Super Stack", basicaly running to full size stack trains with double engines but one crew. I saw some pics of UP trying it too. That thing must have been over 15000 feet long.
I pulled a 13,260 ft. they are a pain when they get that long.
Brake response time and slack action have to be a real problem with anything that long.
all auto racks and slack is the main problem . dynamic brake is all I needed if i used air you needed to stop and draw them down good then release them wait 15min for air to come up and then leave.
BNSF currently runs 10,000 foot Q stack trains between LA Harbor and LPCHI in Joliet , IL. , these are currently the longest trains BNSF runs and these are running under an FRA permission for testing purposes . One of the problems have been sidings not being long enough .
I pulled a empty grain train out of Boise City Oklahoma. It had 180 cars, 5,400 tons, 10,800 ft. long. Pulled with 2 GP 30’s, CVR 3024, and CVR 3023. Thank god its all downhill from there to home.
Dru
well I just had to chime in…
Im an Engineer for CSX up here on the B&A Boston line…CSX Albany Service lane. I had a damn long train on one of my trips back in 04’ it was a Q283 empty auto rack train I had 4 six axle’s as Power and 135 Racks out of 2 terminal pick-ups, Framingham and Westboro Ma Auto Facilitys (Now Combined and re-located out of E Brookfield Ma Facility) Thats (135) 86’ ft Cars with 540 axle + the 24 axles of the Power…add the horrible 500+ ft of Slack and Im over 12,150 + ft.
Ordered to go with it…I believe it was also the most time costly Train ever on the B&A as with the speed restrictions due to the EOT fading out (Train length, EOT to head end box Non Com) the Climb up the Berkshire mountains, the traffic flow and 4 recrews including myself again as I was also called to recrew it on the 3rd day and off my regular assignment to get it the remainder of the only 193 mile trip…
It cost money to be stupid…[;)] as csx paid me over $1000.00 in Penaltys, deadheading and service preformed just for that 1 train.
thanks for the time…[tup]
the longest trains from where i live (western australia) usually rate about 330-ish ore cars from Newman to Port Hedland (420-ish kilometres), but the longest one was as below:
"In June 2001, BHP Billiton Iron Ore ran the world’s longest and heaviest train. It stretched 7.4km, had 682 ore cars, eight locomotives, a gross weight of almost 100,000 tonnes and moved 82,262 tonnes of ore. "
I think BHP or Rio Tinto have since done a larger train, but not too sure on that one…
Numerous times in Grafton, WV I’ve seen loaded coal trains that were anywhere from 110 to 155 cars long. These trains like most other coal trains on CSX, were usually led by a pair of CW44ACs or SD70MACs. One however, was led by an NS SD70, NS/CR C40-8W, and CSX SD80MAC.