Today's ultimate railroad topic: What is the ultimate freight train?

[[e-mail]]

The ultimate freight train was back in the Penn Central days - east bound ML-12 - Multilevel Twelve - 144 autoracks pulled me three Alco C-636's!

[THEKINGOFDISTRUCTION]

The ultimate freight train in my area is 2 CSX ES44AHs pulling over 10,000 tons of coal through Orlando. This does cause a traffic nightmare in the downtown area. A note it may not be ES44AHs it could be a mix of CW44ACs, SD70M, SD70MACs, or SD70ACes, but it's usually CW44ACs and ES44AHs that do the job most of the time.

[WSOR 3801]

This one. 

The car was empty.

Slow trip.  Had to follow a guy all the way up.

[BT CPSO 266]

I personally, think the ultimate freight train that I have seen, would have to be the one at the end of A Century and a Half at Horseshoe Curve, the manifest going around Horseshoe Curve, with front, mid, & rear-end helpers. It just says every railroading does and can do.

Although, I do not think Mr. Frailey's choice of 21Q was far off.

 

[Wdlgln005]

To my mind, the "ultimate freight" may be a pair of PR43C's near Peoria pulling some loads of Cat tractors. Yellow motors pulling new built yellow iron. Now that EMD is part of PR/Cat, we will see what changes will be made. Could make a difference for a Cat dealer to do maintenance repairs for Cat engines.

[zugmann]

I had the ultimate train last night.  One car, two engines, push-pull. 

[billio]

Matt Quandt

 

Today, we'd like to find out what you think is the ultimate freight train.

What do you mean by "ultimate?"

[edblysard]

I get to handle every day what is, in my opinion, the ultimate freight train.

We get a daily BNSF Teague Ami inbound, often 100 to 120 car of just about every thing, with the exception of auto racks.

It has parts of the empty BNSF Fuel Train, just about every tanks car in chemical service and food stuff service, boxcars, center beam flats full of lumber, gons with everything from pipe to rolled steel wire, flats with all kinds of Caterpillar equipment on it, and about once a month a Schnabel Car or two for transformer or power station service.

I switch it all out, get to make up 3 or 4 other trains out of it, we use parts of the Teague Ami to make up or finish out other trains for our customers.

Nothing boring about this one, you really have to plan how you are going to cut this up and how you need to switch it out.

[BaltACD]

The Ultimate Freight train is the one that brings the most $$$$$$$$$$$ to the bottom line of the carrier(s) that operate it.

[JoeKoh]

The ultimate frieght train on csx would be a train in the 300 or 500 series.Q 509 and 324 use the nw wye in deshler.Q500 and 501 use the southwest wye in Deshler.Q339,340,342,375 use the southeast wye in Deshler.Q506,507,512,513 go North or South on the toledo sub.Q381,393,395,382,386,388 go west and east on the chicago-willard main in deshler.Hope this helps.

stay safe

Joe

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

I would consider two types as the ultimate freight train:

1. 10,000+ tons of coal in bathtub gons out of the Powder River Basin to just about anywhere, locomotives operated with distributed power.

2. Z-train intermodal, about 50-75 cars, allowed 70 MPH where the track allows, heavy on the horsepower to maintain a tight schedule.

[Semper Vaporo]

I have the feeling that I am way out in left field about this, but for me, the "ultimate freight train" would be in reality the "ultimate train" of any kind... Simply a short, general freight (20 or so random boxcars, gons, and a couple of hoppers and a tanker or two, trailed by a wide cupola red caboose) pulled by a Berkshire steam locomotive.  If it could somehow be perpetually starting the train on a 1 or 2 percent uphill grade, I think it would be nearly heaven.  Is this what you are looking for? :-)

[Matt Quandt]

Thanks for the great discussion about the ultimate management team among Class I railroads.

Today, we'd like to find out what you think is the ultimate freight train.

This is the second in a series of rankings inspired by Fred Frailey's "The best of railroading today" story in the November 2010 issue. In the article, Frailey ranks railroads in six different categories: management, freight train, infrastructure, passenger train, technology, and routes.