I just noticed on the Trains wire that BNSF recently ran the first 10,000-foot stack train on the Trasncon. Pretty interesting stuff:
(1) How many cars are roughly in a 10,000-foot train?
(2) Please forgive the facile nature of this question, but is it just me, or is the race to double track the Transcon going to produce some really big dividends? Railroads already seem to be making a lot of money with intermodal. If they can now have the efficiencies of 10,000 foot trains, that seems like it is throwing gas on the fire in terms of profits--less dwell time in sidings, the ability to work around maintenance, quicker running times, the ability to not limit train length depending upon sidings, etc.
(3) I know I am going to cause some inclement posting by asking this, but why is there no race to double track the lines leading to the PRB?
(4) I can't really put my finger on a particular article, as it was never really stated out right, but I seem to remember several articles in Trains and elsewhere kind of referring to extra long trains with disdain--from a business rather than fan perspective. Have I hit "the sauce" too hard--your response was still too funny Murphy--, or does anyone else seem to remember this?
If my memory is accurate, why is a first class railroad like BNSF now running 10,000-foot trains? Was Trains disdain misplaced, or has something changed?In a way, it is kind of ironic, as I have always associated short fast trains with Santa Fe's Transcon.
Gabe
gabe wrote: I just noticed on the Trains wire that BNSF recently ran the first 10,000-foot stack train on the Trasncon. Pretty interesting stuff:(1) How many cars are roughly in a 10,000-foot train?
That, of course, varies depending on the nature of the train. Double-stack well cars seem to be trending back toward 40-foot wells (for the predominance of import containers), so a five-pack runs a little over 250 feet. Probably we're talking 38 five-packs, or 190 wells, in a 10,000-foot train (the length includes power).
gabe wrote: (2) Please forgive the facile nature of this question, but is it just me, or is the race to double track the Transcon going to produce some really big dividends? Railroads already seem to be making a lot of money with intermodal. If they can now have the efficiencies of 10,000 foot trains, that seems like it is throwing gas on the fire in terms of profits--less dwell time in sidings, the ability to work around maintenance, quicker running times, the ability to not limit train length depending upon sidings, etc.
I would hope that it would produce profits--the way the bean-counters control things, one would have to make a pretty good case for expansion before the work is done.
gabe wrote: (3) I know I am going to cause some inclement posting by asking this, but why is there no race to double track the lines leading to the PRB?
As far as my particular railroad is concerned, that "race" is over and done with. Just about everything on the major coal corridors has been upgraded to single-track CTC at the minimum. UP restored the second track in western Iowa where CNW eliminated it decades ago, and has three tracks through much of Nebraska. The portions of Iowa and Illinois that were double-track at the time of the merger (with CNW) are being converted to two-main-track CTC.
gabe wrote: (4) I can't really put my finger on a particular article, as it was never really stated out right, but I seem to remember several articles in Trains and elsewhere kind of referring to extra long trains with disdain--from a business rather than fan perspective. Have I hit "the sauce" too hard--your response was still too funny Murphy--, or does anyone else seem to remember this?
More can go wrong with longer trains--trainline leakage, acceleration problems, siding capacity, and on and on.
gabe wrote: If my memory is accurate, why is a first class railroad like BNSF now running 10,000-foot trains? Was Trains' disdain misplaced, or has something changed?
My disdain is still there, but what has changed is the advent of distributed power, which makes train handling easier for trains of a given length (slack control is much of what we're thinking about here), and also has the potential of making brake applications faster (and therefore, one assumes, safer). Brake releases are faster as well, because the brakes are being controlled from more than one location, but still by one operator. When electronically-assisted air brakes come into use, this aspect of distributed power won't matter as much, but the train-handling advantages will still be there.
gabe wrote: In a way, it is kind of ironic, as I have always associated short fast trains with Santa Fe's Transcon.Gabe
Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
Gabe:
(1) You had better specify what you mean by "cars"... Most are articulated sets with 5 wells and six trucks. which would get you 65-67 cars.
(2) Speed is king with intermodal (to a point) and congestion was beginning to be a big issue. Every fuel crunch creates boomtimes on the transcons.
(3) Apparently you have not been to the approaches to the PRB. They are about stretched to the limit building new railroad up there. They have a method to what they are doing and have consistently been adding to the main tracks every year. Think ROI to answer your question.
(4) If you run those 10K foot trains, better have some place to get around those trains and have enough capacity on the ends to accomodate them. This is just becoming reality. Your track structure and motive power had better be able to handle the drawbar strain. It wasn't that long ago that stack cars would roll over the rail in curves because of dynamic lateral forces that the carbuilders had not adequately addressed, starting with poorly lubricated truck plates and kingpins.....
