Rail Traffic North of Albuquerque, NM

[Deggesty]

mudchicken

Johnny - There was considerably more ATS out there. It was retired in pieces as it failed starting in the mid-1990's. (It would help too if the Amtrak power would quit throwing ATS shoes like a bratty little kid.)

 

MC, didn't you mention this some time back bad habit? Apparently the SFe did not feel the same way about the habit as the Southern did, before 1974 (that was the year I left the South for the West), when a shoe came lose from the truck and cleared a switchstand on the AGS as it flailed about on its cable, which was still firmly attached--as the freight continued moving, one wheel picked the switch and.... Since the maximum speed anywhere on the system was only one mph faster than that allowed without ATS, the Southern was allowed to cease maintaining the system. The system was extensive--at least from Monroe, Va., (if not from AF Tower) to New Orleans, Cincinnati to Macon, Bristol to Memphis, Haleyville to Jasper (IC had trackage rights here), Salisbury to Morristown, and possible Charlotte Junction to Columbia--this covered the greater part that had ABS or CTC.

[VerMontanan]

Sorry, Mudchicken.  I stand by my earlier post based on actual experience.  Your post seems based on denial and that Raton had some kind of SuperRoadForeman who could make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, and your supposition that BNSF can’t do this now or won’t.  I doubt you can justify that with fact, unless you know everyone working at BNSF.

 

When I managed power for BNSF on this line around 2000, one C40 (standard power around that time) could handle 1100 tons (with a C44 a bit more).  One C40 can handle nearly 4,000 tons via Boise City.  There’s one aspect of 400 percent more power right there.  But that’s not all.  Depending on the size of the train, you have the extra manpower cost of cutting in midtrain helper (or distributed power), the manpower cost of cutting it out, and the cost of locomotive dwell and lost utilization having to resposition the power for the next help.  Additionally, as stated previously, if you’re talking about running today’s trains over this route, then you need to add the cost of decreased locomotive and car cycle time because trains would be waiting so long for meets due to the lack of sidings on the route capable of handling today’s longer trains.  This is simply a reality that even world’s greatest trainmaster can’t overcome.  And it’s in stark contrast to today’s operating reality via Boise City where a fraction of the locomotive power (and none of it needing to cut in midtrain) can handle these large trains without any power modification.

 

 

Your statement “The only time I ever saw the amount of power you claim would be required was on light engine hops and power repositioning for the mines” is truly curious.  Of course you never saw 11 or 12 locomotives on a train (as I described) was because the Santa Fe never ran one anything close to 16,000 (or more) tons.  Yes, I have personal experience seeing an SD39 pull as much as an SD45, but one doesn’t see these locomotives in road freight service much anymore, so such anecdotal information in discussing utility of the route for freight service today is useless.  But I do recall the power on some of the last York Canyon coal trains over Raton.  They were 9,000 to 10,000 tons and were destined to Box, TX (Midlothian).  Loading where they did, the only alternative to Raton Pass was backtracking to Glorieta, so over Raton they went, usually with 9 or 10 units, sometimes in two chunks due to the trailing tonnage restriction.  On occasion the train was doubled over Raton Pass.  It was always a hassle to position enough power to run this train, and frustrating because after the train departed Trinidad, it needed a fraction of the power used over Raton Pass, and then the surplus power dwelled awaiting the next train, or if there were none, repositioned out, both very costly.  This is an apples-to-oranges comparison in that this is not tonnage that would be routed via Boise City, but it does show vast amount of resources (power, crews, diminished power and car cycle time) necessary to move heavy trains over Raton.  And now (unlike York Canyon coal going east) that there is no freight traffic that HAS to go via Raton, nothing DOES go that way.  And it makes perfect economic sense.

 

And just to put things in perspective with your claim that running a train via Raton Pass would take only 1.5 to 2 times the power as the route via Boise City, even though it is 3.5 times as steep:

 

Currently, a standard shuttle grain train of 16,000 tons routed through Denver destined for Central California is assigned 4 units, usually DC units (C44s), in a 2X0X2 DP configuration (2 on the point, nothing cut in midtrain, and 2 on the rear).  This is actually more power than the train needs on the Boise City subdivision because the train is actually powered for the steeper grade at Palmer Lake, between Denver and Colorado Springs.   Power is added en route twice and by the time it departs Barstow, the train has 9 units in a 4X3X2 configuration for the 2.33 grade westbound over Tehachapi Pass.  This is, on average, about 2.475 HPT, which is again about .4 HPT more than needed, but trains are “overpowered” as they’re sharing the railroad with many high priority trains and therefore velocity is important.

 

The westward approach to Tehachapi (unlike eastbound) is fairly straight, with few curves of consequence, yet 9 generic 4400HP locomotives are required.  Yet you claim that 6 to 8 locomotives (using your 1.5 to 2 times the power scenario) would get the train over Raton (assuming, I suppose, that knowledgeable Road Foreman was still available), which is a mere 1.65 to 2.2 HPT for a grade about 1.5 percent more than Tehachapi, in spite of Raton having curves of 10 degrees in areas where the grade is well over 3 percent.  That’s why, in reality, especially for the longest ones, trains over Raton indeed must be powered near 4.0 HPT to compensate for curvature.  Distributed power can minimally ameliorate the horsepower requirements, but any way you look at it, a modern grain train over Raton (assuming it moved in one chunk, which I doubt would be desirable from an operating standpoint) would require between 56,000 and 64,000 HP, or between 13 and 15 generic 4400 HP units.  Versus 4 via Boise City.

 

[ALVA MORRISON]

Albuquerque to Denver is a passenger market that has not been even tested or surveyed for decades.  To write it off in today's world where rail is booming in popularity, and both cities (and several in between) are booming in size, seems like old-line railroad defeatism.  There should be through service Denver to El Paso, for crimeny's sakes, and on to Mexico City, especially with trade booming across the border.  Freight service that way could open up massive economic opportunities, too.  Look at what KCS is doing with their cross-border service.  Hey, just to make it unpopular, we could call it "The NAFTA Flyer"

[MidlandMike]

I would have to agere with others who say that Denver-Albuquerque has less-than expected potential.  I drove I-25 between Sante Fe-Pueblo last year, and LasVagas-Raton was nearly deserted.  The traffic that picked-up north of Raton, I suspect came off US 64, a multilane highway from Texas.

Even Denver-Pueblo passenger service would require re-double tracking Colorado Springs-Palmer Lake, and probably triple tracking north from there to Denver.