Why Freight Trains Keep Getting Longer - Cheddar Explains
Have you noticed waits at railroad crossings have been getting longer? It's not just you, freight trains have been getting longer, from 5,000 feet to more than 10,000 feet long. Cheddar explains what's behind this trend and why it's more than just an inconvenience for those of us stuck at a light.
CORRECTION: At 4:46 in the video we mention railroads are building infrastructure to accommodate these longer trains to the tune of $25 million a year. Instead, that number should be $25 billion for total railroad investment on capital expenditures and maintenance.
Subscribe to Cheddar on KZhead: chdr.tv/subscribe
Connect with Cheddar!
On Facebook: chdr.tv/facebook
On Twitter: chdr.tv/twitter
On Instagram: chdr.tv/instagram
On Cheddar.com: chdr.tv/cheddar
uh, precision railroad scheduling is like the #1 reason and that wasn't mentioned once. Bruh.
There were a lot of inaccuracies in this video that most railfans picked up on. "The majority of freight is carried in intermodal containers." It's a lot, but calling it a majority is highly uninformed by any metric. Also it's a heavy-handed generalization to call 5000 feet a "standard" freight train length. There's a lot of double-standard about railroads when it comes to Cheddar. Freight takes a lot of heat while passenger is propped up. Both are superior in many contexts to road networks. But I wish they stayed a bit more neutral on pushing political ideals in educational videos.
I work for the railroad. PSR actually stands for pretty sh%^ty railroading....well unless you're a rich executive or shareholder.
@@aaron4340 yes yes, you may have noticed I'm a bit of a foamer myself. I appreciate your comment on passenger-freight conflicts. I am both a frequent rider of Amtrak and a stock shareholder of all Class 1 railroads, we can coexist!
Watching the milk vs oatly video and spotting some major inaccuracies (percent of Americans who are lactose intolerant vs world population among others). Thank you for your comment, I may have to stop watching Cheddar videos. Can't spend time watching explainer videos that are wrong.
@@MatthewSchrenk it's frustrating. Cheddar covers a lot of topics that should be really interesting, but the inaccuracies and agendas are hard to ignore. I hope they see these comments, although it's hard to believe they'll change
Here in Western Europe trains aren't nearly as long yet we are still eliminating pretty much all level crossings (except for the very rural) with bridges and tunnels due to safety. I can't even remember the last time I crossed a level crossing.
Agreed. The removal of level crossings has been going on in Germany for the last four decades, except at spots where it absolutely wasn't feasible to build either bridges or tunnels.
Makes sense. Most trains in Western Europe are passenger trains that travel at fast speeds. Opposed to freight trains in America which don't travel fast. Therefore, American trains have plenty of time to blow their whistle before a level crossing.
Eastern Europe moves in this direction aswell, in my life I've crossed maybe 4 train level crossings and they almost never cross major roads
Where in Western Europe? There is a huge difference between and even within countries. For example, in the Netherlands, there is a stretch Dordrecht - Zwolle (via Schiphol Airport) that has just one crossings in 200 km's of track. But I can also show you tracks with at least one crossing per km. Also, industrial spurs for example are pretty much never grade separated.
@@marco23p Though industrial spurs often don't have significant amounts of traffic, and certainly not long trains.
When i was in Australia i saw a huge train that lasted 5 min to pass. It was the greatest thing ever i saw as I’m a European and never saw a freight train before. It was so cool
Can I ask from where in Europe you are? Because I have seen many Frieght Trains and I am also European. But yeah not as long as described in this video
Australia? Wth, were they delivering humanitarian aid to kangaroos in one of their deserts?
@@dominikpitohui1727 its ok to ask I’m from Ireland. So there is little to no freight trains here. Id love to go to another country after covid and see another train like that
@@Sergiuss555 LOL No they were delivering coal out of a mine
Here in N/A its a normal occasion to see one that lasts for ever. It started with Union Pacific then went to CSX now CN and CP rail are all doing extremely long trains.
Instead of limiting train lengths we should just replace level crossings with overpasses/underpasses. This would improve safety and mean that cars aren't delayed by trains at all. This could be done strategically in places where the most time is spent waiting for trains.
