And I think the second longest, which nobody has mentioned yet, was on the Nickel Plate (today Norfolk Southern) between Arcadia, Ohio, and New Haven Indiana. NKP railroaders called it the "eighty mile tangent" but that was a slight but of poetic license, as it was really 78-and-a-fraction, I forget the precise number.
You're right, nanaimo73, didn't read your post carefully enough. The mention of the Golden State Route in a prior post led me astray. US54 is alongside a lot of the way which was the road I took when I moved out to New Mexico; I don't remember many trains, but I remember Dalhart. Bad bumps in the middle of intersections; very bad for my fully load Plymouth station wagon. After moving to Los Alamos, didn't use 54 much; used 56 instead.
That is really a long straight stretch of track.
Art
Thanks Dale,
I didn't realize that I parrallel this straightline for a ways on my way to the beach.
Now, somewhere the N&W's straightline from Poe to Suffolk has to fit in your list somewhere.
.
Art-
The second longest piece is former CRI&P in Texas and Oklahoma between Dalhart and Guymon. The New Mexico piece you are talking about was never RI.
I'll try one more time: In response to nanaimo73's post, the second longest straight line mileage in the US cannot be in Texas (most of the old EP&NE trackage was in New Mexico). Orogrande is in New Mexico and is 51 miles (by auto) from El Paso, Texas. The EP&NE curved quite a bit in its first 10 miles but from Planeport (Fort Bliss Area) it started to run straight towards Orogrande, a distance of about 45 miles. At Orogrande it curved and took a different compass direction to reach Alamogordo which had become its new target which it had not been originally.
So 45 miles of straight track, a curve and 20 miles more of straight track doesn't add up to 71 plus miles of straight track no matter what any book of records might say.
Take any map, line up Fort Bliss and Orogrande and see where the line extends north east of Orogrande; it won't be lined up the track beyond Orogrande.
The longest straight line trakage in the world beets the US by a lot is the Australian's Trans-Australian Railway a jaw dropping 309 miles. I have heard rumors that the line is curved by 1º to look straight on a map (otherwise the curvature of the earth would make it looked curved on a flat map). The Line is set at standared gauge of 4' 8½".
It runs from 10:00 o'clock to 4:00 o'clock here, from about seven miles west of Acme to about seven miles west of Laurinburg-
http://terraserver.microsoft.com/image.aspx?T=2&S=18&Z=17&X=13&Y=74&W=1&qs=%7clumberton%7c%7c
2nd longest in the USA is UP, former CRI&P, 71.94 miles, northwest Texas.
3rd is NS, ex NYC 68.49 miles between Toledo and Butler IN.
4th was Monon between Brookston and Westville, IN, 64.52 miles, partly abandoned.
4th, ex 5th is CN, ex IC Edgewood cutoff, 62.96 miles.
5th, ex 6th is CSX, ex ACL, 60.10 miles, between Waycross and Valdosta, GA
6th, ex 7th is CSX, ex SAL, 57.4 miles, west of West Palm Beach, FL.
7th, ex 8th is DME, ex C&NW, 53.85 miles, between Vayland and Blunt, SD.
9th was D&RGW, 52.82 miles, north of Alamosa
8th, ex 10th, is BNSF, ex NP, 51.2 miles, west from Fargo, ND
9th, ex 11th is UP, ex SP, 50.0 miles, between Slater and Tagus, CA
Apart from the Trans Australian (which is of course still in use) the now closed line between Nyngan and Bourke in New South Wales, Australia was 202 miles long, straight and flat.
The longest straight in the Americas was the Buenos Aires Pacific main line in Argentina, well over 100 miles long. Most of this is still in use but some of the Eastern end has been flooded, forcing diversions via other lines.
M636C
Pity to limit this to the US. See this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Australian_Railway
309 miles without a bend.
Have to disagree about the SP straight line mileage in New Mexico. I was transferred from Los Alamos to White Sands PG just before Christmas 1953. US 54 from Corona south to Tularosa was a GRAVEL road! I had never seen a gravel US numbered highway before.
The missile range headquarters was straight north of El Paso and Orogrande was almost due east, some 20 miles. The SP ran in a straight line northeasterly from the the north edge of Fort Bliss (the Fort area itself was not straight line trackage) for about 54 miles alongside US 54 and between WSPG and Fort Bliss to a point just south of Orogrande.
It then looped around the east side of Orogrande, dodged a few hills, and then headed in a more northerly direction for about 22 miles to the junction where the spur to Holloman Air Force went west. It then turned toward the north a bit more for the final 2 miles to Alamogordo.
Everything got trucked onto the base, either from El Paso, Orogrande, or the Holloman/Alamogordo area. There was a highway to Las Cruces, which was on the Santa Fe RR between Albuquerque and El Paso, but it had a steep grade over the Organ Mountains.
In the spring of 55, I was moved back to Los Alamos but there were no trains there, either. The Rio Grande from Antonito to Santa Fe was pulled up before the war. So for the 14 years I spent in that state I never heard a train whistle at work. Had to travel some to hear or see a train.
chad thomas wrote: I think the second longest is on the ex Rock Island Golden State route in New Mexico at 78 miles.
I think the second longest is on the ex Rock Island Golden State route in New Mexico at 78 miles.
Chad, I believe you are right. That stretch goes from El Paso, Texas straight up through the Orogrande National Forest (all one tree) in New Mexico and terminates somewhere around Alamagordo. It passes through the White Sands Missile range.
Back in the heyday of the Space Shuttle, NASA decided to use White Sands as a backup landing spot- I think Edwards AFB had been flooded out (!). At any rate, NASA dispatched an SP trainload of equipment to service the Shuttle. It came through El Paso and barrelled north to White Sands in the early evening hours. Half of the troops at Fort Bliss turned out to watch it go by in the early evening hours. I remember being surprised at how fast the freight was going, but then again, this was the Shuttle.
This would have been in the early 80's- between '81 and '83. I don't recall much rail traffic on the line at the time, and I spent a lot of time on the tank trails leading into and out of White Sands from Fort Bliss.
Erik
It was on the New York Central (now NS), extending from Toledo 68.5 miles westward across the Indiana border. When completed in 1856 it was the longest stretch of tangent track in the U.S. When I was a boy living in Adrian, Michigan, my father took me down to that line one day and we parked next to a small-town depot somewhere and watched the fast NYC steam-powered passenger trains barrel through. I will never forget the sight and feel of those fast-moving siderods pounding by. In 1961 I took a photo of some NYC F Units heading a freight on that segment of track. It's at www.railarchive.net/nyccollection/diesel.htm -- click on the first thumbnail in the second row.
Richard Leonard
Steve,
Everyone knows that the only thing straight in W.Va. is the mine shafts going down.
According to 'The Guinness Book Of Rail Facts And Feats' (1971 edition), the longest stretch of straight trak in the U.S.A. is 79 miles on the Seaboard Air Line between Wilmington and Hamlet, North Carolina.
Malc.
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