Today's ultimate railroad discussion: What railroad has the ultimate infrastructure?

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

Thanks for the great discussions about the ultimate management team among Class I railroads and the ultimate freight train.

Today, we’d like to find out which railroad boasts the ultimate infrastructure.

This is the third in a series of rankings inspired by Fred Frailey’s “The best of railroading today” story in the November 2010 issue. In the article, Frailey ranks railroads in six different categories: management, freight train, infrastructure, passenger train, technology, and routes.

2

Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor. Fastest trains in the country, most traffic, grand historic stations on both ends (Penn Station, Alas! in the middle) ,and electric locomotives with horsepower that puts all others to shame.

In the past, the Lackawanna

Kevin Olsen

Wayne, NJ

3

For freight operation I suggest BNSF with its two Transcons. They have built to accomodate their greatest traffic potential and have the software to analyze how it performs so that it may be tweaked when necessary. Their connections to the SE USA are also excellent.

4

Can’t speak for today, but I’d make the case that the old Pennsylvania Railroad had it in spades, at least with respect to its main lines (yards and terminals present another story). Main line electrification, tunnelling under the Hudson and East Rivers, the Hell Gate Bridge, flyovers – the NEC would be a poor parody of itself if the PRR hadn’t built the NY-DC line – a four-track main line from North Jersey to Chicago. Some of its last major projects were constructed even after a crushing regulatory burden was dumped on it.### The Standard Railroad of the World gets my vote. Viva the Keystone!

5

Ultimate infrastructure can only be measured by what function the infrastructure was built to handle.

To my mind, the UP-BNSF Joint Line serving the Powder River Basin coal mines is the ultimate example of freight railroading infrastructure…High tonnage, high capacity heavy haul railroading using most all the latest advances in the the rail industry to extract more and more tonnage from the mines and get the coal to destination and decrease the cycle times on all elements of the equipment used to service the business.

The combined Amtrak, NJ Transit, Long Island Railroad & Metro North infrastructure in an around New York City, coupled with the New York subway system’s various lines provides the ultimate in passenger transportation infrastructure in the country.