There is a Guy some comments above you from an western european country and he Said they did exactly that, problema solved. Not all big things in life need a big complex answer, and your os good enough, If not perfect, to solve It all (Btw I'm still a bit incomformed they didn't brought the problema of train traffic, since I (as a cities skylines player) think It would be a difficult problem
If there's a lot of crossings that can get quite expensive.
@@dinamosflams train crossings are a thing all over europe, the exception being high speed train having fewer of those, but they're still a thing
I would think building overpasses and underpasses are more involved than you think. Trains cannot change direction very well. Even very small angle changes can cause the train to de-rail. I'm assuming this is made worse by longer and heavier trains. Getting a train to go up or go down...takes up a LOT more space than you would think it does. Getting a train to turn left takes up inordinate amounts of space. That's one of the reasons the point on infrastructure is so crucial in the rail industry.
@@callmeswivelhips8229 In that example, you make the cars climb a bridge, which is how it's normally done. However a decline and incline over a long distance is not that unreasonable an approach either.
A reason why trains can get longer is the successful development in recent years of distributed power unit (DPU) operation, where you can splice in one to four locomotives to be operated remote fashion in the middle or rear of the train. That makes it possible to operate trains over 10,000 feet long. And it makes it a lot easier for trains to cross mountainous terrain.
Yes, it was determined years ago that when trains operated over hilly terrain with its ups and down that often a longer train could be pulled by the same locomotive, yet when there were fewer cars they could not get up some of the hills. That is because as they are climbing one grade, the longer train has cars descending, thus pushing coming down from the prior grade.
I typical Coal train in Queensland is 3kilometres long, has three diesels at the front and two more about half the way back. But their operating regime is unusual - the coal is inland, mostly behind the great-dividing range and they basically just descend to the coast - the uphill trip is empty.
Ok but why do they need to have 4 locomotives , rather than have 4 trains? Them being able to doesn’t explain why they need to
to cut crew crew cost . longer trains mean less engineers and conductors
@@davehertle So basically, the longer train averages out the grade, like a roman aqueduct that goes down a valley and back up the other side
the increased length of trains doesn't affect burden on a particular section of track because the weight is distributed across the whole train. Much of the reasoning in this video is flawed.
This isn't about ground pressure, but about the overall wear _over time,_ like having more cars traveling the same road.
longer trains don't need to operate as frequently to move the same amount of goods, so It shouldn't make much difference.
And the person they interviewed is a CEO of a train company
@@lucasgeerts7378 i think it could make a difference. Longer trains are typically heavier, and thus forces occuring in the train are much greater than in short ones. When a train acceleratees or decellerates in curves, the cars get pulled to the inside, or pushed to the outside, because there is a lot of tension in the whole train, that alwas wants the train to become a straight line, or when breaking the mass of the train pushes against the locos, making the cars to be pushed outside in curves. All that can lead to greater wear on the train and infra structure, and bring a higher risk of derailing the train because it is operated closer at the physically possible maximum the whole system can handle. And there are super long and heavy trains derailing frequently, because of the energy and forces of accelerating and decellerating are getting so great, that lighweigt cars (typically somwehre in the first third of the train) are pushed off the tracks.
It should lead to a greater overall number of cars used though, as moving more efficiently and decreasing prices should increase demand leading to more total cars
The fact that intermodal cars are longer has zero impact on the length of trains. Coal trains can be just as long as intermodal trains, they are just much heavier and require more locomotives.
Add to the fact that his statistic about the average intermodal car being 225ft. long is obviously wildly wrong at even the briefest of cursory glances, I think that these guys got trolled by a fake expert.
the longest trains in the world are coal trains
@@philedwards5703 By car, it apparently means from coupler to coupler. Typically well cars are grouped in 3's or 5's, so there may be 3 or 5 container stacks. Grouping like this reduces amount of slack.
@@philedwards5703 Thats what i thought. Any reasonable person can see they are not that long. Standard intermodal cars are only about 53ft. That from a quick 30 sec google search. They definetley got trolled
@@philedwards5703 An intermodal car carries 5 wells (for 40 ft containers) or 3 wells (for 53 ft containers). They look like individual cars, but they are all welded together…. This is the length he’s referring to.
