The Map of the Month in the current issue of “Trains” shows substantial double-tracked routes in the U.S. From the map, it appears the longest continuous segments of double-tracked routes would be
Los Angeles to Sais, NM, BNSF
Omaha - Salt Lake City, UP
I believe BNSF’s Chicago to Ellinor, Ka. route is interrupted by a bridge crossing the Missouri River.
Is that right for North America? How about in the world?
I used to think the New York Central Chicago route from to Boston was double-tracked, but heard that there was a drawbridge (crossing the Cuyahoga?) in Cleveland that interrupted it. Who got that part of the route, NS or CSX?
Don’t go to Bardstown, Kentucky looking for a double track main line. Bardstown is on an R. J. Corman branchline and hosts the Kentucky Dinner Train. The point on the Trains map is Bardstown Junction and yes CSX does have a double track mainline in the area that mostly parallels I-65.
A more intersting map would be a comparision of the lines that were multiple track territory at the conclusion of WW II and the line that are multiple track today. The differences, I would expect, would be staggering.
I, too, was surprised at how little there actually is left. Ah, but what a nice area I live in for it.
One omission on the map appears to be the South Shore’s line, which is mostly two tracks from Kensington until east of Gary.
The idea of a “then and now” comparison is interesting. I can remember the maps of individual railroads in old Official Guides using the paired lines for “double track or Centralized Traffic Control”. Saved having to change the map every time they took up some second track.
Will the WC line from Franklin Park northward qualify for inclusion soon?
A bridge over the Missouri indeed does break up the transcon, it is about 30 minutes east of Kansas City, near Sibley, MO. The north side of the tracks has some awesome spots to watch the fast intermodals cruising alone. The south side of the bridge is adjacent to a power plant and doesnt have many good fanning spots.
I looked at the map coming from a day job that has nothing to do with railroading. What I noticed is how little redundancy and extra capacity seems to exist and how many critical nodes there are as a result, especially when you consider how much concern there is nowadays on national security. Is it that expensive for the railroads to build key interchange points in case of failure and maintain parallel track?
Around here there is about a 7 mile strech of double track here in Hanford, CA. I could have been longer but there is the Kings River crossing which is single tracked to the north and a industrial park to the south.
…Multiple track main lines are an impressive site to witness…Case in point years ago watching at various places on Pennsylvania RR main east / west through Pennsylvania…Most places 4 tracks wide then. Not uncommon to see several trains at a time…Of course some of it {NS}, is still 3 tracks.
Dont know how long you been around, or how long you have been interested in railroads, but from your question, I would guess you are probably younger than 45.
If you get a chance, you should pickup an Official Railway Guide from the 60’s and look at all of the redundant track. In the east, the PC (and others) that went bankrupt in the 60’s/70’s cause a HUGE amount of abandonment or rationalization of assets. Erie Lackawana’s route to Chicago is basically gone west of Youngstown. PRR’s double mainline to Chicago has been reduced to a single track with 1 train a day from Ft Wayne to Chicago…but at least it is still there.
Between Chicago and Omaha at one time there were 6 routes (CNW, IC, CRIP, CGW, Milw, and Burlington). Today, the CGW is pretty much gone, as is Milw west of Mississippi River. IC and CRIP now handle a couple of trains a day, plus locals. The majority of tonnage is on the CNW (now UP) and Burlington (BNSF).
This happened all over the US, as railroads slashed their costs and their assets. Some believe they went too far, but survival was the key during the 80’s when most of the abandonments occured.
It will be interesting to see how we handle capacity issues in the future.
Hopefully government funds will not be used. Why? Shareholds received the benefit of the abandonment of the lines in the 80’s. To ask the taxpayers to pony up for the decisions which benefitted the shareholders would, in my opinion be asking a bit much.
I have thought the recent movement of leasing redundant lines to regionals (such as the Chicago, FtWayne and Eastern) makes a lot of sense. The line is still there if capacity issues exist.
In addition to the double tracked lines shown in the map, there are a significant number of quasi-parallel lines that are operating as double tracked lines through directional running. The now UP WP and SP lines west of Ogden UT into Nevada have been operated that way using directional running since WW1.
The Boston and Albany was all double track except for one bridge well past the end of WWII. To save on real-estate taxes and maintenance, Alfred Pearlman decided to single track the line and install CTC. Some sidings have been lengthened and some short double track put back since. A lot of the traffic that used to go to over the Poughkeepsie Bridge to Maybrook or over the Hell Gate Bridge to Bay Ridge for car float to Greenville and the PRR, all via the New Haven Shore line route, now uses the Boston and Albany, and I am sure CSX wishes the double-track had not been removed.
But then some of the excess traffic that the B&A cannot handle today is given by CSX to Guilford and handled over the B&M Housac Tunnel route instead of given to them in the Boston (Sommerville Yard via the Grand Junction through Cambridge), Worcester, or Springfield areas. I think the CTC has been maintained and upgraded.
The short answer, eastside, is yes. It is that expensive.
The long answer goes like this. One must keep in mind first that the railroads pay for all the improvements out of their own pockets, unlike highways and airports, which pay for their improvements out of your pockets. Second, once the railroad has built the improvement – double track, interchange, flyover, what have you – they have to pay to maintain it – out of their own pockets, unlike the highways etc. etc. Then third, once the railroad has built the improvement, the local municipalities waste no time slapping a property tax on it, which can run into hundreds of thousands of dollare, whic the railroads pay out of their own pockets, etc.
The railroads are in business to make money. They do build capacity expansions where and as they need them, as they get the money – witness the work BNSF is doing on the Transcon, and in other areas. Double tracking, however, is not always the answer to capacity expansions; sometimes changes in signalling or control give much more bang for the buck, for instance. Sometimes the problem for a given route may be yard capacity (someone mentioned the old B&A route across Massachusetts – that one is really hampered by yard capacity in the Boston area, for instance, where most of the yard trackage that existed was taken
dldance,
Before the SP merger the paired track was between Weso (Winnemucca),Nv. and Alazon (Wells),Nv. and east of there they ran on there own rails. How does the UP operate between SLC/Ogden and Alazon? Have they extended the directional running east? or do they now favor the ex SP out of Ogden?
BTW- is your last name Dance? if so we may be related as my mothers maiden name is Dance.