Western Railroad Discussion > BNSF Q Train TX to PNW

I just saw the BNSF Q train passing Castle Rock, CO northbound on the Joint Line. This was a longer than normal "beast" - I'm estimating 40-50 cars - about a 50/50 mix of spine cars and double stacks - no odd ball boxcars, tanks or centerbeams. Probably 2/3 JB Hunt containers, 1/3 Schneider plus 2-3 blue containers (Robinson?). No trailers.
Joe in Castle Rock, CO on the Joint Line.

Others may correct this, but from what I've seen it seems that the train is only filled out with manifest traffic SB, and not NB.

FiestaFoamer Wrote:
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> Others may correct this, but from what I've seen
> it seems that the train is only filled out with
> manifest traffic SB, and not NB.

Yes - your observation may be correct. It has been only in recent weeks that I've seen the SB with more than containers and trailers - lots of centerbeams with wood products. I'll keep watching and reporting what I see.

jsnoy Wrote:
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> Yes - your observation may be correct. It has
> been only in recent weeks that I've seen the SB
> with more than containers and trailers - lots of
> centerbeams with wood products. I'll keep
> watching and reporting what I see.

Thanks, nice to have eyes out there!

mapboy

CP does this kind of thing all the time. Why send the same freight through multiple classification yards when you can put it on a train that goes directly to where it needs to go. Kinda like a direct flight, why make two or three connections when you don't have too. As long as that freight doesn't have any restrictions that slow you down. Plus, less trains, less crews, more cash, everything a greedy railroad would want.

Pretty sure this is 5x a week out of SSE. is it the same out of alliance? which days off? any idea on when it is scheduled out of alliance?

Thanks!

The southbound fill traffic on the Q train might eventually grow into a seperate H train if BNSF keeps up the good service.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

I just see the Southbound Q, but yes it has become more of a freight train now. Maybe the RR couldn't get enough trailers to make a bigger train, so they offered to move freight and make it more profitable.

The original service was Mon-Fri
http://www.bnsf.com/news-media/news-releases/intermodal-pnw-texas-launch.html

And the northbound is a Q-ALTPTL, correct?

Northbound is still QALTPTL. Southbound is QSSEALT.

Only the southbound train (QSSEALT) fills with carload traffic. FWIW, this carload traffic isn't really new traffic (only putting these cars on this particular train is new). Previously, this carload traffic was sorted out at Laural MT and placed on a southbound manifest train there. Laural received these cars via various eastbound trains out of the PNW (HPASLAU, HSPOLAU, etc).

For the Alliance/PNW intermodal service, there appears to be a large traffic imbalance with much more intermodal traffic moving north to the PNW than the other direction. To make up more use out of the extremely short QSSEALT trains, BNSF now adds the carload traffic to it.

I keep asking this question: No why doesn't BNSF market a PNW/Denver and Alliance/Denver intermodal service with these trains?!?!

spwolfmtn Wrote:
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> I keep asking this question: No why doesn't BNSF
> market a PNW/Denver and Alliance/Denver intermodal
> service with these trains?!?!

BNSF already runs an intermodal DENTAC and TACDEN (or Denver service to the PNW). I don't know if there is much of a market from Denver to TX. Currently the southbound Q doesn't go through the Denver intermodal hub (Rennicks). Its goes Guernsy-Sterling-Denver(on Brush sub). Northbound for the most part runs the old C&S line which does go through the Denver intermodal hub.