Western Railroad Discussion > Longest Train Ever Seen?

Excuse me if this has been posted already, but got to wandering what's the largest train someone on here has seen. Mixed freight, stacks, coal, or whatever.
Last summer there was a 167 car mixed freight KCS train I saw in Shreveport, then a couple of summers ago a 68 car CN stack train holds the record for me, seen in Canada. With mostly 5 packs
Feel free to put car count or train length

BNSF-6432
PQM



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/21/12 21:44 by BNSF-6432.

Longest train I ever saw was an edition of UP's KG3LB with 192 cars and an 11,500 ft. length.

UP IDILBF-08 passing through Pomona, CA on January 10, 2010. 18,061 feet, 15,498 tons.

Video here: http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,2098066

trainjunkie Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> UP IDILBF-08 passing through Pomona, CA on January
> 10, 2010. 18,061 feet, 15,498 tons.
>
> Video here:
> http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,2
> 098066

This was the longest train for me too...saw it passing by the Salton Sea, it was looking a rolling container ship.

Twice have gotten 172 cars. Once with two sd40s on csx in IN and on CN ex WC at Junction City, WI. The CN was a full potash with the head end of a manifest acting as midtrain dpu. I have seen manifests around 180 plus before. On CSX in college I got a 60 plus manifest combined with an 80 plus loaded coal off of the logan branch. Power was a mom slug/mom slug combo. Also it was not un heard of to get 150 to 230 loads of csx company cars going from a mine to a local yard to be broken up at say Ceredo or Ashland or Huntington for going onto a barge. NS would often do the same with some runs to Wheelersburg, Ohio.

176 wells on a BNSF somethingorother passing through Commerce, Ca a couple years back.

http://youtu.be/CpVbjmHKers.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/22/12 05:29 by defect_detector.

Longest conventional manifest for me until recent times was 183 cars at Kearney NE- with an interesting power combo- AC60CW, GP38-2, and a now retired SD90MAC-H. However, 2 years ago I topped that with 193 cars, this train used mid train power, it was a combo of mostly SD9043MACS and a couple of SD70M's. Whilst I have seen the H-BARKCK many times on the BNSF transcon, I never got to see it when it combined with H-BARGAL to make trains of a similar length. Meanwhile, back east, I saw an empty coal train of 192 cars on the NS at Marion OH some years back. I have seen several stack trains of nearly 200 platforms on the UP Overland route, making use of distributed power also.

Dave, Southampton, UK

I work for BHP Billiton in the Australian Pilbara and in 2001 we ran a loaded ore train fron Newman to Port Hedland Western Australia with 682 wagons and 8 AC6000CW locomotives in pairs controlled by a single driver with a length of 4.6 miles (7.3 km) for 99,734 tons

Our current configuration is 4 SD70s and 240 wagon trains running 18 train in each direction daily

---

It's hard to single out just one. FEC runs 14000-15000 footers on a routine basis. I recently saw train 121 with three locomotives (2 SD40-2's and 1 GP40) with 14700 ft and 224 cars of autoracks, mixed freight, rock hoppers, and intermodal platforms.

Andrew

Posted from iPhone

SD70M Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Longest conventional manifest for me until recent
> times was 183 cars at Kearney NE- with an
> interesting power combo- AC60CW, GP38-2, and a now
> retired SD90MAC-H. However, 2 years ago I topped
> that with 193 cars, this train used mid train
> power, it was a combo of mostly SD9043MACS and a
> couple of SD70M's. Whilst I have seen the H-BARKCK
> many times on the BNSF transcon, I never got to
> see it when it combined with H-BARGAL to make
> trains of a similar length. Meanwhile, back east,
> I saw an empty coal train of 192 cars on the NS at
> Marion OH some years back. I have seen several
> stack trains of nearly 200 platforms on the UP
> Overland route, making use of distributed power
> also.
>
> Dave, Southampton, UK


I caught that combined BARKCK-BARGAL out of Wellington, KS a few years ago, It had three sets of power in it. When we got to KC, we brought it in through a yard track, made a cut ahead of the middle units, hung an ETD on the rear, and it departed with a KC-East crew. My conductor & I taxied back to the rear units, cut them off and took them to the pit. It was around over 14'000 feet, longest one I ever had.

Here's a video of the longest train ever.

http://youtu.be/9LsuNWjRaAo



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/22/12 05:30 by CNW534.

Commonwealth Railway in Virgina just ran a stack train two days ago out of the port which was over 17,000 feet to CSXT.

I remember when it was still BN in the summer they would run double coal emptys through Lincoln on a regular basis. Two train sets together. But I don't remember how many cars a coal set was back then, Maybe 125 so the trains would be 250 cars.
Steve

I once shot a UP MPRPB with 87 loads 122 empties, 209 total cars. Around 16,000 tons and 14,000 feet. Had 4 SD70Ms and a SD70ACe (and a dead MP15AC), and I figure they were in notch 8 the whole trip. Dispatcher was afraid to stop them anywhere because they didn't FIT ANYWHERE.

Pump

Posted from iPhone

Some of those trains are longer than some shortline railroads.

Westbound Conrail 195 car piggyback train through Erie, PA in 1998. Also some mighty long double stacks going up (eastbound) Cajon Pass (Devore,CA) in 2008 on the Burlington Northern Santa Fe. One of them was about 180 platforms/cars long complete with mid-train DPU helpers.

SantaFeRuss

wpjones Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I remember when it was still BN in the summer they
> would run double coal emptys through Lincoln on a
> regular basis. Two train sets together. But I
> don't remember how many cars a coal set was back
> then, Maybe 125 so the trains would be 250 cars.
> Steve


This was in the days when trains were typically 110 cars, so at 220 cars, they were the longest I have know I saw. It was an attempt to reduce movements across Nebraska. All the power up front.

That 186 car TOFC would be one looong train with the 89 foot flat cars!

Rob

Shakamaker Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I work for BHP Billiton in the Australian Pilbara
> and in 2001 we ran a loaded ore train fron Newman
> to Port Hedland Western Australia with 682 wagons
> and 8 AC6000CW locomotives in pairs controlled by
> a single driver with a length of 4.6 miles (7.3
> km) for 99,734 tons
>
> Our current configuration is 4 SD70s and 240 wagon
> trains running 18 train in each direction daily


Amazing. I don't think I'd want to be that operator.

Longest for me was a 240-car empty hopper train pulled by a single C40-9W at Devon, WV on the NS.

BobE

The longest train I saw was a 200 car empty coal train headed west on the CNW at West Chicago, IL at 10:00 or so PM back in the '90's.

The CNW experimented with 200+ coal empties before the UP Merger.