Train lenght?

[Anonymous]

What is the longest train ever heard of/seen[?]
About how many cars make up a mile[?]
Are there any restrictions to this effect[?]
How many of the newest engines/locomotives take to pull a one mile long train[?][?](like the EMD or SD40-2)

[JoeKoh]

redneck 17
welcome to the forums. the longest train I heard of was N&Ws 500 car coal train.depending upon the car size will determine how many are in a mile and I've seen trains with 4 engines pulling 20 cars and 2 sd40-2s pulling a 8472ft train off the Deshler wye to go to chicago.
stay safe
Joe

[Anonymous]

Looking at some of my old notes, back in 1993 at Wichita, KS Santa Fe's old 524 train (Gainesville,TX-Newton,KS) had 168 cars in tow. This would have been around 9300 feet in length

[chad thomas]

Longest?

I heard about an Austrailian DPU (distributed power) test train that was ove 20,000ft. in length (a one time run).

I also heard a story about a radical move to clear out a hump yard on the Cotton Belt. They made one long train with all the cars in the receiving yard and pushed the whole 5 mile long cut of cars over the hump.


How many per mi.?

depends on car length
40' cars 132
86' cars 60

restrictions?

Yes, its different on different railroads and locations.


It depends on grade and curvature.
On a level & straight track one locomotive can pull 100+ cars (won't break any speed records)
On a steep grade w/ sharp curves one locomotive might only pull 6-8 loaded cars.

[selector]

In the 70's, CP ran coal trains from the Kaiser Resources Coal mines in the Rockies near the BC/Alberta border to the ports at Vancouver. I don't know how many gondolas they pulled, but the trains were typically close to 2km in length, were headed by two diesels, and centred by two robots. Lots of curves, and grades approaching 2.5%, I believe. Of course, they had cabooses back then.

Others reading may have more accurate info on this.

[Anonymous]

-A 100 car train is about one mile long depending on the length of the cars.
-The AC 4400 CWs can pull a train about a half mile long by themselves.
-The Union Pacific Big Boy was said to pull a train four miles long by itself-on level
ground...
-As for restrictions on train lengths. I'm sure that varies from railroad to railroad.

trainluver1

[Junctionfan]

I like your name; it's funny. Welcome to the forum.

Longest train I have ever seen is a CN general merchandise (180 cars) using 2 SD75I, 1 C44-9W and a IC SD60 heading north from Toronto to Montreal.

Not sure how long it was but it must have exceeded 10,000 feet. Saw it on a video and there were alot of 86 foot autoboxes as well as autoracks.

[Junctionfan]

The typical autorack train around here (Southern Ontario) is around 1 locomotive usually a C44-9W, SD70I or 75I and 80 autoracks which is about 7200 feet however; on occasion, 2 locomotives with 18 articulated autoracks ie NS or TTX/ BTTX (140 feet each) and 90 regular 89 foot autoracks is over 10,000 feet. There is no speed restrictions and are subject to regular speeds.

[Anonymous]

The longest train I've ever seen was a 296 car empty coal train at Horseshoe Curve. An SD70M and C40-9W were on the point with two SD40-2's on the rear pushing. Roughly 14,800 feet, figuring every car was about 50 feet long. The train consisted mostly of exConrail G52 coal porters, which weigh about 53,000 lbs. light. Figuring that, the total weight comes out to about 7,800 tons.

[Anonymous]

Hmm.. that should read 196, not 296.

[Anonymous]

Seen UP combine two coal hopper trains before so some where between 200 and 230 cars with two units.

[TheS.P.caboose]

Longest train as far as cars go was 200. This was at Tehachapi during the seventies. SP had, if memory serves me right, 5 units on the point with swing helpers (3 units) and rear helpers also 3 units.

As far as locomotives go it's 17. A heavey lumber train from the James River Corporation in Portland, OR was carting lumber products to Los Angeles with 70 or 80 cars. The train had 8 units on the head end and a 9 unit set of helpers that they cut out at the west switch at Sylmar.

[GP40-2]

An AC4400 would be able to pull a longer train than the Big Boy (180,000 lbs tractive effort vs. 135,000 lbs for the Big Boy)

The Austrailian Ore train mentioned had 682 loaded ore cars and weighed 103,000 tons. It was powered by 6 AC6000's.

[TH&B]

That is pretty big!!! I heard South Africa ran a train almost as big and they use narrow gage.

[adrianspeeder]

Also, when trains get that long, it could take a really long time to pump up the air for the brakes. And there is something about colder temps even dragging out that process.

Adrianspeeder

[spbed]

Actually your question is most difficult to reply to due to many factors. Take a coal train rail cars are short & stubby but they carry 100 Ts or more loads per car. OTH autorackers are much longer then coal cars but also much lighter so you can have longer auto rackers since there is far less weight with 2 locos but a coal train may need 3 to do the same job. Also all locos do not have the same capacity to pull so that is another consideration to take into account when you ask a question like you did. [:)] [:D]

Originally posted by CSXtrainredneck17
[

Living nearby to MP 186 of the UPRR  Austin TX Sub

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