Short, fast trains was more DRGW than ATSF.
Gabe:I usually count containers or trailers when I watch an intermodal train. That is more of an indicator to me of economic activity. BTW, does anyone else here estimate the revenue on a train by converting either cars or intermodal units to revenue? I got stopped by a EB CN the other evening with 131 cars, mostly loads, many tank cars. Had to have been serious revenue on that train.
Mudchicken...I never noticed until tonight that you list Denver/LaJunta (I assume your locale). I took the Chief from LaJunta to Kansas City in 1966. That was quite a ride. Is BNSF running any freights thru LaJunta any more? I know that Raton Pass is brutal, but it always seemed that could be used as a outlet for the Transcon line. Now that TC is nearly double main, it may not be needed.
ed
Intermodal is "making a lot of money"? Perhaps in the case of UPS trains (e.g. high margin traffic), but not in the case of steamship intermodal, and the LA-Chicago transcon is primarily an import intermodal conduit. So in that vein the answer is no.
We had a discussion a while back about this, and the consensus of those in the know was a tacit admission that import intermodal does not make a lot of money currently, but there's a bet that the next round of ocean liner rate negotiations will produce greater pricing power for the railroads, and then the railroads will be able to pay for all that new trackage and all those new well cars. In the meantime, the railroads will cross subsidize import intermodal with higher than justified rates on domestic grain, coal, and chemicals.
My opinion is that the railroads (BNSF in particular) will never have enough pricing power over import intermodal to justify these wasteful expenditures on double tracking the ex-SF trancon. There's just too many competitive options available to the ocean liners to allow the railroads to charge a price that actually covers the cost of all these projects. Thus the cross-subsidization of imports on the backs of captive domestic shippers will continue indefinitely until the Congress finally puts the kibosh on this activity.
They are for the most part. The problem is that we need more than just double and triple tracking existing PRB lines - we need new double track corridors in and out of the basin independent of the current lines, if for no other reason than to allow a continuation of coal deliveries when the next PRB derailment takes the new triple track out of service for weeks on end.
The DM&E project would have gone a long way to alleviating this problem, but sadly the FRA buearecrats foresook their sacred oath to serve the public and allowed BNSF de facto veto power over the project.
There! Does that stir the pot enough for ya?
If you leave it single track, how do you propose to meet 10000 ft trains in 8000 ft sidings?
Dave H.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
gabe wrote: I(4) I can't really put my finger on a particular article, as it was never really stated out right, but I seem to remember several articles in Trains and elsewhere kind of referring to extra long trains with disdain--from a business rather than fan perspective. Have I hit "the sauce" too hard--your response was still too funny Murphy--, or does anyone else seem to remember this?If my memory is accurate, why is a first class railroad like BNSF now running 10,000-foot trains? Was Trains disdain misplaced, or has something changed?In a way, it is kind of ironic, as I have always associated short fast trains with Santa Fe's Transcon.Gabe
I(4) I can't really put my finger on a particular article, as it was never really stated out right, but I seem to remember several articles in Trains and elsewhere kind of referring to extra long trains with disdain--from a business rather than fan perspective. Have I hit "the sauce" too hard--your response was still too funny Murphy--, or does anyone else seem to remember this?
Well, there's not anything inherintly "bad" about long trains. Niether is there anything inherintly "good" about short trains. And, why run two short trains when you can get the job done with one long train?
And that's the important thing, "getting the job done". In the past long trains of general freight tended to fall down on the job. They were difficult to operate and they provided terrible service. With this amazing train the BNSF was able to reduce the operating difficulties. The articulated cars and distributed power reduced the slack and braking problems. The now largely double track Transcon reduced, if not eliminated, the siding length problem.
In other markets, and in other times, long trains provided unreliable service. Freight cars spent a lot of time sitting in yards so they could be aggregated into those long trains. If they missed a connection there was a long wait until the next long train. Service was unreliable with long trains of general freight.
BNSF just doesn't have that problem on the LA-Chicago container route. Those ships disgourge thousands of containers. Aggregating the boxes into a long train isn't a problem.
So the operating problems have been reduced and the aggregation problem doesn't exist. Things changed. BNSF was smart enough to understand and accept the change, and then run an "Experimental" train to see what they could do. The "Experiment" seems to have worked fairly well with a Sunday departure and a Tuesday arrival.
BNSF = "Railroad To The Future".
