WHY SO MUCH DIRECTIONAL RUNNING IN TEXAS?

[Anonymous]

I have a question that I'm hoping someone could help me out with...I currently live on the austin subdivision and can't help but notice that there are an abundance of northbound trains while only a few southbounds, I believe this is called directional running (correct me if I'm wrong). I've also noticed that this goes on in northeast texas, as well, with trains coming from pine bluff arkansas (southbound) and headed from texarkana up to little rock (nbds). Why does UP do this, and, does it really help that much in the area of running trains (I would imagine it does, it's most likely a helluva lot easier on the dispatchers). I'm guessing that UP does this mostly because they own so much property in this state, but I'd be inclined to learn any other reasons, as well.
-joe on the ol' mo pac

[edblysard]

Houston...
They discovered that bringing it all in from one way, and sending it all out the other was the only way to keep it fluid.
Back in the early UP/SP merger days trains would get lost, really lost!
They were sending clerks out to sidings with pad and pencils, writing down locomotive and car numbers, so they could figure out what is was, where it came from, and where it went.

San Antonio is also a major hub, and when Houston gets plugged, they do also, so doing it this way allow the dispatchers to keep things moving, if San Antonio gets jamed up, they can run around it and bring it here, and vice versa!

Ed

[dldance]

Joe - think of the UP trackage between Taylor and San Marcos as a double track with Austin being on the western track and Bastrop/Smithville being on the eastern track. That is the way UP is operating them. Currently most southbound trains go through Bastrop and most northbound trains go through Austin.

One major exception is that the southbound Texas Eagle also goes through Austin - which throws a few operational wrinkles into the mix. Go to the Amtrak website and compare the timings between San Antonio and Austin for trains 21 and 22.

dd

[richardy]

UP has a directional run in Kansas and Oklahoma too, extending from Paola, KS to Wagoner, OK. The western section is former MOP with CTC, the eastern section is former MKT with ABS.

[dehusman]

What the UP did was take areas where they had roughly parallel lines , The SP/SSW and MP in Texas and Arkansas, the MP and MKT in Kansas and Oklahoma, the SP and MP in Louisiana, and turned them into stretches of "double track". Instead of the tracks being 20 feet apart, they are 20 miles apart. By pairing the track they get increased capacity. The BNSF does some of the same thing.

Dave H.

[Anonymous]

CN and CP have had a very successful directional set-up in the fraser canyon now for quite some time.

CN runs on one side of the river, and CP on the other, so they just set it up for directional running, and now everything runs reasonably well.

Only problem is as soon as directional running took place, CN decided to take out 80% of their sidings, so now if something goes wrong on the CP side, which has happened many times, the CN side becomes a complete log jam.

Whereas CP has actually added capacity, so when things go wrong on the CN side, which happens often, lots of the CP side is double track, so they are able to better keep up with traffic.

[Anonymous]

Outside of the major cities in Texas there isn't much double track, just sidings every 7-10 miles or so..... Therefore the use of parallel track 20-30 miles apart as double track.... Probably the longest distance of double track in Texas is the old T&P line between Dallas and Fort Worth through Arlington and Grand Prairie..... some 30 miles or so.... The only problem is UP treats the second track as if it were a very long siding, parking its hogged law freight there.....

I think DART has more continuous double track in Texas than any railroad.....

[chad thomas]

Northern Nevada has had directional running dating back to world war 1. During the war the war board decided to use the Western Pacific for eastbounds and the Southern Pacific for westbounds between Wells(Alazon?) and Winnemucca(Weso). After the war the railroads stuck with it. This is a good example of efficiency from railroads cooperating. I think we will see even more of this type of operations in the future.

[TH&B]

The now abandened parts of the old SP+S "High Line" was used in directional running by BN.

[Anonymous]

For Don clark re DART trackage. I hope you are not counting the 40+ miles of light rail that DART has in its system for your double track milage. The light rail is not a freight line that needs debottlenecking by double track. It is very true that you could not operate a passenger system, be it light rail or commuter rail, with 5 minute headways without double track.

