I know this is probably a cliched question you've seen 100 times but I'd just like to know anyway. My longest train was 143 cars, once in 1993 in Houston and once in 1996 in Lafayette, both SP.
Apparently CP and CN are running trains that lenght almost daily now through the Fraser Canyon in British Columbia, Canada. They have very large wheat contracts that they were sued over for non-delivery, so they have lenghtened trains.
196 cars in 1998 in GrandRapids.Mich.Almost half of the train was autoracks. ------------------ Catt!#118 - Moderator and A freelancer to the end
Back in the late 80's or early 90's BN was running 2 empty coal trains together. I never counted cars but it shoulda been somewhere between 210 and 240. ------------------ QFAN
About 165 cars (I lost count) on Conrail (when there was a Conrail) in Anderson Indiana on the number 1 main. But the longest that people THOUGHT they were seeing was a couple of years before when the gates came down and the locos started across the crossing rather slowly from between buildingds. At the fourth loco, some people started to shift their cars to return from whence they came. The the seventh loco, more cars started moving and by the ninth, I was now first in line instead of eight cars back. There were ten locos running light. No train, just locos... Roger
Anderson? I used to live there! ------------------ Lou PRSLou's website Are you a teen interested in trains? Join the T.A.M.R.
During 1997, in Milwaukee, I saw a CPRail freight with 215 cars and only two locos. ------------------ Drew What's that? A train horn? Sorry, gotta go! [This message has been edited by CPRailfan (edited 20 December 2000).]
I think I saw my longest train today... 2 NS Dash 9's pulling a 200+ car mixed freight train (Boy, did it get off to a SLOWWWW start!)(I lost count around car 180, and they were still coming!) Chessie ------------------ Harold Hodnett Fan of NS, CSX, and their predecessors! Coming soon: The North Carolina Railfan Web Site http://www.trainweb.org/ncrail/
First welcome to Trainboard CNW_SD60_8051, PRSLou and Tom Bentley. Nice to have you with us. The longest I have seen is a CP grain train with 170 of those cylindrical hoppers. Here in Georgetown the most I have seen CN pulling with three SD40s is 85 ------------------ Robin member #35 Maberly and Tayside [This message has been edited by Robin Matthysen (edited 20 December 2000).]
Well, it was in the 1930'3 just before Harvest time that my dad and I would sit out on my uncle Howard's upper porch and watch the Union Pacific 4-12-2's race across the Kansas prairie pulling a string of box cars to get ready to haul the wheat to the mills at Wichita. I remember they counted over 200 one time when they laughed at me because I couldn't count that high that fast! Out at Harper, Kansas, they were going so fast the side rods were just a blur, so must have been close to 80 mph. Uncle Howard tried to figure train speeds by making marks on his bannister and counting the number of 40 foot cars that passed in 60 seconds. When 188 cars went by, he figured that was a mile long which made one engine pulling at a mile a minute! That was a WOW to me at 7 yrs old! But that was steam, now they would have to have a quarter mile of deezuls to pull the long ones at the high speeds. Bah Humbug on deezuls! Almost forgot, the U.P. has been secretly experimenting with pulling trains up to three miles long up on the great plains, but local Sherrifs have complained when a broken knuckle has stalled traffic. Mostly grade crossings up there like in western Kansas, so no way around for emergencies. That would be one looonnng train, but it probably wont fly. One thing dad always wanted to get a movie of, was when it had snowed, and one of the big engines would get up to speed pushing a snow plow across the prarie throwing snow a hundred feet off both sides! It was on the news once when TV was new. Now I'll go back to my cave. ------------------ Watash #982 [This message has been edited by watash (edited 21 December 2000).]
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by rhensley@anderson.cioe.co: There were ten locos running light. No train, just locos... Roger<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Saw 13 engines in a UP 'light' move in Nampa yard, March 97. 12 C40-8/44-9 (most C&NW) types and a lone UP SD60. Impressive 50K+ HP! Gary. ------------------ Gary A. Rose The Unofficial TC&W page TrainBoard Moderator and Member No.377 N to the Nth degree! [This message has been edited by Gats (edited 21 December 2000).]
