The train thread

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Profile Gary Charpentier Crowdfunding Project Donor*Special Project $75 donorSpecial Project $250 donor
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Message 1699356 - Posted: 7 Jul 2015, 21:32:48 UTC - in response to Message 1699313.  

That's fine for the passenger trains, but what about when you have two 10,000+' trains going in opposite directions? I'll tell you what happens: the passenger train gets stuck in the short siding and has to wait there while the freights meet 50 miles away at a siding that can handle one of them.

Made all the more likely when some equipment on the passenger train has to be repaired before it can leave the station an hour late.
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Message 1699395 - Posted: 7 Jul 2015, 23:17:52 UTC - in response to Message 1699313.  


That's fine for the passenger trains, but what about when you have two 10,000+' trains going in opposite directions? I'll tell you what happens: the passenger train gets stuck in the short siding and has to wait there while the freights meet 50 miles away at a siding that can handle one of them.


Sadly, that's how you make money with a North American train service these days.

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Message 1699474 - Posted: 8 Jul 2015, 11:55:04 UTC - in response to Message 1699454.  
Last modified: 8 Jul 2015, 11:55:27 UTC

I presume the American short siding is the equivalent of the UK passing loop?


I think so. A siding is a piece of track parallel to the main line, usually connected to the mainline at either end. Used for passing, also used to park cars for loading or unloading or just for storage. This picture is from Oz, but we would call this a siding in North America.



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Message 1699488 - Posted: 8 Jul 2015, 12:44:09 UTC - in response to Message 1699474.  

I presume the American short siding is the equivalent of the UK passing loop?


I think so. A siding is a piece of track parallel to the main line, usually connected to the mainline at either end. Used for passing, also used to park cars for loading or unloading or just for storage. This picture is from Oz, but we would call this a siding in North America.

Sidings that short have become unpopular in North America, at least on larger railroads. The low car capacity makes them uneconomical. That appears to be for grain loading, and the standard for that now is (I think) a minimum of 70 cars at a time. The Class 1 railroads don't want to talk to you unless you can load 110 cars at a time and send them all to the same destination.

At the museum, we have three sidings on the mainline. Johnson Siding is just past milepost 3, about half way from the museum grounds to the east end of track, and is the meeting point for trains on days busy enough for multiple trains to be out at the same time. It has spring switches at both ends to facilitate meets. Four Mile Siding is single ended (although that may change some day) and gets its name from being between mileposts 4 and 5. Schmidt Siding is near the west end of the property; our connection to Union Pacific comes off of it. It is often used for storing equipment that has to be moved out of its usual place for some reason or other.
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Message 1699491 - Posted: 8 Jul 2015, 12:55:06 UTC - in response to Message 1699485.  

I would ask the question to Canada & the USA, just WHY do you need to move so many goods from one place to another? Why can't you simply manufacture them where the demand is?

I have wondered that myself, especially when they're making different components in different places and assembling them in other places, and often then sending them to yet another place to be packaged for sale.

But turning to passenger traffic, a quick look at the Western seaboard map shows that Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco Los Angeles etc are some of the biggest cities there. It would have made sense 50 years ago to have had a high speed rail line down the Western coast of North America, so why all the hand wringing now?

50 years ago, the North American rail industry was in decline and no one thought a brand new high speed line was a good idea. Now, there is still a lot of that thinking to overcome, as well as a lot of resistance to using public money for anything other than highways and airports.
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Message 1699505 - Posted: 8 Jul 2015, 13:34:45 UTC - in response to Message 1699485.  


I would ask the question to Canada & the USA, just WHY do you need to move so many goods from one place to another? Why can't you simply manufacture them where the demand is? OK, one needs raw materials and nature decides where the mines of minerals etc are, but even so. None of it makes much sense to me, particularly when they can't even run oil tanker trains safely, as we have horrendously seen.


