Hi Speed Freight

[alloboard]

How come there is petty much not any hi speed freight rail infastructure here in the U.S? What is the fastest freight rail line in the U.S. and what was the fastest freight rail line in the U.S. and in the world.

[greyhounds]

How come there is petty much not any hi speed freight rail infastructure here in the U.S? What is the fastest freight rail line in the U.S. and what was the fastest freight rail line in the U.S. and in the world.

Freight trains move along at 60/70 MPH when required.  Anything more than that would be pretty much a waste of money.

A 40 MPH average would get freight from California to New York in around 75 hours and there is very little freight that needs to move faster than that.

Most freight moves shorter distances.  At 500 miles overnight delivery works just fine.  Again, a 40 MPH average will work for most of the freight.  Ship it Monday afternoon and it's delivered  Tuesday morning.  (I'm talking intermodal here)  Works for the majority of the freight market.

There are a few customers who would like to receive it at 2:00 AM.  They can ship by truck.

[trainfan1221]

I know the Santa Fe transcon had some spots that were good for running, and they had that "Faster than Passenger" train the Super C.  Most railroads have spots where they can open up.  I think it is all a matter of how well the railroads can maintain their tracks and where there can be a good stretch of tangent to just get a good build up of speed on.  Hi speed is good, but of course it's more important to sacrifice a little to make sure a train is safely in control.

[cacole]

I don't know what the UP's policy is since they took over, but the SP used to run 70 MPH freights on portions of the Sunset Route in Southern California, Arizona, and New Mexico.

[Stevo3751]

I would think there are not any high speed freight operations in the U.S. for one reason: if a railroad was to run a high speed freight, they would charge the shipper that much more. With sort of an economic recession the railroads would charge a lot more. It might be hard for a shipper to spend more money on transporting products at high speeds, today. Don't expect to see too many Super C-like trains in a few years.

[jrbernier]

  Freight train service is more of a ' I will deliver it on the 3rd morning' type of thing.  The customer wants to see their goods delivered on continuous basis.  Speed runs may be impressive, but 'sustained performance' is what keeps customers coming back.

Jim

[chad thomas]

I don't know what the UP's policy is since they took over, but the SP used to run 70 MPH freights on portions of the Sunset Route in Southern California, Arizona, and New Mexico.

According to my timetable there are several streaches of 75 mph on the Sunset along the Salton Sea. And there are still some super elevated curves too:

 

[fast]

Here in Finland we run TOFC and COFC trains from Helsinki to the north overnight, i believe their max speed is 140km/h (86mph). It guess it makes sense because the trains are electric-powered and diesel fuel up here cost almost $8.50 per gallon.

Not sure at all but i think in Germany they might do even faster.

[chad thomas]

86 MPH freight.... Tooo cool

[fast]

Well, checked my timetable and i was wrong, the TOFC trains are limited to 120km/h (75mph) since they're too heavy. However, the same TOFC cars do run on 86mph trains, since they're also used occasionally to carry autos on express trains.

[t.winx]

I would think there are not any high speed freight operations in the U.S. for one reason: if a railroad was to run a high speed freight, they would charge the shipper that much more. With sort of an economic recession the railroads would charge a lot more. It might be hard for a shipper to spend more money on transporting products at high speeds, today. Don't expect to see too many Super C-like trains in a few years.

Theres Super C-like trains today? Super C did L.A.-Chicago in 40ish hours right? I believe the fastest Z-train schedule between L.A. and Chi nowadays does something like 60.

BNSF and UP are slowing trains down now to conserve fuel though, but according to UP it hasn't affected their timekeeping. BNSF's hottest trains are still allowed 70, but from what I understand, some Z's are being slowed down. But looking at how much BNSF is charging for this service now and seeing trailer traffic being up makes me think that high priority trailer traffic isn't going away very soon.