DART, through its Trinity Rail Express which is jointly owned and operated by DART and the Fort Worth Transit Authority (The T), has double track on part of the 34 mile corridor. Most of the trackage on the Dallas side to the Dallas-Tarrant county line is double tracked with the remainder of the Dallas side to be double tracked shortly. DART recently cut in the second bridge over the Trinity river, so this section is double tracked. The slow order over the old bridge has been liftedas the wooden approaches to the bridge have been replaced witha pre stressed concrete approach. The only major investment on the Dallas side is the single track crossing over Interstate 35. This is scheduled to be double tracked by 2008 when TXDOT rebuilds the freeway. The Tarrent county side has the Dorothy Sink where the track is settling when it crosses a boggy bottom. This requires constant MOW work.

Counting the three freight lines that have trackage on the corridor we have pumped as high as 85 trains per day over the line. This is pretty good considering that a lot of the line is single track. UP, to the south has indigestion when they reach 35 trains per day on a double tracked line between the two cities. Figure this out.

*** Watkins, "Retired" DART board member and TRE Advisory board member.

[Anonymous]

At the time of the UP/SP merger, the UP anticipated closing down the SP/SSW mainline that paralleled the MP through Arkansas and East Texas. The system proved to be too constrained to allow this without further improvement to the MP. Consequently the UP kept the SSW in service and adopted directional running. The MP mainline was chosen for the north bound (typically upgrade) traffic because it consisted of more double track and was in better shape allowing for higher speed or more tractive effort. Running the SP main unidirectionally southbound (typically downgrade) allowed it to carry a higher number of trains and tonnage than was previously possible. The MP handles Amtrack and some locals in both directions. There may be some bi-directional traffic on the SSW, but substantially les than on the MP. Pat

[bobwilcox]

QUOTE: Originally posted by dehusman

What the UP did was take areas where they had roughly parallel lines , The SP/SSW and MP in Texas and Arkansas, the MP and MKT in Kansas and Oklahoma, the SP and MP in Louisiana, and turned them into stretches of "double track". Instead of the tracks being 20 feet apart, they are 20 miles apart. By pairing the track they get increased capacity. The BNSF does some of the same thing.

Dave H.

In addition the SP/SSW was used for traffic moving south to the Gulf because most of the cars are empties going back to the chemical plants. This line has a poorer profile than the MP line used for the Northbound traffic.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by joeyalone

I have a question that I'm hoping someone could help me out with...I currently live on the austin subdivision and can't help but notice that there are an abundance of northbound trains while only a few southbounds, I believe this is called directional running (correct me if I'm wrong). I've also noticed that this goes on in northeast texas, as well, with trains coming from pine bluff arkansas (southbound) and headed from texarkana up to little rock (nbds). Why does UP do this, and, does it really help that much in the area of running trains (I would imagine it does, it's most likely a helluva lot easier on the dispatchers). I'm guessing that UP does this mostly because they own so much property in this state, but I'd be inclined to learn any other reasons, as well.
-joe on the ol' mo pac

it actually called directional traffic

[Anonymous]

south bound & westbound trains depart pine bluff ark via ex SSW
and head to lewisville ark were sbnds will go all the way to houston tx via shreveport la and wbnds will go to big sandy tx and switch over to old MP
lines & head into ft worth tx. from big sandy some trains will head through tyler tx & change crews and go west to corsicana tx were they willthen switch back south to port lavaca tx or flatonia tx via ex SP MP lines

[Anonymous]

The UP is running mostly southbounds crossing the Red River at Shreveport on a bridge that they own but share with the KCS mainline to New Orleans. The KCS is operating in both directions here across the bridge necessitating that the switch is being operated by hand at Louisiana Junction which is on the north side of the bridge and at the south end of the bridge also where the Riverfront Yard begins (former SSW yard). This UP line is the one from Pine Bluff to Houston. The return trains travel from Houston to Palestine, Longview , and Texarkana to N. Little Rock..

[Anonymous]

Any Railroad will always do what is in its own best interest.If running in only one
direction for a time is more feasable due to the type of traffic to be moved,then that
is the best thing.I was a Train Dispatcher for many years for Santa Fe and I saw many
changes,some I feel were very good for all and some I think were only good in the eye
of the beholder.One thing that everyone should remember,The Railroads have been
around for a lot of years and they always come out on top.