Longest passenger trains-Past and Present

[Junctionfan]

Just curious is what are some of the longest passenger trains now and pre-Amtrak and what kind of cars and amount of them, made up the trains including locomotives and types.

[espeefoamer]

Once in the late pre-Amtrak era I saw the UP "City of Everywhere" with 24 cars.
In Mexico I saw the Mexicali to Guadalajara El Costeno with 27 cars. This train consisted of about 5 coaches,lounge,diner,and the rest Pullmans with an ex NYC round end obs lounge on the rear.This was in the mid 70s.

[Tharmeni]

I rode the B&O's National Limited from Cincinnati to Washington in May, 1963 and it was 27 cars long, all but three of them were passenger cars. We made three stops at several stations. I remember the conductor sitting in the diner late that night and telling me it was "the ***ed longest train I've ever been involved in." We had four high schools on their senior trips on board.

[Anonymous]

Although not in the category of a Passenger Train, I read somewhere that the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey trains are about 52 Cars long (maybe longer).

Larry

[ndbprr]

The original Autotrain was quite long also between the car carriers and the passenger cars. In fact it derailed a couple of times due to braking action.

[cnw4001]

VIA's Canadian regularly runs in the 20's in the summer. Read about one recently going out of Toronto with something like 30 cars, may have been even longer.

[daveklepper]

The New York Central's "Steel Flelet" after the name train discontinuance about 1968 was pretty long running around 20 cars between Albany and Buffalo..

[TomDiehl]

According to Amtrak's website, the Autotrain is still the longest train. Two locomotives and 40+ rail cars. Also, the Autotrain station at Lorton VA is the longest at 1480 feet.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

In the pre-Amtrak era, the longest passenger train can often depend on how you count mail & express trains, especially MILW 56-57 and ATSF 7-8, the "Fast Mail". Some mail trains often ran in the 20-30 car range. The Super Chief/El Capitan combination capped out at 18 cars in peak season, this is probably the longest that I've seen on what was primarily a passenger train. In the Amtrak era, I have seen a fourteen car "Three Rivers", although ten of those cars were mail & express. The "Pennsylvanian" was even longer during the Christmas rush, with a huge block of express boxes and Roadrailers on the back.

[oltmannd]

Not the longest, but certainly unusual:

I saw an Amtrak fall foliage excursion to the Horseshoe curve in Oct 1976 with 2 P30CHs and 18 nearly new Amfleet. Perhaps the longest pure Amfleet train?

[Tharmeni]

A friend of mine sent me a pix of the Westbound Penn Texas pulling into Indy Union Station with 32 cars...but eight of those were mail/express. Still impressive, though. There's a big curve before the station and you can easily count all of the cars. Taken in 1963.

[Anonymous]

In 1963, the Michigan Railroad Club ran an excursion from Detroit to Holland, Michigan on Grand Trunk Western that was 25 cars. I believe that was considered the longest passenger train to leave Detroit's Brush Street Station, anyway. A picture of it ran in an issue of TRAINS at the time.

[Kurn]

In 1966,the Capitol Limited ran with 30+ cars during an airline strike.I've heard the Auto Train has gone 50+ cars before.

[andrewjonathon]

Here is a pretty long 'passenger' train. At $5 the fare is pretty cheap too.

In the North African country of Mauritania an iron ore train runs from the ore fields at Zouerate, to the Atlantic coastal port of Nouadhibou. This train is most likely the world's longest regularly scheduled freight train. Typically, the ore train's length (including locomotives) exceeds 3 km (1.86 miles). Because it's the only transportation in that part of the country, the ore train also doubles as a passenger train. The fare for the 700 km (434 mile) 12-hour journey is a steal at only $5. That's the good news. The bad news is that passengers must make the entire journey sitting on top of loaded iron ore cars. Ouch!

I understand the Rocky Mountaineer from Vancouver to Calgary sometimes runs some very long passenger trains depending on the season, up to 30 -40 cars). Last year over half of them were first class passengers and Rocky Mountaineer tickets are not cheap!

I don't personnally think Amtrak's Auto Train really counts since half of it is auto carriers.

[railfan619]

Yeah I think you are right the longest amtrak train I have seen is the auto rack train is about 35-45 cars long and of coruse the shortest amtrak train is the wonderful hiwatha witch conses of 2 loco's one on each end and i do beleave 3or4 cars in between

[agentatascadero]

I have seen reports of the current VIA Canadian running to over 30 cars, with somewhere around 20 of these being Pullmans, I mean sleepers. I can recall riding the SP Starlight, train 95, during Thanksgiving weekend, consisting of 27 cars: 3 head end, 6 Pullmans, 2 diners, 3 lounges, 13 chair cars. The Coast Daylight, in summers, in the 50's, ran 18-22 cars almost every day. At 22 cars, that would be: the triple unit diner, tavern, 2 Parlors, the combine, and 15 chair cars, for a capacity of nearly 800 passengers. The Friendly SP ("friendly" lasted until the late 50's), did the travelling public a big courtesy in that they would configure their trains to include about 1/3 more seats than the, given available equipment. expected passenger count, given available equipment.

[AntonioFP45]

Just before Amtrak, Seaboard Coast Line ran 18 to 20 car long "Champions" hauled by 3 E units.

The Auto Train and the Circus train have to be the winners in the "long" category.

[venardos]

The Blue Unit of Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey has a consist of 57 cars: coaches, stock cars and flats that total 5044 feet and weight 4135 tons. Add the locomotives to pull this train and it is over a mile long.

By any yardstick, a long train.