What is the longest distance between stations that you know about and what are or were the stations? I'm using the word "station" here as most railroads used it to refer to just about any point named in the employee timetable. And let's limit the answer(s) to North American railroads.
I suspect this longest distance is much less than most non-railroaders would imagine but it's probably somewhere in desert terrain. When railroads were built across deserts, they tended to avoid putting a station any place where it was not essential.
ChuckAllen, TX
Using the railroad definition of "station" limits the distance considerably since passing sidings are considered stations, and even in desert areas sidings are not that far apart, perhaps 20 to 30 miles max. for a line with moderate traffic.
Kurt Hayek
As a Southern Californian, the Southern Pacific’s 1966-67 built “dark” Palmdale Cutoff stretch between Wash and Hiland came to mind, 25.8 miles, or for simplicity, 26 miles. Circa 1980, between those points a new siding was put in called Phelan (railroad pronounced FAY-lin in contrast to the community’s pronunciation of FEE-lan). That new siding was in conjunction with CTC being put over the line between Mojave and Colton. Of course, later UP bought SP.
Undoubtedly, there are greater distances between ‘stations,’ but it would seem longer distances would be mainly on old branch lines. The original inquirer left unclarified if mainlines or branch lines were meant.
It should be interesting what knowledgeable persons around the country come up with as the forum ponders this topic.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- K.P.’s absolute “theorem” from early, early childhood that he has seen over and over and over again: Those that CAUSE a problem in the first place will act the most violently if questioned or exposed.
World wide probably the southern Australian run coast to coast ?
466lexIn response to the original question, I have no idea. But the question causes me to ask if anyone knows of a credible (preferably on-line) source for U.S. railroad mileages. No too many years ago, some roads made their mileage tariffs available, but those now seem to be behind shipper log-in barriers. ALK has mileage products for sale, but those are targeted at companies and are out of my reach, price-wise. I have my decades-old Rand McNally railroad atlas with individual states and mileages between stations, but it is unwieldy, slow, and out of date. Any help greatly appreciated!
Johnny
466lexBut the question causes me to ask if anyone knows of a credible (preferably on-line) source for U.S. railroad mileages.
Perhaps an old "Official Guide?" Granted, it will be about as cumbersome as the Rand McNally atlas, and very dated, but the mileages will be spot on.
If your interest is on specific lines, employee timetables occasionally show up at train shows, and possibly on-line. Again, they may be dated, but sometimes you'll find one that's just one or two generations old.
The "Bullsheet," which dealt with CSX, used to have some of that information with freight "schedules," no longer has it.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Deggesty and tree68: Thanks for your good ideas. In the meantime, I re-looked at this source and think it may be very helpful in "tracing" routes and (still manually) getting total miles:
http://fragis.fra.dot.gov/GISFRASafety/
I have found fairly recent employee timetables here:
http://www.multimodalways.org/
Pre-Amtrak Official Guides sound like a source for fairly quick lookups by individual road. Perhaps on eBay?
tree68 466lex But the question causes me to ask if anyone knows of a credible (preferably on-line) source for U.S. railroad mileages. Perhaps an old "Official Guide?" Granted, it will be about as cumbersome as the Rand McNally atlas, and very dated, but the mileages will be spot on. If your interest is on specific lines, employee timetables occasionally show up at train shows, and possibly on-line. Again, they may be dated, but sometimes you'll find one that's just one or two generations old. The "Bullsheet," which dealt with CSX, used to have some of that information with freight "schedules," no longer has it.
466lex But the question causes me to ask if anyone knows of a credible (preferably on-line) source for U.S. railroad mileages.
466lexIn the meantime, I re-looked at this source and think it may be very helpful in "tracing" routes and (still manually) getting total miles: http://fragis.fra.dot.gov/GISFRASafety/
Interesting site! Checked my area and found that the mileposts seem to be accurate, but the map included some lines that no longer have rails (and haven't for some time in some cases), and is missing the Adirondack Division, which does still have rails...
While it does include "stations" at towns, it does not appear to include any railroad designated locations (ie, block stations), and a few locations appear to be way off base for some reason.
Edit: The Adirondack Division does show up as far as Thendara, but only as mileposts - the line itself has no line representing it.... In some cases you can just barely make out a cross-hatched line, though. Interesting.
I also managed to change it over to an aerial view. No idea how...
K. P. HarrierUndoubtedly, there are greater distances between ‘stations,’ but it would seem longer distances would be mainly on old branch lines. The original inquirer left unclarified if mainlines or branch lines were meant.
"original inquirer" would be me, K.P, and, to be perfectly honest, the question of main vs. branch had not occurred to me. Let's say the longest on either main or branch trackage.
The original question probably betrays my background. Only about 99% of my railroad experience as an employee was in the Northeast; specifically in the states of NY, NJ, PA, DE, MD, WV, OH, IN, MI, IL, ON, and MO. That information ought to also suggest to you that I worked for NYC and later, Penn Central; leaving before Conrail came about. With that kind of experience, my idea of a long distance between stations is something like 5 miles.
blue streak 1 World wide probably the southern Australian run coast to coast ?
