Incredibly Long Trains
Monday, 23rd May 2005 by Alex Turnbull
Looks like these trains are stopped at a level crossing on the Burlington Northern railroad track in Wyoming. The Northern one is chopped off by some low-res imagery, but scroll south to see just how incredibly long they are! Amazing.
Thanks: tamat
Update
In the comments, Eric Smith said:
These are unit coal trains, typically 100-115 cars long. These were probably going from/to the Powder River Basin in Wyoming, which is just north of the photo you found. Here is the loading loop, large enough to run one of these trains in a circle.
You can see that the image was taken just after the two ends of the train passed each other, as the black carts are fully loaded with coal.
About the author
Alex has decided that his title will be Senior Vice President of Stuff.
These are unit coal trains, typically 100-115 cars long. These were probably going from/to the Powder River Basin in Wyoming, which is just north of the photo you found. Here is the loading loop, large enough to run one of these trains in a circle.
View Placemark
Eric that loading loop is super cool, and thanks for the info š
Hmmm – I also found a loading loop, not too far away to the south. Here there is a train in the loop, half loaded, and the mine is just to the west. These things are massive! I’ve probably spent most of my time on Google Maps looking at mines and massive land projects like these.
View Placemark
Too bad Google Maps doesn’t provide a scale bar — my biggest beef with them.
If you are curious where some of those trains eventually wind up, Newport News and Norfolk VA have terminals such as View Placemark (piles of coal dumped from train cars, only a few train cars around) or View Placemark (coal laden train cars — huge depot of train cars full of coar) for loading coal. If you are ever stuck at a crossing when one of these trains go by, the length/enormity is an experience you won’t forget.. (and if it’s empty, on a return trip, the rattling of all the empty cars is deafening..
Excellent stuff Twombly! Although it looks to me like that is actually 2 trains in the loop, no?
Yeah looks like one train is almost full and a second one has come in to fill up good eyes alex
I work for Norfolk Southern and we’ve had trains with up to 190 coal hoppers, so imagine those trains again plus another 2/5’s length. Just hope you don’t have to pee if those ever come to your crossing !!!!!!
Very cool! The southern train looks like it has a pusher engine on the southern end of the train. Of course, the northern end of the train is in the low resolution area to the north of this picture.
I posted some thoughts on these two trains (including speculation on the locomotive paint schemes) and on the Bailey Yard.
scroll south to see just how incredibly long they are!
Congratulations, you’ve just written a Viagra ad!
I went through this area of Wyoming a couple of summers ago, my dad and myself to some extent are large train buffs and we saw quite a few trains of this size.
At some points the mainline is 4 tracks wide, and at others has siding tracks on either side! We climbed up bridge and saw trains on all six tracks!!!
It’s cool. What are they for?
ok, this topic’s about a year old, but has anyone noticed this yet?
View Placemark