How about video “Why Cheddar videos getting shorter”?
I was thinking the same thing recently. I'm seeing more and more videos become shorter everywhere. It's like, I'm paying for no ads but the vids are now shorter and they all include some kind of promotion.
Because their target audience has the attention span of a mosquito.
Better for my short attention span
@@edp2260 I *wish* mosquitos had short attention spans. A single one can bugger you all night, these guys are way too dedicated..
At least it doesn't try further to dragging the audience
"Trains now can be longer than 10,000 feet. That's TWICE as long as a 5,000 foot train" This whole video is me trying to fill the word count on an essay
In my opinion, Trains: good literally everything else: bad thank you for coming to my ted talk.
Cargo ships are insanely good too though
@@GregIsBoring but can they go over land
@@Spicy_Uber they try though. that should count for something.
train good. car bad
Passenger trains suck in North America though lol. Honestly, in my opinion, we should pull the plug on Amtrak and if someone really needs a passenger rail network, they make it themselves. It's called capitalism: you want it, you make it.
“Here at Cheddar, we answer nothing”.
Lol
I don't mind trains really. In fact sometimes when I'm running late for work I am relieved if I get stuck at the train cuz then I can blame it on the train and it works every time XD
That's a great way to get fired.
@@pianofry1138 well I'm going on 7 years. Stay tuned...
HAH ! My "train" happens to be draw bridges ! Very convenient ! 🙂👍
I love waiting for trains... Its always a magical moment
I feel you there. Trains brought our society where it stands now.
i live right across the street from train tracks. makes me hate them
@@UserName-ts3sp everything is best in moderation... So I can see why you'd hate it
Move to a neighborhood with a train crossing. It'll lose its magic really quick. I swear, my neighborhood is the only decent neighborhood I've ever been to that has a frigging train track going through it. It's literally one of the most desirable areas in my city. How does that even make sense?
IKR! 🥰 The roaring noise pollution & smog of cars is stopped, as it silently churns through the tracks. 🚋🚅
Here in our country we don't have railway crossings anymore .. we used to but now it has been almost completely replaced by bridges to avoid stopping essential services
0:27 Soo, 4,575 m are almost 4.8 km. I mean, it is true but... Why converting Feet to Metres and then rounding up the Feet to Miles _and_ converting that again to Kilometres? If you would interpret the comma in the Metres as a point, you already have the right answer in Kilometres!
WHAT????????
They could have stopped at “Almost 3 miles” but they didn’t. What’s even sadder is that they needed to point out that 15,000 feet is almost 3 miles.
This is the result of begging people to give metric conversions in their videos. They are written for imperial units, the metric conversion is a mindless afterthought. You got what you wished for, now stop complaining about it.
@@therewasoldcringe Americans don't know metric. Some may not even know that all it takes to change units is to move a comma left and right.
@@octorokpie Both meters and kilometers are metric units. Technically, both of these are meters; kilo is just the prefix and identifier of multiplier (x10³). While inclusion of metric units is appreciated, make it simple too. Just choose one appropriate metric unit, and that is it. That is the whole point of metric system: make conversion between units (within the system) easier. Conversion is in multiples of 10. 1 km = 10 dam = 100 hm = 1 000 m = 10 000 dm = 100 000 cm = 1 000 000 mm
How did the historic German train at 5:00 sneak in?
Because this KZhead channel doesn't know much about how trains work, or where they seem to operate.
It's the Sauschwänzlebahn (pig's tail railway) crossing the Wutach valley. The historic railway is located in the Southern Black Forest. The steam engine is a BB 262 aka FK 262.
Also it's even a passenger train 🤣 There seems to be quite a bit of European/German stock footage around. Love it when it discusses US highways but actually shows British motorways.
its just filler footage
And its even a bridge, not a railway crossing.
We're all just going to glance over the fact that this expert is trying to tell us the average rail car is 225ft. long? Nothing even remotely close to that even exists.
Yeah there were a few mistakes in the video, but that one annoyed me too. They should have qualified that by saying a 5- pack articulated well car is 225 feet long at a maximum not an individual car.