A lot of this is wise use of capitol. Yes, we could have a broom factory (or whatever) every few hundred miles, but it takes less capitol to build one mega-factory and the connecting railways and roads. The decrease in manufacturing cost per broom more that outweighs the added shipping costs. Remember, Canada is nearly 5,000 miles east coast to west coast. When the first trans-continental railway was built, the total population was about 4 million. The political need for a coast to coast link was there, and the government fronted a lot of the money to build it. Once this link was in place, it was a better return on your investment to make the Ontario broom factory bigger, than to build new small factories spread all over. Government policy, and government set freight rates, promoted this at the time.

But turning to passenger traffic, a quick look at the Western seaboard map shows that Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco Los Angeles etc are some of the biggest cities there. It would have made sense 50 years ago to have had a high speed rail line down the Western coast of North America, so why all the hand wringing now?



"High speed" is a relative term. We did build a high speed rail link between Vancouver and eastern Canada in 1886. The first scheduled Toronto to Vancouver train took 8 days. Before that, the trip involved steamboats, horse drawn wagons and walking, and travel time was measured in months. The fastest way from eastern Canada to Vancouver before the railway was by ship, around South America.

Canadian passenger rail service was relatively fast, efficient and cheap up to the 1950s and 1960s. By then, the government was spending capitol on a national highway system, rising personal income meant most families had a car, and air fares were beginning to tumble. (If you take inflation into account, the Toronto to Vancouver airfare today is about 1/10th what is was in 1950.) AS rail passenger numbers fell, the private railways made a logical business decision and cut services. The CN was still government owned then, and subsidized passenger services for a while until the tax payers quite rightly asked "why bother?". While all this was going on, gasoline (sorry, petrol) was pennies a gallon. The whole society adapted to the private automobile, even for longer trips.

Today, new rail construction runs into all the problems I have mentioned before. A vocal NIMBY segment of the population, plus governments that don't want to upset anybody before the next election. Meanwhile discount airlines have become the preferred method of long distance travel for the masses. The train from Toronto to Vancouver still takes several days, a flight takes 6 hours. Canadian railways are making freight money at an amazing rate these days, and see passenger service as a money loser.

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Message 1699507 - Posted: 8 Jul 2015, 13:44:05 UTC - in response to Message 1699485.  

I would ask the question to Canada & the USA, just WHY do you need to move so many goods from one place to another? Why can't you simply manufacture them where the demand is?
The goods are manufactured in Asia, shipped by intermodal container ship to places like the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, put on a trailer frame, driven from the pier to a RR yard, taken off the trailer frame, put on a flatcar, then sent on their merry way all over the USA. Far cheaper than using expensive USA labor to build anything! But this is politics, not trains.
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Message 1699521 - Posted: 8 Jul 2015, 14:36:25 UTC

The Canadian economy has evolved in a similar way to what Gary described. Today the mega-broom-factory might be in Taiwan. The glory trains today in Canada are the "inter-modals". Everybody sits on a siding when they go by.



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Message 1699523 - Posted: 8 Jul 2015, 14:40:06 UTC

The two most efficient ways of shifting large amounts of freight around are rail and ships - if you are trying to move it over land then rail, if over oceans then ships. While the total cost per train/ship is high the cost per tonne/mile is remarkably low.
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Message 1699525 - Posted: 8 Jul 2015, 14:57:35 UTC - in response to Message 1699485.  

Sidings in the UK tend to be off the mainline but come to a dead end.


In Canada we would call that a spur line, or just a spur. They dead end at a mill or mine or factory, the other end connects to a mainline.


Passing loops are where they want to run regular trains in both directions along a single track.


That would be a siding. Most Canadian main lines are double tracked these days, so passing sidings are rarely needed, unless track work is underway. In addition, we built so much track in the first half of the 20th century that even where main lines are single, there is probably an alternate route between any two major points. The alternate may be a bit longer, but that is better than letting a train sit. Rail freight in Canada is usually not time sensitive. That stuff goes by truck or by air.

