Eastern Railroad Discussion > CP's one intermodal train west from Chicago

North/West out of Chicago, on CP's C&M sub, 199/198 are the intermodal train for CP since the Hunter Harrison era. This picture from last week shows the typical train these days, with a GE up front, some racks, stacks, a single DPU, and more stacks. Containers are international and domestic boxes. The length often seems to be around 10,000 ft.

I believe it is Bensenville to Vancouver, BC. It used to use the UP from Bensenville to tower A20, but not it is routed by A5. Back then, there was another intermodal that ran to Minneapolis, leaving Bensenville in early evening and using the A5 routing as about the only CP freight that did it. Then I guess farther back there were the Milwuakee/SOO Sprint pig trains.

What got my thinking is how every other railroad has substantially more intermodal traffic to/from Chicago. CN, with a similar route to BC, seems to have something like 3 stack trains each way between Chicago and Western Canada. UP and BNSF of course have dozens of trains to the west. Interesting how CP has just come down to one train.

---

inCHI Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> What got my thinking is how every other railroad
> has substantially more intermodal traffic to/from
> Chicago. CN, with a similar route to BC, seems to
> have something like 3 stack trains each way
> between Chicago and Western Canada. UP and BNSF of
> course have dozens of trains to the west.
> Interesting how CP has just come down to one
> train.

This should answer everyone's questions about how EHH plans to single-track the CSX between Albany and Chicago...

A single track fast railroad, especially with a number of intermodal and very long trains cannot support more than about 24 thru trains a day plus a few locals, even with CTC and PTC. And some of this route has AMTK too. Train counts are 30 or more per day over this entire route. No part of the railroads EHH came from had even 30 trains per day on single track. Long trains, and fast trains, must have at least two tracks. Why do you think BNSF and UP have spent so much money getting rid of single track bottlenecks on their railroads? Doing so in New York is nothing but a ploy to get NY to pay for the double track due to passenger trains.

JLinDE Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> A single track fast railroad, especially with a
> number of intermodal and very long trains cannot
> support more than about 24 thru trains a day plus
> a few locals, even with CTC and PTC. And some of
> this route has AMTK too. Train counts are 30 or
> more per day over this entire route. No part of
> the railroads EHH came from had even 30 trains per
> day on single track. Long trains, and fast trains,
> must have at least two tracks. Why do you think
> BNSF and UP have spent so much money getting rid
> of single track bottlenecks on their railroads?
> Doing so in New York is nothing but a ploy to get
> NY to pay for the double track due to passenger
> trains.

Right and CSX spent all that money double tracking the B&O to Chicago with 60 plus freights a day.

.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/17 16:12 by darkcloud.

CN does that today after some major siding extensions and I think your train count is high based on info from a friend. One thing I said was long trains. BNSF runs average size trains on the north transcon, so 30 a day is possible if it is really that now. And the SP across AZ does not have any really long trains. BNSF in CA is all short trains, half passenger. You miss the point. Hunter likes long trains. So do I. The CSX lines Albany to Chicago ex NYC and B&O have been running very long trains for decades. Back to the fifties, up to 200 cars or more. I have logs of them. And so does a friend. Now the average car-length is longer, making long trains by car count even longer. I do not know where you are, but here in the East two mile long trains (10,560 feet) and longer up to 12,000 feet (2.27 miles) occur several times per week on a route that cannot pass them. Are any of the RR's you mention doing that? Also, the ex-SOU rathole is mostly double track in the heavily graded territory.