Even a standard 3 or 5 set of 65' well cars is between 195 and 325 feet. That guy just pulled his 225 number out of thin air
@@AVeryRandomPerson A population that is 75% 3-packers and 25% 5-packers (which is right about what the fleet breakdown is) has an average length of 227ft.
@@kensingtonchapp4819 The entire articulated set IS the individual car. Especially from the perspective of the AAR -- which that guy is the President of -- as the entire set only gets 1 entry in the AAR billing manual. Not that it matters, since based on a few of the comments he made, they were clearly talking to him about CAR lengths not TRAIN lengths and his responses were tailored around that. Many of his responses would not have made sense around the context of changing train lengths and that answer is different than changing car lengths (since the length of a train has nothing to do with the length of the cars).
@@sigmahyperion955 it depends on how we're defining an individual car. I'm only saying he could have been clearer about it. On my freight manifest, there are 3 different identifications for an intermodal "car," lol, regardless of how the AAR defines them. For identifying the position of containers within the train, the entire articulated set constitutes 1 line on the freight manifest, broken down by the well or platform position, but it is not referred to as a car. For the engineer's train handling purposes, each individual segment counts as one car. For identifying the total number of cars based on the number of brake control valves, a 5 packer counts as 3 cars, and a 3 packer counts as 2. And, as an engineer, these figures can get annoying because in order to answer anyone's questions about my train, I have to know exactly which figure they want to know about haha. But, yes, it SHOULD be clear that this AAR representative was being asked about car length. It just wasn't.
An intermodal container is 53' long for domestic and 40' long for International... A wellcar that can carry domestic containers are, on average, 65' long.
She might be confusing each individual car length with the total unit lengths of the 3 car & 4 car articulated well-car sets that are out there. It's an understandable mistake to make if you are really only looking broadly at stats & figures. Can't expect all people to pick this sort of stuff up like the workers in the railways/railroads as well as the train buffs/rail enthusiast.
@@Commander_Scott258 3 and 5 well Intermodal cars are the most common. The reason that 5 wells make up just one car is that there is only one brake control valve amongst the 5 wells and so it can't be divided. Also there are only 6 bogies. Also each well has space over the bogies which can't be occupied by a container. In order to stack 2 containers high, the bottom container sits low in a well between the bogies. A bogie is a 2 axle, 4 wheel structure that can swivel while the wheels roll on the rails.
@@johnbeaulieu2404 Can there also be birdies?
@Frafra Zoomer Especially Steve Liesman, and if you want to see this in practice, just watch a Fed news conf and listen to the stupid, repetitious questions they ask.
Well are we taking about a 3 unit or 5 unit well car which is technically 1 car but has 3 or 5 platforms which in laymen’s terms would be 3 or 5 cars or are we talking about a single unit 40’ or 53’ well car? Easy to play the minds of the ignorant
Missed opportunity to say "1) The wait. 2) The weight."
It's all about money. Longer trains still operated by one crew instead of multiple smaller trains and multiple crews. The railroad industry employment is extremely cutthroat these days.
This is the only reason why trains are longer. 2 men running a train 15000 feet in length with multiple DPUs radio controlled engines versus 6 men running 3 trains at 5000 feet. Imagine how greedy the CEO must be to fire 4 men so he can line his pockets. The lobbyist pointed out train profit is up 70 percent but didn't say that 40 percent of the work force has been let go.
@@christophercox9311 don't forget the wet dream of one employee instead of two... or the biggest wet dream of zero employees up there.
Was anyone else obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine at a young age?
Oh good yeah dude
Even more so as a young adult! Lol
Hah I was obsessed with Thomas as a kid
@@BOOBERFRAGGLELOVER honestly yeah watching some of the old episodes is funny, I have the movie where he meets the lady train somewhere
I still watch the show, just differently (memes)
Both America and Europe have great train service. Europe has amazing passenger train service, but America has amazing freight service.
Good point. Europe is very densely populated compared to the US; that makes it practical to ship goods by truck and people by train. No major city is more than a day or two drive time from a port or factory for delivery trucks, and most of the cities are more compact than American cities, making local public transportation more efficient. In America, the reverse is the case. To get around in the US (unless you live in a large, older city laid out before the automobile) a car is required for reasonable access. However, shipping large quantities of goods to cities over vast distances makes freight by rail very efficient.
