Passenger Trains > How much do passenger cars weigh?

How much do they weigh, and how many people do they hold?
I'm sure bilivel cars are heavier than single level, and I imagine that in some cases they carry more people than single level.

What I'm trying to work out is what is the weight of a train per passenger for various kinds of trains. It would be nice to have numbers for light rail/subway, single/bilevel commuter, and for long distance trains. The LD trains should be heaviest due to low passenger density cars like sleepers and diners, I would guess.

Anyone got numbers?

Thanks!

Here's an old thread that had a lot of info and discussion:

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?4,1824865

Here's a rundown of how the 1955 Empire Builder weighed in...

Total light weight = 2,196,780 lbs
Ready-to-run = 2,254,930 lbs

That would have been a 15-car consist, including 1 baggage/dorm and 1 RPO car.

Here are some breakdowns...
(Light weight/Ready-to-run, or LW/RTR)

60 seat Coach
LW=145,300
RTR=149,430

Dome coach
LW=149,800
RTR=154,600

Ranch car (Lounge)
LW=156,500
RTR=161,810

Sleeper (2-5-6, 20 passengers)
LW=139,450
RTR=141,900

Diner
LW=154,200
RTR=159,590

Dome lounge (Full length)
LW=188,300
RTR=194,700

What's not clear in the diagram this info comes from is if RTR weight includes passengers, or is the max weight before passengers. RTR weight would certainly include the weight of water, and fuel (for cars with Waukesha enginators), batteries, propane tanks, etc.


Jon
www.gnarchive.com

> What's not clear in the diagram this info comes
> from is if RTR weight includes passengers, or is
> the max weight before passengers.

Looking at

> 60 seat Coach
> LW=145,300
> RTR=149,430

Seems a good bet RTR weight isn't supposed to include pax.

Amtrak's coontracts with the railroads include the following weights:

Superliner coach 85 tons

Amfleet coach 60 tons

Amfleet cars most commonly have 72 seats. Superliner cars seat 60 upstairs, 24 downstairs, IIRC.

Diners, lounges, and sleepers may be a few tons heavier.

Passenger weight is insignificant in comparison to car weight, and not usually considered.

shoretower Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------


> Passenger weight is insignificant in comparison to
> car weight, and not usually considered.

Right - the only time I know of that it is considered is as TPC (Train Performance Calculator) input for scheduling and simulation modeling, and not everybody in the business goes that far. Since a schedule needs to be valid throughout the year (unless there are seasonal schedules), I make the passengers winter heavy (200 lbs each), add 50 lbs of baggage per passenger for other than commuter trains, and add a couple of feet of wet snow to the roof if it is climatically appropriate. That gives valid results for acceleration when calculating running time, which is really important on a railroad that has a lot individual speed restriction zones.

TAW

I realize that "winter heavy" probably means passengers plus their "foul weather gear", but I couldn't help thinking about bears who have just "loaded up" in Fall for their Winter hibernation period.

Compare this with heavy weight cars of the steam era.
A typical 85ft cars weight was 180,000 lbs.

Hal

Interesting. So your typical passenger car is around 65-85 tons, call it 75 tons, and carries around 65 warm bodies. An inter-city bus like a Greyhound is perhaps 25-30 tons loaded, and has about the same number of passengers. I have to wonder if rail passenger cars in the 40 ton range (loaded) could be built and be functional in a train. All that extra mass really eats up power on grades and acceleration, and it is power you can't get back on a non-electric line. That would seem to tip the efficiency scales toward road transport and busses for passenger service. Now admittedly you will probably have a nicer trip on the train, because you have about 50% more room per passenger, so you can move about. But double the moving mass per passenger is a pretty expensive overhead to pay, if there was a reasonable way to decrease the overall mass.

What is the weight a Surfliner/California Car,
the Bombardier Commuter Cars and even the older
Gallery Style Commuter Car




shoretower Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Amtrak's coontracts with the railroads include the
> following weights:
>
> Superliner coach 85 tons
>
> Amfleet coach 60 tons
>
> Amfleet cars most commonly have 72 seats.
> Superliner cars seat 60 upstairs, 24 downstairs,
> IIRC.
>
> Diners, lounges, and sleepers may be a few tons
> heavier.
>
> Passenger weight is insignificant in comparison to
> car weight, and not usually considered.

Jerry Martin
Los Angeles, CA
Central Coast Railroad Festival