BNSF isn't alone on this, by the way--UP ran a monster stack train in each direction this past winter, from the LA area to the Chicago area. Reportedly the eastbound was over 13,000 feet long and the westbound over 12,000 feet long.
(Sorry, NYC25--I was checking lengths of 40-foot five-well stack cars again, and found them to be in the 260-foot range, regardless of builder or age. New ones are being built, particularly for BNSF.)
Time to execute a double saw-by when that 10,000 foot train meets a 8,000 foot siding filled with train.
I think that procedure would be quite unacceptable to the railroad today. =)
Safety Valve wrote: Time to execute a double saw-by when that 10,000 foot train meets a 8,000 foot siding filled with train.I think that procedure would be quite unacceptable to the railroad today. =)
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Brian (IA) http://blhanel.rrpicturearchives.net.
Although not stack trains,I have ran and seen several 12,000 ft. plus intermodal trains here on the Pocahontas Division of the NS.But the train you mentioned is big for intermodal anywhere.
I once had a 100 car loaded autorack train out of Bellevue,Ohio,then picked up 50 more loaded autoracks in Columbus,Ohio.
In all I had 150 loaded autoracks going to Portsmouth,Ohio.
Collin ,operator of the " Eastern Kentucky & Ohio R.R."
Double saw by is a painful, schedule destroying, power consuming meet where both trains couple to each other at precise moments to push and pull each other's stuff past each other.
I only have a diagram from MR as a clipping in my notebook and cannot describe the process easily with words.
mackb4 wrote: Although not stack trains,I have ran and seen several 12,000 ft. plus intermodal trains here on the Pocahontas Division of the NS.But the train you mentioned is big for intermodal anywhere. I once had a 100 car loaded autorack train out of Bellevue,Ohio,then picked up 50 more loaded autoracks in Columbus,Ohio. In all I had 150 loaded autoracks going to Portsmouth,Ohio.
That's an "OH Wow" for sure!
I make that over 13,000 ft of train with 149 "slack points" hauling very sensative cargo. You're good at what you do.
Try it like this...
Two trains, A & B, each with 100 cars...(this is for example only) meet at a siding that only holds 80 cars...how do they pass each other?
Train A is headed south, Train B is headed north.
Train A, at the north end of the siding, cuts off his rear 20 cars in the clear on the main before the siding, then proceeds and holds the main past the siding, till he is in the middle, clear of both ends.
Train B takes the siding, and reaches past the rear of A on the main to couple into the cars train A left in the clear on the main.
Train B continues to shove forward, till his rear clears the other end of the siding.
As soon as Train Bs rear clears the main at the south end, train A proceeds past the south end, then backs up and couples into the rear of train B...drags train B back into the siding, where B cuts off the 20 cars train A left on the main, now leaving them in the siding.
Train A then continues to drag train B, till his head end clears the south end of the siding.
Train B then cuts away, and has a clear main...he departs north, train A then backs into the siding, picks up his 20 cars and heads south.
This is a simple saw by, as only one train has to leave part of his train on the main.
Now, imagine if the trains were so big that you couldn't accomplish this in one piece...neither train, if cut in half, will fit in the siding.
Now each train has to leave X number of cars on the main, in the clear of their respective end of the siding.
Train B takes the siding, Train A takes the main and pulls forward till his rear is clear of the south end of the siding.
Train B then pull out, couples Train A's cars up to his head end, and goes forward till his rear is clear on the other end of the siding.
Train A then goes forward, couples his head end into train Bs cars, and pull up enough till he can back into the siding and couple into the rear of B...then drags B back into the siding...where B cuts off the cars on his head end...A then drags him back into the clear on the main.
Remember, A still has the back half of B on his head end, so B now drags A south past the other end, then shoves back into the siding, where A cuts off the cars that belong to B.
B then drags him back out, and A can now go north, till he clears the far end, then back into the siding, pick up his rear cars and go...B can now go North, clear the siding, back up, pick up the cars that were on A head end, and go.
Basically, it boils down to the two train swapping the rear half of their trains, then each leaving the others rear in the siding, flipped flopped around, so each can back into the siding and pick up their rear end cut.
If you use blocks of wood or simple slips of paper with AA and BB written on them representing the two trains and their respective halves, and do the moves on your desk top, it will make sense.
23 17 46 11
I finally got it to work, but my desktop will never be the same!
Moo.
She who has no signature! cinscocom-tmw
Yeah, and you should have seen the one that got away!
