Heres a qustion for ya all.
1.) What was the most locomotives you saw on a single train
2.) What was the shortest train (Minus Locomotives) you saw.
Mine is one answer…7 UP/SP/CNW/DRGW Locomotives pulling a grand total of 2 TOFC cars. can anyone top that train?
ten BN units going through north Houston with a caboose (Yeah it was some time ago).
I can’t quite beat that but this is close. A 5 car UPS train with 5 28’ trailers pulled by 2 UP AC6000.
18 Penn Central units heading west through Tyrone PA with a caboose.
10 ex BN C 30-7s dead in tow being pulled by 2 MK1500Ds out to Jacintoport/Greensport Texas terminals.
The BN were pointed north, the MKs were pulling south.
It looked like a tug of war that the “big” motors lost!
Stay Frosty,
Ed
A little different but worthwhile.
UP has a two track line near where I work that runs from Downtown Chicago to the Rockford area and maybe even further past. While the main line is UP, Chicago’s METRA also runs on the line so there is mixture of freight rail traffic and commuter traffic. Also UP uses an industry siding to do some MOW work as well.
That being said perhaps one of the most intriguing and somewhat humorous sights I have seen lately in a UP six axle “cherry picker” type work truck hauling 3 MOW gondolas. To add more to the already funny sight was that sitting on top of the last gondola, supported by wooden rail ties was a backhoe tractor.
I’ve seen this configuration 3 times now and I’m desperately trying to get a picture.
As for longest, I grew up near Conrail’s Biug Four Yard in Avon, IN and remember getting stopped at a crossing and counting cars. Seems the biggest we ever counted was about 100 or so, big considering they were mostly boxcars (it was the late 80’s so intermodal wasn’t as big).
An ex-MoPac geep and caboose running through St. Marys, KS on the UP line.
During one or another of the construction periods on the former C&NW Northwest commuter line, a self-propelled crane.
[:D] Don’t ya just love hospital trains. [8D] Gotta drag the junk somewhere [:0]
The strangest thing I’ve ever seen was 2 ATSF GP40-2’s with a single tank car and a caboose scream by me at about 55-60mph on a line where posted track speed was 45mph!!
I have seen 10 and 12 unit trains here on csx before.The shortest train I’ve seen (other than just engines) is Csx and NS hauling a crane to a worksite.
stay safe
Joe
Two working units and 50 dead retired units Ft Worth to Chicago.
2 working units and 23 other in service units being repositioned from LA to Chicago.
Shortest train. Local with one unit and one car or intermodal train with 3 units and one car.
The most units I’ve seen on a train is nine on a CP frieght quite a few years ago. I’m not too sure about the shortest train I’ve seen. I’ve seen a crane with one or two flatcars head through town before. I do know that at least once I’ve seen a frieght with just 5 or less cars.
Some friends of mine, Allen Holtman and Jason Winter of Kirkwood fame, laughed about the UP Local the shortest train thay had ever seen…Local LSJ59 had 2 GP38-2’s with only an ETD on the trailing unit
30 unit move on UP some years ago. Eastbound through Elko, NV.
1 SD 9, a flatcar of steel plate, and a caboose on SP in Springfield OR in the mid 80s.
1 SD40-2 hauling 25 retired (dead) FM baby Trainmasters back in '73 or '74 in Kenosha, Wi.
18 SD units on a coal train on Tennessee Pass in Colorado (6 on point, 6 mid-train, 6 helpers on rear).
2 GP40’S with 2 auto-frame flatcars at Bain Road in Pleasant Prairie, Wi,
I would have loved to see those Penn Centrals through Altoona! ! !
11 units on a NS mixed freight. one was a SW1500.
2 SD80MACs hauling to lumber cars, one SD80 at each end, I thought I was losing my mind for a moment. NS uses the AC 80 MACS for local service, very common to see them with 10 or less cars around my area (Gallitzin, PA)
The most units i’ve ever seen is twelve different locomtives (“variety pack” as i call it), 1 SD70MAC, 1 GP38-2 and the rest GP40-2s pulling NOTHING.
Besides that, I’ve seen one loco pulling one passenger coach.
16 engine “waycar hop”/light engine move on ATSF, La Junta to Albuquerque during a traffic detour caused by a derailment outside Amarillo in the early 1980’s (8-12 engine 408 trains were common with 4600 Class SD-26m and 4000 class SD-39’s)
shortest: 2 engine (GP-39-2) and 1 TOFC flatcar with a trailer on the short-lived Q-trains, several times
MUDchicken
Looks like I am going to hit 20 replays on this one by the end of the day…not bad for a new comer, eh?
…For the train with a generous amount of engines…In Kingman, Az. back about 1970 was observing a passing Sante Fe east bound freight coming up through where the main line is close to the main street through town…9 engines on front and mid train 3 more. At that time I believe that held the record for total engines on a train that I had seen.