Western Railroad Discussion > How many UP/BNSF trains does North Platte see in s day

Please start listing them
I am not from North Platte , so all I know is BNSF runs lots of coal trains , and up runs lots of intermodal / manifest trains though there .

Posted from iPhone

BNSF does not run through North Platte. Grand island is what u are probably thinking of

Posted from Android



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/24/18 14:24 by Ohiorailfan.

AC6000CW_Fan Wrote:
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> Please start listing them. I am not from North Platte , so all I know is BNSF
> runs lots of coal trains, and up runs lots of intermodal / manifest trains though there.

North Platte sees lots of trains in s day.
You already know that BNSF runs lots of trains through there, so you're good to go.

Robert Pierce
Sugar Land, TX
SWRails.com

There's never a thank you that comes with these questions.

Posted from Android

More information please. When you say s day, do you mean Saturday or Sunday?

For UP, North Platte is one of the busiest pieces of RR in the country....

AC6000CW_Fan Wrote:
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> Please start listing them

You ARE kidding, right?

> I am not from North Platte ,

Well, that is pretty obvious from your title. By the way, what do you mean by "....see in s day."?

so all I know is BNSF
> runs lots of coal trains ,

They sure has hell do, BUT NOT THROUGH North Platte, Nebraska!

and up runs lots of
> intermodal / manifest trains though there .

Yes, UP definitely does, assuming you mean UP, which should be capitalized.

Grand Island is east of North Platte, and is the crossing of UP and BNSF main lines; the train count of BNSF trains in North Platte is zero. === === = === JLH

Come on guys "...see in s day" was a finger bump on the iPhone. He meant "...see in a day". The 's' and 'a' keys are next to each other.

First off as others have pointed out, no BNSF trains run through North Platte though you might see a BNSF, CSX, NS, or KCS locomotive on a Union Pacific train. Train types are primarily stack trains and mixed freights. A few coal trains. Some autorack trains. Some unit tank trains, presumably oil but could be something else. Trains with hoppers such as for grain, cement or frack sand too. Most trains are quite long, most have one or two mid-train DPU locomotives, some have one or two rear end DPU locomotives.

I was just there and the frequency varies a bit but you can expect to see at least 20-30 trains on the mainline during daylight hours. I spent about 6 1/2 hours at the Spike Tower on Sunday the 15th and didn't see quite that many on the mainline but there was certainly plenty to watch in that yard and you definitely lose track of trains/locomotives easily. The hump yard operation is really a sight to see. Both ends of the operation are a blast to watch.

When I spent some time at Birdwood (west end of the yard) on Saturday the 14th there were maybe 10-15 trains in a 5 hour period.

Monday the 16th yielded 6 trains in about 2 hours at O'Fallons (just a few miles west of the yard).

I would guess that the weekdays might yield more trains than the weekends but I'm not really sure. I have never had the opportunity to spend a couple solid weekdays there. No matter what it is definitely the place to go to see trains.

Lee Ryan - Rio Grande Fan
Denver, CO

RG Fan: Thank you for an informative and non-snarky reply to an honest question.

It's actually not that far South down to the BNSF at a pretty busy McCook, you could easily fan both places
in a day and see thirty trains.

Out

They are correct in that to see the BNSF you have to go;
1) East to Grand Island, about 130 miles.
2) South to McCook about 83 miles.
3) or West to Sidney about 120 miles.

Remember that the North Platte yard complex is about 5 miles long with both east and west bound hump yards.
It used to be known that the "fleet" would run heaviest to the west on Thursday thru Sunday/Monday.

When I ran to North Platte and back to Cheyenne, eastbound Hot trains took about 4 hours and westbound about 6-7 hours.

Bob Krieger
Cheyenne, WY

The OP asks a bunch of these style questions over in the east coast board.

NP sends out 100 trains east and west each day, plus run thru trains they may work, fuel, inspected or just a crew change.

https://www.up.com/aboutup/facilities/bailey_yard/

Posted from iPhone

Bob3985 Wrote:
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> ... When I ran to North Platte and back to Cheyenne,
> eastbound Hot trains took about 4 hours and
> westbound about 6-7 hours.

That's quite a difference in hours!  Was that the result of the uphill grade to Cheyenne, or was Cheyenne that much of a jackpot?

mapboy

Bob3985 Wrote:
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> They are correct in that to see the BNSF you have
> to go;
> 1) East to Grand Island, about 130 miles.
> 2) South to McCook about 83 miles.
> 3) or West to Sidney about 120 miles.
>

Don't forget the other direction! North to Thedford on the Sand Hills Sub (same line that goes through Grand Island) is 65 miles from North Platte. Traffic is real hit or miss, though.
~wko

I reckon you get around 100 trains per 24 hrs nowadays, down somewhat from the peak in the early noughties. I logged 170 trains on a Wednesday back in 2007, and am quite confident that will not be beaten in my lifetime.Coal is down, they are building bigger trains, ergo numbers are down.I will check it out for myself in a couple of weeks,as well as the Sandhills sub

Posted from Android

After having just been there, I'd really be surprised if North Platte is sending out 100 trains per day. That number seems WAY too high to me based on my observations. Unless 60+ of those trains depart at night, there is no way.

In a 6 1/2 hour period while at the spike tower, the east hump only put 3 trains out for departure. Two of which did not depart while I was at the tower or for another 2 hours after I left. I have no idea how many trains the west hump put out but I'd guess it was probably about the same. Both humps seemed to be quite busy the entire day, three complete and very long trains were sent over the west hump (easy to see from the spike tower). I wasn't watching the hump end of the east hump as much as it is harder to see from the tower but it has the capacity to hump trains faster so maybe it did more than three trains worth. Most of the trains I saw were run-through trains that only get serviced in North Platte.

There were maybe 12 through trains on the mainline during that time as well. I suppose you might be able to convince me that in a 24 hour period you'd see 50-75 trains but 100...just seems unlikely.

Though 4 trains per hour would be 96 per 24 hour period. I did see 6 trains in 2 hours at O'Fallons on a Monday morning so...maybe...

Lee Ryan - Rio Grande Fan
Denver, CO

Our Lexington (NE) branch nearly backed up to the UP and routinely you might see 15-20 trains during
daylight hours. Living in Arlington (NE) on the Blair Cutoff you could really feel the Chicago ramp
times as the flood of trains came through in the dark. A good percentage of those got to North Platte
in darkness as well. So train counts might be 80+ but you sure don't see all of them.

Out

There are a bunch of new employees in the yard - and coupled with high business, inexperience, obscense testing and lack of power - the Yard doesn’t flow very smooth over the past year.

It’s not uncommon for trains to be staged 100+ miles in either direction as NP can’t take them. Last year two hour spacing into the Yard was normal.

Posted from iPhone

You can see how much train counts have dropped recently, in this thread from 2015-  <https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,3828945,3829589#msg-3829589&gt;  At one point, North Platte was on the busiest freight line in the world when measured by train count.

mapboy