Long Train

One day while at Selkirk a train with a CSX ES44DC and a CSX AC4400CW passed by. Everything was normal except the train was over 100 cars long. How could 2 engines pull such a long train.

That's not an uncommon occurance. It happens all the time.

Steel wheel on steel rail is the most efficient transportation system on earth. You have the least amount of friction at the contact point, which is what make efficient rail travel possible...

ES44AC wrote:One day while at Selkirk a train with a CSX ES44DC and a CSX AC4400CW passed by. Everything was normal except the train was over 100 cars long. How could 2 engines pull such a long train.

How about 2 SD40-2s pulling 211 mty hoppers up the Byron hill toward Batavia. It took a long time but they did make the hill. Another time, 2 SD80 MACs easily took 214 mty hoppers west from Rochester. Back in the CR era, it was not uncommon for them to send 2 units to Rochester yard on a Saturday afternoon and clean out every mty hopper car in the yard.

The Water Level Route.

It's not un-common just last Friday I saw a CSX ES44DC and CSX C40-8CW
(Ex Conrail, Still in Blue) carry a Manafest that took them 10-20 Minutes to get down the shore and, it was a long train.

Also Most very long trains get the Right of way, or request it from the dispatchers. I hear them requesting it here and there

http://images3.fotopic.net/?iid=yml11j& ... &nostamp=1

^Theres a Shot^

What matters is not number of cars but rather the trailing weight (the weight of the train) being pulled by the locomotives.

It's not unusual for a detector on the Chicago line to report as many as 660 axles being pulled by only two locomotives. That works out to an equivalent of nearly 160 four-axle rail cars.

I don't recall the longest train that I ran with two units but it was a lot
longer than just 100 cars.
Noel Weaver

I can recall seeing single CSX Units weather it being a Lone SD Unit of some type or a GE pulling 100 empty Garbage Cars East or pulling Stack Trains in eather direction.

Q381 last night was a monster...670 axles. He had three SD40-2's for power, and 163 cars total, but had no problem making it up the South Byron Hill, since only about 20 of those cars were loaded.

Granted, it doesn't always work out that way. It seems like it's mostly short pool trains that do stall on the South Byron Hill...my guess is that Jacksonville only accounts for the original train size and not the pick-up's, or there's just flat-out a shortage of power, but I'm really not in the know for this (care to help me out here, roadster?).

In general, there IS a method to the madness...some methods are just more efficient than others.

Railraods are into making huge trains. The other day I had train 112 on CN. She was 11,207 feet long and 10,770 tons. We had an SD50F, C44-9W and an SD40-2W for our power. Did quite well.

It's all a way to save money, reduce crews and locomotives. If you run huge long trains, you don't need as many.

Now here in the Praries in Canada when it gets 40 below in the winter you can't run those huge ones ... but CN still seems to try.

In my short time on the RR, I have been on two trains that have layed up on the Rabbit (Shreveport-Houston) because they were underpowered, according to some of the guys, this is quite common!

Tonnage, not the number of cars, determines power. Horsepower per engine, roller bearing cars, gradients enroute, etc., all have bearing on number of units, too.

[quote="CSX-Dan5377"]Also Most very long trains get the Right of way, or request it from the dispatchers./quote]


Yeah---it's called we are to long to fit ANYWHERE!!!!

CN has the extended sidings out here on the praries so you can still fit almost anywhere no matter how long you are.