ezielinski wrote: UP's Bailey Yard in North Platte, Nebraska. It is in the Guiness Book of World Records as the largest and busiest railyard in North America. Every 24 hours, Bailey Yard handles 10,000 railroad cars. It has been said that every type of freight that can be shipped by rail passes through the yard on a daily basis.
UP's Bailey Yard in North Platte, Nebraska. It is in the Guiness Book of World Records as the largest and busiest railyard in North America.
Every 24 hours, Bailey Yard handles 10,000 railroad cars. It has been said that every type of freight that can be shipped by rail passes through the yard on a daily basis.
The correct answer (at least for freight). The densest and highest ton-mile traffic is the UP between O'Fallons and Gibbon, NE.
Dave H.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
Has everyone forgotten the railroad hub of the world...CHICAGO?
Variety? How about every class 1 in the USA and Canada, with the exception of KCS (which gets there in pools)? We've got four passenger rail services (Amtrak, Metra, South Shore and CTA) and at least two tourist passenger services. Chicago has bridges, tunels, flat terrain and steep grades. We're home to both third rail electric and caternary. hicago is a major container destination, as well as coal units, auto racks, chemicals, lumber, grain, and even what's left of the loose carlot boxcar. hicago has more track in it's city limits than do most countries, and sees hundreds of trains a day.
Pool all the other suggestions together, and they still don't add up to the track miles and train density of just this one city.
Ray Breyer
Modeling the NKP's Peoria Division, circa 1943
Amarillo, TX is a real hotbed of activity - trains coming in and going out in at LEAST five different directions - probably more.
Mark P.
Website: http://www.thecbandqinwyoming.comVideos: https://www.youtube.com/user/mabrunton
Since you didn't limit your question to the North American continent, let me put in a plug for Japan. Even insignificant commuter lines that wander off to a dead end in the heart of nowhere have a couple of passenger trains an hour and a dozen freights every day (there's a limestone mine at the end of the branch I'm thinking of.) On more important routes, the traffic is far denser - to the point that EMU trains in central Tokyo during the rush hour run on 90 second headway.
The not-too-important secondary line that I model schedules over 100 trains in 24 hours, and most of them are "pike-size;" 4-7 passenger cars and 20-car freights. That doesn't include the traffic generated by my imaginary connection, only what can be found on the employee timetable.
Chuck
I know it is not the busiest, but here in Erie Pennsylvania I get to see 40+ trains a day. Norfolk and Southern and CSX mostly but motive power from everywhere. The GE locomotive plant is a mile down the road and I get to see the new ones roll out from there. The Bessemer and Lake Erie have trains a few miles away along with Buffalo and Pittsburg.
The greater Vancouver BC area has a large variety along with lots of train movements. CP Rail, CN, BNSF and Southern Railway of BC (ex BC Hydro) are the four big freight lines. VIA Rail, Rocky Mountaineer, West Coast Express (commuter rail) and Amtrak are all active passenger lines (plus SkyTrain on dedicated r/w). If you go back a few years, then you can add BC Rail/PGE, GN, BC Hydro Railway. Bulk commodities rule: coal, lumber, pulp/paper, wood chips, grain, sulfur, containers, auto racks. But lots of local switching still happens as well.
Would be a good place and being Canadian, would add a little more of a challenge to accurately model our unique locomotives, especially if you go pre-90’s.
The BNSF has a yard in Winslow, AZ that has up to 90 trains a day on both east and west bound traffic. You can view this activity right from the back of the La Posada Hotel. If you are interesting in the hotel information itself their web site is http://www.laposada.org/. I just wish they had a web cam available.
It is one of the original Harvey Houses hotels that has been restored for modern day use.
Back in the spring of 2005 our family took a vacation and we stopped, at lunch in the restaurant at the hotel and I counted over 15 trains that passed in a 90 minute period.
Most of the traffic was containers, and you can spot this same flurry of activity all along Interstate 40 as it cuts through Arizona.
Ryan BoudreauxThe Piedmont Division Modeling The Southern Railway, Norfolk & Western & Norfolk Southern in HO during the merger eraCajun Chef Ryan
Don't know how it compares to other busy rail areas, but the port of Oakland, CA is one busy container port. A higher percentage of containers go in/come out by rail than in the only bigger West Coast port of Los Angeles/Long Beach. Oakland Port Authority has worked with railroads to expand rail yards twice in the past 10 years to get higher container throughput - they got more land from the military base closings in the '90s. LA/LB has the vast majority of imports, but Oakland has the lion share of exports. Many ships offload primarily in LA/LB, then come north, offload remainder in Oakland and/or Seattle/Tacoma, and onload for the return trip at Oakland.
Most common traffic is the container cars - both single and double stack. There are also plenty of auto loaders, with spine lumber cars being the 3rd most common from my observation.
I work in Oakland and commute from the North Bay, hours are irregular and the freeways parallel the main line and yards in places. I can't tell you how many trains per day, but I know there is always something moving into/out of Richmond and Oakland at any given time. Amtrak also makes at least 6 runs a day round trip between Oakland and Sacramento.
Even the old SP Donner Pass route (150 miles east of Oakland) sees trains at least hourly around the clock, including a couple of Amtrak. And Donner Pass is probably the least preferred route through the mountains due to grades and winter snow. My anecdotal observations (when I'm camping or skiing in the area) is that Donner Pass is now used primarily as an eastbound route; westbound traffic seems quite rare.
my observations
Fred W
http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=5959
If one could roll back the hands of time... They would be waiting for the next train into the future. A. H. Francey 1921-2007
I'm guessing you want to do Wyoming in particular. I don't know much about that region, but I did a google search on "railroads" filtering thru the word "Wyoming" and here's a link to the results. Hope you find something useful in there...
http://www.google.com/search?as_q=wyoming&num=10&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=railroads&as_oq=&as_eq=genesee&lr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&as_rights=&safe=images
-ken
-Ken in Maryland (B&O modeler, former CSX modeler)