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Message 1699534 - Posted: 8 Jul 2015, 15:35:25 UTC

Not forgetting that passing loops are also installed on sections of double track to allow faster trains to overtake slower trains, or to provide stations....
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Message 1699558 - Posted: 8 Jul 2015, 16:48:25 UTC - in response to Message 1699534.  

Not forgetting that passing loops are also installed on sections of double track to allow faster trains to overtake slower trains, or to provide stations....


In Canada that would be a station siding, or a yard siding. Passing trains (overtaking or in opposite directions) is called "a meet", so you can have station meets, yard meets, siding meets, etc. What yo don't want is a wheatfield meet.



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Message 1699584 - Posted: 8 Jul 2015, 17:32:56 UTC - in response to Message 1699525.  

That would be a siding. Most Canadian main lines are double tracked these days, so passing sidings are rarely needed, unless track work is underway. In addition, we built so much track in the first half of the 20th century that even where main lines are single, there is probably an alternate route between any two major points. The alternate may be a bit longer, but that is better than letting a train sit. Rail freight in Canada is usually not time sensitive. That stuff goes by truck or by air.

In the US, as the industry declined it became evident that the rail network was overbuilt. However, once they were allowed to, the railroads over-"rationalized" and abandoned so many routes that now the resurgence in business is forcing them to either rebuild old routes or increase capacity on the remaining ones.

The Baltimore & Ohio route to Chicago across Ohio and Indiana had been double track. In the early 80s, they reduced it to single track with passing sidings. As soon as successor CSXT made the deal with NS to split up Conrail, they got busy rebuilding that second track.

The Illinois Central was double track with hand-throw crossovers, all the way from Chicago to New Orleans. However, it had Automatic Train Control, which allowed passenger trains to go 90 mph. They made the case that by pulling up one track and deactivating the ATC, they could afford to install CTC to control the passing sidings and thus actually move Amtrak faster, because the dispatchers could line the freights into the sidings instead of the trains having to stop and throw the crossovers and then probably back through them. It worked for a while, more or less, but now it's pushing its capacity and really needs the second track put back.

The Southern Pacific's Sunset Route from California to Texas was always single track. Since Union Pacific took over, they have been slowly working to double track it. They're pretty much done now, I think.

In the Canadian Rockies, there is one segment where CN and CP have single tracks on opposite sides of a canyon. Both of them were getting ready to install second tracks, but common sense broke out and they reached an agreement to run all trains one way on one side and all trains the other way on the other. This practice had long been used by Southern Pacific and Western Pacific across the desert in Utah and Nevada; both of them are now UP.
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Message 1699597 - Posted: 8 Jul 2015, 19:31:58 UTC

Whilst I haven't posted much here recently I have been reading it all, interesting as always how we are similar but divided by a common language:-)

Here is another strange thing that makes me wonder if they have quite got the hang of "double ended trains" of course here in the UK almost all passenger services I can think of have cabs at both ends.

However I have noticed this most days.

This is the Lincoln Service turning on the wye.



Nothing odd about that I lose count of the number of Amtrak trains that do that every day, however on the other end.



I am actually at a loss as to why it is necessary to turn the train!

It runs from Chicago to St Louis, and I assume the reason it has a P42 at each end is that it cannot turn, if so it arrives back in Chicago the same way it left, so turning it actually reverses the train!!

Oh well I am sure they will get the hang of it eventually :-)

PS also notice the stack train on the airline, it isn't going that way but they seem to use it to switch. It was actually stationary waiting for the OK to come all the way back again.

I am also getting a few good pictures from Galesburg, but you have to be quick as the still picture only stays on screen for 15-20 seconds. I find it is really interesting watching the passengers arrive when a train is due.

Galesburg actually gets 2 "local" services each way daily and the California Zephyr and Southwest Chief in both directions.

This was the scene on Friday last before the holiday weekend, the California Zephyr to SF is due, and because it is late, the Southwest Chief to LA is not far behind.