I've never encountered a "double saw by" since we have mainly double signaled mains here.But we do have double track to single track in three locations at tunnels.
A few years ago I had around 13,000 foot on the 185 west (mixed freight),and meet the 184 east (mixed freight)and he had about the same footage.Well when we both encountered approach signals and we started to creep around to the next signal we was looking at each others rear with only 2-3 cars lengths to clear.
This would have been bad since we had the whole town of Kermitt,WVa tied up at all crossings.
The Dispatcher was very nervous acting to say the least when he asked use both if we thought are trains was going to clear.
Brian,
This is only one way to accomplish the move...if you work at it, you can come up with a couple more ways, depending on whether it is CTC, ABS, or dark territory...how far ahead can each train move, what limits do they have, stuff like that.
Time consuming to say the least.
I have done a simple saw by quite a few times, as our tracks were built and designed way back in the 20s and 30s, and with the longer trains we now run, there is no choice...but these are planned moves and we work in dark territory under RTC, so we really have no limits on our movement.
Dispatchers hate the unexpected saw by, screws up the entire sub time wise.
blhanel wrote:Thanks Ed, I understand it now!
zardoz wrote: mackb4 wrote: Although not stack trains,I have ran and seen several 12,000 ft. plus intermodal trains here on the Pocahontas Division of the NS.But the train you mentioned is big for intermodal anywhere. I once had a 100 car loaded autorack train out of Bellevue,Ohio,then picked up 50 more loaded autoracks in Columbus,Ohio. In all I had 150 loaded autoracks going to Portsmouth,Ohio. Yeah, and you should have seen the one that got away!
No the one that got away was the 350 car empty coal hopper train they ran out of Kenova,WVa about 13 years ago.I just missed that one,but I got stuck behind it all night while the crew put hoppers in about every siding to Williamson,WVa
Boy did the "yardmonster" that had that train put together get his but chewed .
edblysard wrote: Try it like this...Two trains, A & B, each with 100 cars...(this is for example only) meet at a siding that only holds 80 cars...how do they pass each other? If you use blocks of wood or simple slips of paper with AA and BB written on them representing the two trains and their respective halves, and do the moves on your desk top, it will make sense.
greyhounds wrote: gabe wrote: I(4) I can't really put my finger on a particular article, as it was never really stated out right, but I seem to remember several articles in Trains and elsewhere kind of referring to extra long trains with disdain--from a business rather than fan perspective. Have I hit "the sauce" too hard--your response was still too funny Murphy--, or does anyone else seem to remember this?If my memory is accurate, why is a first class railroad like BNSF now running 10,000-foot trains? Was Trains disdain misplaced, or has something changed?In a way, it is kind of ironic, as I have always associated short fast trains with Santa Fe's Transcon.GabeWell, there's not anything inherintly "bad" about long trains. Niether is there anything inherintly "good" about short trains. And, why run two short trains when you can get the job done with one long train?And that's the important thing, "getting the job done". In the past long trains of general freight tended to fall down on the job. They were difficult to operate and they provided terrible service. With this amazing train the BNSF was able to reduce the operating difficulties. The articulated cars and distributed power reduced the slack and braking problems. The now largely double track Transcon reduced, if not eliminated, the siding length problem.In other markets, and in other times, long trains provided unreliable service. Freight cars spent a lot of time sitting in yards so they could be aggregated into those long trains. If they missed a connection there was a long wait until the next long train. Service was unreliable with long trains of general freight.BNSF just doesn't have that problem on the LA-Chicago container route. Those ships disgourge thousands of containers. Aggregating the boxes into a long train isn't a problem.So the operating problems have been reduced and the aggregation problem doesn't exist. Things changed. BNSF was smart enough to understand and accept the change, and then run an "Experimental" train to see what they could do. The "Experiment" seems to have worked fairly well with a Sunday departure and a Tuesday arrival.
Time sensitivity is still an issue for intermodal, and running such absurdly long trains will only add to the time penalties. Don't forget, all those containers disgourged from those ships have to be marshalled first and sorted, then and only then are they loaded onto the well cars. And on the operating side of things, such long trains can only cause havoc to the other trains using the Transcon, including those time sensitive UPS trains. I wonder how UPS feels about this spector of long double stacks potentially clogging up their priority trains? Are there enough passing opportunities built into the Transcon to allow an Eastbound UPS to glide past a long eastbound double stack without losing speed?
You really think our future is doomed to becoming a colony of Communist China, huh? Because that's the only *future* facilitated by BNSF's continued cross-subsidization of imports at the expense of domestic customers.
