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From wikipedia > United States – BNSF Railway and Union Pacific Railroad (UP) regularly operate intermodal container trains exceeding 5,000 metres (16,500 ft)
by FridayoLeary 1y ago
From wikipedia
> United States – BNSF Railway and Union Pacific Railroad (UP) regularly operate intermodal container trains exceeding 5,000 metres (16,500 ft) in length on main lines in the western United States. On the UP, these trains can stretch to over 6,100 metres (20,000 ft) with 5 locomotives and 280 well cars.
Those are incredible figures. It would almost be a shame to ban such amazing monuments to engineering. Not to mention that it's probably the most efficent and enviromentally friendly way to do things.
- Wowfunhappy 1y agoIMO the freight companies should be able to pay to build longer sidings if they need them, but they should have to pay for it.
- tschwimmer 1y agoThey're not going to build a 4 mile siding, which is the length that many freight operate at. At that point it's like building a second set of tracks.
- Wowfunhappy 1y agoThen don't build 4 mile trains. It needs to be possible for trains to pass each other.
- bluGill 1y agoa lot of rail is 2 track so no sidings are needed.
- guappa 1y agoBecause trains never go the other direction anyway.
- bombcar 1y agoDual track isn’t really a two way road, with signaling it ends up being infinite sidings, and is used almost more for passing than for two-way traffic - if it exists outside cities. Unfortunately much of the USA is single or effectively single tracked.
- hypercube33 1y agoIt's not due to the logistics of rail labor and a bunch of other things. I forget the math but smaller trains can run more often without sitting for hours and take advantage of fuel and labor better. the podcast well there's your problem covered it in deep detail