Railroad Train Carrying Only Truck Trailers?

eckz · Sep 22, 2009

Pete_379X said: ↑

If it was a container train it was most likely a Z train which has a lot of priority on the rails. They can get through pretty quick. If it was straight up trailers (TOFC) they can be Z's as well. They like to keep you thinking that we are getting amazing milage out of the locomotives. I mean.. unless you know how many gallons per hour these things are sucking down.. how would you be able to say different anyway? I have a list somewhere on what the smaller EMD V12's consume per hour from idle to notch 8. Idle is around 7-8 gallon per hour and it only goes up in big numbers from there. Thats a SMALL 2500hp motor.. I'll try to find the numbers on the 4500-6000hp motors.

That commecial you see about pulling a million tons of freight 100 miles on a drop of fuel is BS. In best case scenario... if they started on a hellacious hill and coasted for 100 miles they may get that kind of mileage.

Yeah the economy has hit us in a bad way. We are subject to idle rules now as well. New hours of service has killed any overtime I used to get. Running about 30 hours a week now. UP alone has 4500+ layed off or in furlough. Then you have all the other big carriers, NS, BNSF, CSX, CN, KCS and all the small railroads. All in all the logistics of this country are in a fubar beyond nightmare. I stopped driving to chase my american dream. To one day have something and retire. Thought I found that on the railroad but anymore I don't think it will be a possibility. For all I know I could be serving you guys fries with your shake at Mc D's next month the way we are running right now.
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The next time you see that commercial, listen closely. The comparison is for "one ton of freight on a gallon of fuel".. What they fail to mention is that they are hauling a hell of alot more than just one ton.

Pete_379X · Sep 22, 2009

Yeah anywhere from 80 to 120 ton per car. 100 to 150 car trains... He77 a empty boxcar weighs between 70,000 and 100,000lbs.. depending on how old it is. We have a few 100k lb'ers in our yard thats from the 50's.

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