Time sensitivity is still an issue for intermodal, and running such absurdly long trains will only add to the time penalties. Don't forget, all those containers disgourged from those ships have to be marshalled first and sorted, then and only then are they loaded onto the well cars. And on the operating side of things, such long trains can only cause havoc to the other trains using the Transcon, including those time sensitive UPS trains. I wonder how UPS feels about this spector of long double stacks potentially clogging up their priority trains? Are there enough passing opportunities built into the Transcon to allow an Eastbound UPS to glide past a long eastbound double stack without losing speed? -FM
....want to try to rethink this? Unless a short ride in a bomber chassis is somehow equated to marshalling...
mudchicken wrote: Time sensitivity is still an issue for intermodal, and running such absurdly long trains will only add to the time penalties. Don't forget, all those containers disgourged from those ships have to be marshalled first and sorted, then and only then are they loaded onto the well cars. And on the operating side of things, such long trains can only cause havoc to the other trains using the Transcon, including those time sensitive UPS trains. I wonder how UPS feels about this spector of long double stacks potentially clogging up their priority trains? Are there enough passing opportunities built into the Transcon to allow an Eastbound UPS to glide past a long eastbound double stack without losing speed? -FM....want to try to rethink this? Unless a short ride in a bomber chassis is somehow equated to marshalling...
Not to pick on FM, but I have always found the contention that ship-generated intermodal was time sensitive very dubious. UPS-generated intermodal on the other hand, there is no question that it is time sensitive.
Once you view the time it takes to get that countainer in to the port in China, loaded on the ship with all of the rest of the containers, the ship to cross the vast waters of the pacific, to wait for a berth in LA, be unload, and then placed on a train, the thought of saving a day or two by making the rail run time sensitive is akin to ordering a diet soft drink when you are eating a super-sized value meal at McDonnalds with a side of chicken nuggets.
gabe wrote: mudchicken wrote: Time sensitivity is still an issue for intermodal, and running such absurdly long trains will only add to the time penalties. Don't forget, all those containers disgourged from those ships have to be marshalled first and sorted, then and only then are they loaded onto the well cars. And on the operating side of things, such long trains can only cause havoc to the other trains using the Transcon, including those time sensitive UPS trains. I wonder how UPS feels about this spector of long double stacks potentially clogging up their priority trains? Are there enough passing opportunities built into the Transcon to allow an Eastbound UPS to glide past a long eastbound double stack without losing speed? -FM....want to try to rethink this? Unless a short ride in a bomber chassis is somehow equated to marshalling...Not to pick on FM, but I have always found the contention that ship-generated intermodal was time sensitive very dubious. UPS-generated intermodal on the other hand, there is no question that it is time sensitive.Once you view the time it takes to get that countainer in to the port in China, loaded on the ship with all of the rest of the containers, the ship to cross the vast waters of the pacific, to wait for a berth in LA, be unload, and then placed on a train, the thought of saving a day or two by making the rail run time sensitive is akin to ordering a diet soft drink when you are eating a super-sized value meal at McDonnalds with a side of chicken nuggets.Gabe
Gabe - I have clients in the high value chemicals business. They are always importing and exporting various finished materials using ISO tank containers across the Pacific. These are very time sensitive. Because of the nature of the products air transport is not feasible - so they book slots on container ships for their ISOs. Trans-Pacific transport time is actually quite fast - but more important the time is very predictable. That allows them to schedule manufacturing operations to include the loading and unloading of ISOs. With the selling prices of these materials being in the range of thousands of dollars per gallon - they are very time sensitive.
I can't speak for other containers - but these are definately time sensitive. (Note during the last Oakland dock strike, they lost several million worth of material because the product's active life expired - waiting for unloading.
dd
So 24 hours matter, when it takes over three weeks to ship? I don't doubt you, but it just seems counter-intuitive?
MP173 wrote: Mudchicken...I never noticed until tonight that you list Denver/LaJunta (I assume your locale). I took the Chief from LaJunta to Kansas City in 1966. That was quite a ride. Is BNSF running any freights thru LaJunta any more? I know that Raton Pass is brutal, but it always seemed that could be used as a outlet for the Transcon line. Now that TC is nearly double main, it may not be needed.ed
Only regular through freights are a daily manifest freight each way and bare table moves....
Still used as an escape route for screw-ups between Amarillo & Belen and during congestion. Still is faster than the Belen CutOff (If somebody will pay for the extra fuel &/or HP, properly run, it is not as brutal as legend has made it out to be)....crew availability is now a big issue.
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