Great post, Watash; it doesn't matter whether the longest train somebody saw was 65 years ago or yesterday. Us British fans can only marvel, with a resigned feeling of envy, at such stories; over here a long freight train is 50 or so 4 wheel wagons (as they are called here) with a tonnage of perhaps 750-1000. A passenger train of 400 tons in steam days was heavy and anything over 500 tons exceptional (except during the second world war when 750-1000 ton passenger trains were not unknown on the London to Scotland routes and freight traffic would have been correspondingly heavier as well). Nowadays the fixed formation diesel units such as HSTs and the much newer units now coming in are made of lightweight modern materials and while I have no information I would make a guess that a 9 unit HST (2 power cars and 7 trailers "inside") probably weighs about 300 tons. There are some longer freight trains occasionally to be seen but everything is smaller in scale here and to be honest there just ain't that much freight on the rails compared to in the States. Ben
Ben, over here "in the colonys", one 40 foot box car weighted 100,000 pounds empty. And back when engines were "Mannly" macho things (steam) before these pink painted diesel sissy things stole our rails, a single 4-8-8-4 Big Boy steam articulated alone weighted over 760,000 pounds, and could pull a train on level ground almost five miles long! Thrilling days of smoke, steam smells, and loud, I mean LOUD whistles you could hear three miles away! That was railroading in dream land!! ------------------ Watash #982
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Gats: Saw 13 engines in a UP 'light' move in Nampa yard, March 97. 12 C40-8/44-9 (most C&NW) types and a lone UP SD60. Impressive 50K+ HP! Gary. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> This week in the Hamlet Yard (N.C.) on CSX there was a "light move" involving a GP35/GP40-2 road slug set followed by approximately 24 LRCX big GE units! (I plan to post some photos this weekend in the CSX forum). Chessie
The longest train I ever saw was one I never saw. I ran a 14000 footer from Buffalo to Binghamton but since we arrived just at dawn, I never even caught a glimpse of the rear end. I know it was back there someplace because it seemed like the draggers would never go off, then finally the voice in the box would come on and we knew we still had it. PS - Watash old buddy, you're getting all misty on us again.
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by chessie: This week in the Hamlet Yard (N.C.) on CSX there was a "light move" involving a GP35/GP40-2 road slug set followed by approximately 24 LRCX big GE units! (I plan to post some photos this weekend in the CSX forum). Chessie<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Here's a link to SOME of those locos (Warning! Picture is about 200k): http://hodnett.homestead.com/files/LRCXmax.jpg Chessie ------------------ Harold Hodnett Fan of NS, CSX, and their predecessors! Coming soon: The North Carolina Railfan Web Site http://www.trainweb.org/ncrail/
I am very envious! I love C30-7's, and have only seen two of the LRCX ones ------------------ Alan Curtis. Moderator. Member #12 The perfect combination - BNSF and N Scale! www.alancurtismodels.com Andersley Western Railroad Alan's American Gallery
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by rsn48: Apparently CP and CN are running trains that lenght almost daily now through the Fraser Canyon in British Columbia, Canada. They have very large wheat contracts that they were sued over for non-delivery, so they have lenghtened trains. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>CN is actually running trains that long everywhere . The longest train I have ever had as a Engineer was 11,200FT . No dynamic brake , cold as hell , poor train line , knuckle and drawbar waiting to happen Anyways I forgot the car count and how many units I had but the Hot Box Detector counted 630 axles
Once I saw 6 CSX AC4400CW (YES 6!!!) pulling around 300+ (I quit counting after 250) empty coal hoppers. I will have to say that to this day is the longest train I have EVER seen. Oh and for those of you who want to know where this was it was on the CSX New Castle Sub in Akron. I have a picture of the lead AC4400CW (kinda crappy though) that I will get online someday.