That's what I had in mind when I suggested answers be limited to North American rails. Don't they also claim the longest tangent track in the world?
DeggestyWould you consider employee timetables to be a credible source?
Absolutely. In fact, I might consider a recent surveyor's notes to be more credible but only if the surveyor was clearly looking at the same piece of track as described in the employee timetable. My collection of employee timetables is pretty limited though; what do you want to know about PC's Central Region ca 1970?
DeggestyHow accurate do you want to be? to the nearest mile? or the nearest tenth of a mile?
The nearest mile is fine although I'm used to seeing railroad distances in tenths. Again based on my NYC-PC experience, a tenth of a mile was necessary but sometimes inadequate to distinguish between two locations. Lots of places were only .1 miles apart and that had been rounded up.
cefinkjr Deggesty The nearest mile is fine although I'm used to seeing railroad distances in tenths. Again based on my NYC-PC experience, a tenth of a mile was necessary but sometimes inadequate to distinguish between two locations. Lots of places were only .1 miles apart and that had been rounded up.
Deggesty
And now we enter the era of PTC and all things being specified to the neareast 0.001 Mile
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
BaltACD cefinkjr Deggesty The nearest mile is fine although I'm used to seeing railroad distances in tenths. Again based on my NYC-PC experience, a tenth of a mile was necessary but sometimes inadequate to distinguish between two locations. Lots of places were only .1 miles apart and that had been rounded up. And now we enter the era of PTC and all things being specified to the neareast 0.001 Mile
Growing up with Southern, IC, and a few other ETT's in the South, I became accustomed to expecting accuracy in overall distances calculated from differences between mileposts at stations. Then, I discovered SP ETT's--which had double entries for many stations because of line relocations. Again, later, I found BN and ATSF ETT's which had single entries with the distance between two particular stations not always being the same as the difference between the MP's at the stations. In calculating miles covered in a day's work, which was official--milepost differences or actual distances?
Deggestywhich was official--milepost differences or actual distances?
Not all milepost miles are created equal.
Let's say that a railroad did a line relocation that shorted things up by some distance between two mileposts. Rather than relocate what could be hundreds of mileposts to reflect the new actual distance, they either let it slide, or if the difference was significant, note the shortened mile in the ETT.
And there could be a difference in how a railroad noted distances in timetables.
On the Adirondack Division, the mileposts run from south to north. The original mile zero was in Herkimer, but the southernmost 29 miles of the line are gone now. The mileposts at Remsen are U22 for the old Utica and Black River (zero being at Utica), and H29 for the old Mohawk and Malone (the Adirondack Division).
Some old timetables note the distance to Thendara as the MP H58 we use now (MPH 58 is just north of the station), while others note the actual distance from Utica (about 52 miles), and others measure the distance from Lake Placid southward...
tree68 Deggesty Not all milepost miles are created equal. Let's say that a railroad did a line relocation that shorted things up by some distance between two mileposts. Rather than relocate what could be hundreds of mileposts to reflect the new actual distance, they either let it slide, or if the difference was significant, note the shortened mile in the ETT. And there could be a difference in how a railroad noted distances in timetables. On the Adirondack Division, the mileposts run from south to north. The original mile zero was in Herkimer, but the southernmost 29 miles of the line are gone now. The mileposts at Remsen are U22 for the old Utica and Black River (zero being at Utica), and H29 for the old Mohawk and Malone (the Adirondack Division). Some old timetables note the distance to Thendara as the MP H58 we use now (MPH 58 is just north of the station), while others note the actual distance from Utica (about 52 miles), and others measure the distance from Lake Placid southward...
And then we get into milepost designations for transportation purposes and milepost designations for 'revenue station' purposes.
With the mergers that have taken place to create todays Class 1's - each of the component carriers all had their own milepost designation with a system that made sense in the culture of that particular carrier, but in the context of the merged carrier can be maddening.
With PTC ALL locations on interchange carriers have milepost designations with 3 or less Alpha characters and upto 6 numeric characters to form a 6 position base milepost, which is further defined to the thousandths.
....Thousanths is fine, but there still is an augmentation accuracy and precision issue with PTC as long as they are using single point GPS bias as opposed to differential GPS. (7.8 meter precision vs sub centimeter precision) .... Uncertainty around sidings and other sidetracks is still an issue.Lots of false alarms still seen in testing. One of those false alarms might not be.
It might be good to reconsider the definition of "station" to include only places where fright or people can get on or off. In the good old days there was (and may still be) a quarterly publication entitled the "Official List of Open and Prepay Stations" that listed all places to which freight could be consigned. It didn't necessarily include locations like passing sidings or interlockings.
K. P. HarrierCirca 1980, between [Wash and Hiland] a new siding was put in called Phelan
In SP's 9/74 Oregon Div timetable, Alturas to Lakeview 55.5 miles showed no stations between. (Yes, I looked for Additional Stations-- none shown on that branch.)
The Siskiyou Line may still have been a "main line" then-- no official definition exists. (The timetable didn't then call it the "Siskiyou Branch" as it did later.) In 9/74, Glendale to Cornutt was 32.4 miles.
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