As we know nobody in the US travels by train!!

Finally on a wet day a little while back I saw this.



Who said steam was dead.

(for the non train buffs around the sloping bit at the back of those engines is the radiator (hot) and it was pouring with rain)

Just remembered there have been reports of an E or F unit hauling a train through Chesterton, heading east, I did see it at Berea a couple of weeks back but it was 4.30 am local and still dark.

Hopefully David might have an idea what it is.

https://youtu.be/IPAFOQt6lJM
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Message 1699646 - Posted: 8 Jul 2015, 22:13:44 UTC
Last modified: 8 Jul 2015, 22:17:31 UTC

Stack train: if it went east up the ramp, waited, and then went down again, my guess is it came out of UP's Global 1 intermodal yard.

Train being turned: beats me too. Unless... they need both engines to achieve 110 mph, but maybe one of them doesn't have the necessary cab signaling equipment, so they have to turn the train so the one that does is leading. I can't quite tell from looking at them. Wait a minute... lounge cars at both ends?

Galesburg: I hope they finish the depot expansion soon. I'd hate to be a passenger and have to use the porta-potties.

F units: that would be Norfolk Southern's business train. They actually have A-B-B-A Fs, but one of the Bs is in the shop for upgrades or something. The train was in town over the weekend and left Monday morning.
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Message 1699744 - Posted: 9 Jul 2015, 4:53:33 UTC - in response to Message 1699485.  

I would ask the question to Canada & the USA, just WHY do you need to move so many goods from one place to another? Why can't you simply manufacture them where the demand is? OK, one needs raw materials and nature decides where the mines of minerals etc are, but even so.

Might be possible if all the raw materials came from the same place, or even from the same region. They don't. And don't necessarily come from the same place each time. Unit costs for raw materials transport are so low in comparison to other factors like availability, cost of labor, cost of moving finished goods that it's probably not even a factor. Probably true over there as well, but the difference is that where your "big move" might be tens or a hundred miles, our move is thousands.
As far as making where the demand is, not sure quite how that works. There's demand for new cars in all the states and provinces, but economies of scale demand that a plant in each state would double or triple the cost. What manufactured good wouldn't follow that model? Doesn't make sense.
I'd imagine, that the single biggest factor in where to make most anything is costs of labor, and to what extent industry gets driven away by governments that want to tax it to death versus governments that want to "bribe" companies to relocate by offering incentives and tax breaks in the hope that they can boost employment and spin-off economic development.
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Message 1699747 - Posted: 9 Jul 2015, 5:08:28 UTC - in response to Message 1699744.  
Last modified: 9 Jul 2015, 5:09:08 UTC

If you run for office around where
I live, then I am voting for you!


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Message 1699774 - Posted: 9 Jul 2015, 7:14:46 UTC

If anyone had been watching the IRM webcams today, they would have seen

ME

QUALIFY

AS

CONDUCTOR!!!!!


Congratulations David and well done. ;-)

The length of the train in that picture is just ridiculous!!!

Up until the 1990s, the average freight train in Canada was about 5,000 feet (1.54 kilometres) long and weighed 7,000 tons. But it is now not uncommon to see these trains stretch to 12,000 feet, sometimes as much as 14,000 feet (more than four kilometres), weighing up to 18,000 tons.

Are Canadian railways that close to financial ruin that they have to run stuff like this to save money and survive?


Chris there use to be an annual worldwide contest for the longest trains in the world, but the rest of the world has given up over the years for that title. :-D

Cheers.
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Message 1699880 - Posted: 9 Jul 2015, 17:24:13 UTC

I will be doing my first day as the official conductor (not a trainee) on the steam coach train on Saturday, July 25.

I hope the weather is decent.
David
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Message 1699930 - Posted: 9 Jul 2015, 20:32:41 UTC

Have a good shift Dave - I'm not envious, honest, I'm not envious, really, I'm not envious.... Well maybe a little....
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