[beaulieu]

In Germany Railion (DB) operates a weekday Intermodal train from Munich to Hamburg and v.v. each night for DHL Courier at 160kph (100 mph).  The problem in the US is congestion, with as much freight as is running on the major routes a faster Intermodal service would be very disruptive to the rest of the trains, overtake meets really slow down the normal flow of traffic on a 2MT line, and it especially bad with the long freight trains we run in North America.

[diningcar]

Jim earlier focused on the critical element - reliable schedules which allow planing by the customer within a given time frame.

Those not directly associated with railroading might use this analogy; you can drive 75-80 MPH on I-70 coming west into Denver but it will be much slower through the city with perhaps 5 MPH during rush hour, which will make your trip to see the Colorado RR Museum in Golden average maybe 55 MPH.

Many things enter into getting a cargo from LA to CHI. On the TRANSCON getting through the terminals where train inspections, fueling and crew changes are mandated is a much bigger element than being able run 70 MPH. Also blocking so that switching is minimalized or even avoided is a major contributor to overall predictability of arrival time over the 2200 mile route.

And then there is the amount of traffic (other trains) encountered which brings into the equation the track structure, signal systems and dispatching. So 70 or even 90 MPH over some stretches of the RR may not contribute that much to the elapsed time between origin and destination.

[mackb4]

  I might be wrong,but I think the FRA max. is 72 mph on freight trains.

[t.winx]

  I might be wrong,but I think the FRA max. is 72 mph on freight trains.

Didn't UP run a 75mph test train for UPS a few years back?

[Railway Man]

  I might be wrong,but I think the FRA max. is 72 mph on freight trains.

On track maintained to FRA Class 5 standards, maximum speed for freight trains is 80 mph.  On Class 6 110 mph; Class 7 125 mph; Class 8 160 mph; Class 9 200 mph, provided that for Classes 6-9 the requirements of CFR 213.307 are met. 

For a freight train to exceed 49 mph, a block system (manual or automatic) must be implemented.  For a freight train to exceed 79 mph, an automatic train stop, automatic train control, automatic cab signal, or positive train control system meeting CFR 236 Subpart H must be implemented.

RWM

[CSXrules4eva]

Down here in Louisville on the CSX, the highest speed a freight train can run is 60mph, and that is on the Louisville Division on the Mainline Sub, from Louisville to Nashville. What is funny is that most of the time trains are doing no more than 50 in most cases, because of all the slow orders, heat restrictions, or special trains.

[erikem]

  I might be wrong,but I think the FRA max. is 72 mph on freight trains.

On track maintained to FRA Class 5 standards, maximum speed for freight trains is 80 mph.  On Class 6 110 mph; Class 7 125 mph; Class 8 160 mph; Class 9 200 mph, provided that for Classes 6-9 the requirements of CFR 213.307 are met. 

For a freight train to exceed 49 mph, a block system (manual or automatic) must be implemented.  For a freight train to exceed 79 mph, an automatic train stop, automatic train control, automatic cab signal, or positive train control system meeting CFR 236 Subpart H must be implemented.

RWM,

Thanks for verifying that the Federal regs on train speeds have changed without my hearing something about it. (BTW, the following is intended for others reading this thread, figure you know more than I do on the subject.)

What Mackb4 may be alluding to are limits imposed set by the railroads themselves based on car type, empty vs loaded, etc. I remember hearing a story about an AT&SF crew that got into trouble due to running faster than 55 with an empty car in the consist - which happened to be a caboose - and the person telling the story said that the caboose wasn't empty.

 Probably a more stringent limitation than track maintenance and signaling is the trucks and wheelsets used on freight cars - this related to why the AT&SF had a speed limit of 55 MPH for empties. The starndard American freight car truck is too flexible for high-speed service (along with the springs being too stiff). It is possible that the wheel profile may need to be refined as well (see J.L. Koffman's comments on pages 117-8 from CERA's A Rainbow of Traction referring to his work with Hermann Heumann on optimizing the wheel contour for BR's 75MPH FreightLiner trains).

The ultimate limitation is how much the customers want to pay for fast freight.