I am having a discussion on the RailSimulation.com regarding North American single Vs double track milleage. I claim there is far more single track milleage in North America than double track but unfortunately, inspite of looking, I cannot find a website with support data.Can someone point me in the right direction please?
Cheers
Roger T.
Home of the late Great Eastern Railway see: - http://www.greateasternrailway.com
For more photos of the late GER see: - http://s94.photobucket.com/albums/l99/rogertra/Great_Eastern/
If you are a current TRAINS subscriber, they have a map showing main-line routes with only 2 or more tracks, and the mileage for such.
IIRC the FRA site has stats for the entire mileage in USA, so it would be a simple matter to subtract the multiple-track mileage from total mileage to get the total for single track miles.
FWIW, in my area, only multi-track line is CSX. We have the CSX (ex NYC) Water-level route, (2 tracks), the NS (ex NKP) Chicago line (1 track), EEC (East Erie Commercial, AKA GE Test track, 1 track plus plant and interchanges), Buffalo & Pittsburgh (ex Alleghany RR) line (1 track), WNY&P Meadville Sub (ex Erie RR, 1 track) and the Meadville-Franklin Industrial Track (ex B&LE, PRR & NYC, 1 track), OC&T, (ex NYC & PRR, 1 track each), B&LE (1 track), and 7 abandoned lines (apperant on sight, another 5 only if you know where to look), 3 ex PRR, 1 track each, 2 segments of the old Erie High-line (which, if still used, would actually create 2 double track segments), an old (very old) oil line RR, an old trolly line, 2 old B&LE branches, an old NYC branch, an old B&O branch, and an old narrow-gauge line that served a brick maker and Tannery. (Of course, counting abandoned, you could include 2 of the 4 former NYC water-level route tracks, as CR removed 2 of the 4 tracks. So, skew it a little bit, but not much.) If my area is representative of others, far more single track miles exsist (and did) than multiple-track miles.
Ricky W.
HO scale Proto-freelancer.
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FRA site is not easy to navigate. Try various combination of "mileage statistics" or "single Vs multiple track mileage" comes up with nothing.
2011 stats here. https://www.fra.dot.gov/Page/P0362
EDIT: and TRAINS multiple track map was from the Jan. 2006 issue, and is available on TRAINS.COM to current subscribers. While not up to current year stats, this will provide a good starting point for your information.