Hello railfan geniuses,
A discussion that I have never seen (and would like to) in Trains Magazine is the high tonnage of traffic through the Fraser and Thompson River Canyons in British Columbia. A background on the corridor includes the following:
The corridor stretches from Kamloops to Mission, BC, around 350 kilometres (200 miles), along the Thompson River to Lytton and then the Fraser River to Mission.
The two railroads that traverse the canyons are the Canadian National Railway (CN) and Canadian Pacific Railway (CP).
CN’s subdivisions are Ashcroft from Kamloops to Boston Bar; and Yale from Boston Bar to Surrey.
CP’s subdivisions are Thompson from Kamloops to North Bend; and Cascade from North Bend to Vancouver.
There are upwards of 60 daily trains, evenly split between the railroads, and consisting of intermodal, merchandise, grain, coal, potash, sulphur, and oil.
VIA Rail and Rocky Mountaineer are the passenger services through the canyons.
Both railroads have significant classification yards in Kamloops, where some trains are reclassified; CN’s yard is the bigger of the two.
It is an integral corridor that connects the Port of Metro Vancouver with the rest of Canada along with the Midwestern USA.
It is directional run for around 250 kilometres (150 miles), from Basque (west of the town of Ashcroft) to Mission. CN is used for westbound trains and CP is used for eastbound trains.
In watching trains in this corridor for many years, I believe that it could be a contender for being the heaviest in terms of tonnage of any corridor in North America. Despite other corridors seeing more than the 60 freights daily, the trains here are long and heavy. The reasons broken down are:
CN’s coal trains in the area are normally at least 152 cars (8000+ feet), although shorter trains are occasionally run. Currently only Teck’s Cardinal River mine at Luscar, AB (of recent runaway train fame) ships coal on CN to Vancouver, and this is a minor amount of their total production, most of it goes to Prince Rupert. The other mines CN serves have either closed or switched entirely to Prince Rupert. CP also interchanges some coal trains to CN at Kamloops, and some of those go to Prince Rupert.
I believe the 150ish car coal train size is due to the track layout at one of the Vancouver ports, but am not sure. Same goes for the potash trains. CN runs much longer coal trains (170 to 220 cars) from the two Alberta Coal Branch mines to Prince Rupert, and the Saskatchewan-Saint John, NB potash trains regularly exceed 200 cars.
The traffic handled by the Prince George-Vancouver mixed freights is what formerly ran on BC Rail before the CN takeover.
Among other things CN uses the Kamloops yard to pre-block traffic for the various Vancouver terminals, including entire trains that will be interchanged to CP at Coquitlam.
You started a most thought provoking thread, and makes the forum ponder what North America has.
In reference to Cajon Pass, I was there yesterday, and saw assumedly a UP coal train, which fits the speaking of the devil category. Its tail end strangely had a BNSF-UP combo DPU.
As far as the southern Transcon, unless the insignificant Amtrak is included, the Transcon only has one railroad, BNSF, and NOT two as your rule suggested. A second railroad does operate between Daggett and Riverside (of Cajon Pass, CA), but NOT the whole southern Transcon.
As for the Central Corridor in Nebraska, 110 trains seems a fair estimate, but 150 have been known to pass through I’m not sure manifest and Intermodal numbers are correct, as from my observations those non-coal trains don’t seem to make a dent in the count.
Great insight. Coal trains are not common through Cajon Pass and you one as per your information and photo.
It doesn’t have to be two railroads. I am just going by corridors and it can be only one railroad. BNSF runs upwards of 80 trains daily on parts of the Transcon (such as through Abo Canyon in New Mexico) but despite their train counts exceeding the Fraser/Thompson River Canyons, the tonnage doesn’t compare since most of that is intermodal.
I am not sure what you mean on the assumption of manifest and intermodal numbers on the Central Corridor. If you are referring to the lengths, I know that manifests heading in and out of North Platte do have a frequent tendency to exceed 10,000 feet (such as MNPWC or MWCNP). Intermodals aren’t as frequently that long. There is one that from Global III near Rochelle, IL to Los Angeles everyday that seems to exceed 10,000 feet on its daily run but that is it. Most are much shorter and the average is well below what CN’s intermodal train lengths are.
