Western Railroad Discussion > Everything but the Kitchen Sink

Date: 05/22/23 12:48
Everything but the Kitchen Sink
Author: blueflag

On Sunday, while driving east through Iowa on US 30, we played leap frog with a long manifest, seeing it multiple times. These photos show it at Belle Plaine IA, 5-21-2023. I tried to capture it in one frame, but I don't think I did, and the heat distortion didn't help. It had well cars, a coal car, autoracks, reefers, and the usually assortment of manifest cars. About the only thing missing was COFC and MOW cars.

It would interesting to know the stats and length of train as it seemed to be about 3 miles long. It sounded like the mid-train DPU was 8700' back from a conversation we heard.

Consist (assuming I counted right):
UP 7798
NS 9648
HLCX 1082
HLCX 3812
HLCX 3886
HLCX 3813
HLCX 1032
NS 9684
97 cars - including 5 three truck trash spine cars and 12 three-pack well cars (29 extra platforms/car lengths)
UP 5326
104 cars - including 1 three-pack well car and 7 five-pack well cars (26 extra plaforms/car lengths)
UP 7696

That makes for 201 cars, but equivalent of 256 cars. The train took 5.5 minutes to clear going about 30 mph.

Jeff Eggert