Nostalgia & History > Out of the Conrail Blue

Like a lot of other railfans, I too enjoy counting the cars on a freight train. One overcast day in Banning back in the early ‘80s, I reached the number 139 watching an eastbound Southern Pacific lumber drag descend Beaumont Hill. Those three digits stayed affixed in my memory as the highest number I had yet reached until July 1993, when two fresh-from-the-builder SD60Ms bested that record by an easy thirty passing westbound through Burns Harbor, Indiana. I remember wondering at the time how many bowl tracks at Elkhart this guy must have emptied, for there were distinctive blocks assembled for the Santa Fe, BN, CNW, and the SOO/MILW. Several days later, the CNW equaled my previous record with an eastbound at Turner Junction apparently to let me know it wasn’t a freak occurrence and that Midwest railroading wasn’t to be discounted over its inherent lack of helper districts. I took note and came away sufficiently impressed, for I can’t image how many SDs the good ol’ SP would have needed to move this guy from Indio to Colton.

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speaking of big trains out of Elkhart, back in the mid 90's, Conrail was testing locotrol
on the ELSE/SEEL trains between Elkhart and Selkirk NY. They equipped a few (10?) CW40-8's
with locotrol transmitter/receivers. I saw an ELSE that was easily 200 cars, probably
closer to 225-250. If I remember correctly, it had a couple engines on the front, and at
least one mid train. I remember it took about 25 minutes for the train to depart the yard,
and 3 trains came by while it was departing...would have hated to be in a hurry and got
stuck at a crossing for that one.

In the first days after the Conrail break-up NS operated an empty gondola train into the Abrams PA yard with 200 cars. They made a set-out of 96 cars then took the head-end cars to Morrisville. While making the set-out the conductor told a family watching in a car next to me, "Take a good look that might be the longest train you'll ever see". In total overall train length the autoracks that used to run there were as long or longer plus some stack and trailer trains ran nearly two miles in length.

Gonut