I remember back in July or August 2006, there was a double derailment among the railroads as well. A westbound CP coal train derailed at the CN bridge at Lytton shutting down the line. This caused westbounds to use to CP until Cisco where they could divert up to CN on a short connector line which noticeably lacked rehibilation. Only days later, a CN grain train derailed there (onto CP’s line in fact), causing both lines to shut down altogether until these messes were cleared. Traffic was then rerouted through the US (I assume through Stevens Pass or the Columbia Gorge). The connector line has since been repaired to accomodate heavier locomotives.
It also happened the following year at Basque when a CP Auto/Intermodal train derailed from its line on CN’s tracks (since both parallel) causing a major disruption. This has happened and is certainly never good.
On Horseshoe Curve, according to my hot spots issue from Trains, there are 50 to 60 trains. While the train counts are comparable in frequency, I doubt they compare in length and therefore this would fall short in terms of tonnage of what goes through the Fraser/Thompson Canyon’s.
Ten years later, sporting some legacy rolling stock, and evidence of the use by both Class One railroads of the routes on either side of the south Thompson. The Fraser river enters from the north just outside of the left of the image, another 150 meter downstream. From there it’s called the Fraser.
One minor correction. It is simply the Thompson River (not south) that flows into the Fraser at Lytton. The South Thompson and North Thompson Rivers combine about 100 miles upstream at Kamloops. CN had followed the North Thompson, and CP the South Thompson north and east of there.
CP was first, so had choice of side and stayed on the easier south side of the Thomson/Fraser route until Cisco. Some 25 years later the tight canyons meant CN had to mostly build on the north side. It was forced to cross to the south bank for short distances in a number of locations, such as this one at Lytton, to create a feasible alignment. At Cisco the two railways switched sides.
CN at that time was actually the Canadian Northern Railway. It became part of the Canadian National system not long after completion.
Nice additional information. I said 7,600 feet as most coal trains are 152 cars and the cars are 50 feet I believe, which would lead to that number.
In a future discussion, I will discussing a proposal that was made years ago but sadly hasn’t materialized about the possibility of an intermodal terminal in Kamloops. It would be ideal, giving sawmills, among industries, a new way of entering the Trans-Pacific market through containers, not to mention taking trucks off the roads and creating jobs in the region.
A aluminum coal car is 53 feet long, and locomotives are approximately 75 feet apiece. Add a bit extra to allow for slack and one of CP’s coal trains (4 units and 152 cars) measures nearly 8,400 feet.
The older steel cars are 58 feet long. CN no longer uses them in coal service, many have been sold or placed in storage and the remainder are used to haul petroleum coke to Prince Rupert. I am not sure if CP still hauls coal in steel cars, but do know they sold a bunch to Sultran several years ago.
As you say a Kamloops intermodal terminal could serve a similar purpose as CN’s Prince George terminal, which primarily sees empty westbound sea-cans reloaded with Asia-bound forest products.
No covers, and I have only seen gondolas in coke service to Prince Rupert.
Some coke is shipped from the northwest U.S. to Alberta, this is mostly moved in hoppers. But they all have rotary drawbars so they could be unloaded either way.
The coal trains are a mix of aluminum gondolas and hoppers (the bottom doors are never used but CN or one of the mines got a real good deal leasing a bunch so here they are).
Coal trains are pretty infrequent on CN in the Fraser/Thompson River Canyon. Most of CN’s coal is allocated for shipment to Prince Rupert. Intesting specific assessment on the coal cars being 53 feet, which would push towards 8,000 trains of 152 cars.
Since you seem so knowledgeable on trains as well, is the coal that is shipment from Edmonton to Prince Rupert a byproduct of oil? There are no mines, so it seems likely.
Petroleum coke, not coal, but yes it is a heavy oil byproduct. Basically the coke is what’s left over when an upgrader converts tar sands’ bitumen into regular crude oil. Petroleum coke is considered too dirty to burn here so we sell it to China and they burn it instead.
The coke originates from several locations, most notably Fort McMurray and Lloydminister. It is normally handled like any carload freight and only rarely moves as a unit train.
My knowledge comes from working as a Conductor and Locomotive Engineer for CN in various locations across Alberta.