@@maxkronader5225 "Europe is very densely populated compared to the US" Finland (where I'm from) has about half the population density of the US but still has an OK train service (though probably not as good as more southern parts of Europe).
@@seneca983 it's always fun when Americans try and compare our whole continent at once isn't it
@@seneca983 Compare like to like. Finland is one of the least densely populated countries in Europe with a population density of approximately 19 people per square kilometer. Wyoming is one of the least densely populated States in the US, it has a population density of approximately 2.3 people per square kilometer. That's a little less than 1/8th the population density of Finland.
@@seneca983 But in Finland, all ur cities are physically closer together because the northern part of the country is sparsely inhabited, just like Canada's north. So Helsinki and Oulu are only around 600km apart. Compare that to New York and Chicago which is around 1200km apart. American cities are generally very far apart, which makes airplanes more economically feasible.
Seems like the most daunting experience to be stuck in an ambulance while waiting for a 4km train to pass at a frustratingly slow pace.
“It didn’t always used to be that way”
"Always", the new "like."
Mmm it sounds grammatically incorrect...
I'm actually glad I'm not the only one who noticed that. But apparently it's trendy to talk slang, and abbreviations, and or just straight out illiterate.
@@corvettefever360 did u understand it
$4,240,000,000,000. Assuming $20M for each crossing, which is less than the actual amount in many places. That's 141 times the US National Debt. Now, tell me again how every crossing can be replaced?
They can't. Too many people just throw stupid ideas around without talking the cost or other MAJOR factors!
Glad to see the industry lobbying groups case presented as fact!
I mean why do you think so many states are having trouble getting HSR systems. On top of constant property disputes, the train lobby is constantly throwing "environmental" concerns to block progress and collect rent from Amtrak.
@@KRYMauL Dont forget strict property rights ppl are against when it comes to building high speed rail tracks across their properties too. Airlines lobbying the government so they wont make passenger trains more competitive
@@Racko. The Airlines loose money on short haul flights.
@@KRYMauL Depends, which short haul flights, if it's frequently busy by actual passenger rail and cars, then yes they'll lose alot of money
@@Racko. The short haul flights under two hours loose money because they have to be cheap to compete with cars.
Driving through Toronto we saw a train approx 150 cars long. It was insanely long and going 70mph
CN Rail, baby!
how many engines did it have
I was driving but my wife said 7.
@@leoak CP > CN
@@theusername000000000 maybe when you have the world former tallest free-standing structure name after ya 😉.
I saw more then one 3 mile long train back in the 90's. I remember a few times crossing Nevada from California on the way to Idaho or back having to wait in the car in the hot sun for the train to pass and it went on for miles and took like 10 minutes of more to pass.
Hear in Texas they have eliminated so many level crossings that I can't remember the last time I had to sit and wait for a train to pass. What you need to do is eliminate the Jones Act so that we don't need so many intermodal trucks on the road when that could be done by ships.
Patrick - yeah, get those intermodals on ships to Wichita, KS and get the trucks off of KS interstate highways.
@@bodybuilderslave7125 Well, it would definitely be interesting to watch.
HAHAHAHHAH trucks off roads but ships to do the job lol trains for the win!
Sorry buddy. Trucks take 2 weeks. Ships take 3. If something is urgent. It goes via truck. I wish you guys had better railroads but maybe due to so many state crossings it seems there are obvious "blind spots" in coverage that only truckers can reach. And since intermodal stations are rare amd far between, truck sometimes gotta go the whole way.
I really hope the feds pass train length laws in the near future. PSR is an absolute nightmare for railroaders and the citizens and emergency crews that get stuck at crossings
Length laws are pretty dumb PSR sucks but more because of the cars sitting in every direction five miles from Conklin Yard rather than actually moving them into the yard. Dwell time metrics and all other metrics to measure share price make the operation of railroads much worse and don't even actually measure their success of them rather just making them do stupid practices.
I saw a video of a crossing in the UK in a rural town where they constructed an underpass which have a lane in each direction where only passengers vehicles can pass through right next to the regular level crossing, commercial vehicles however still have to wait for the train and when there is no train the cars also crosses the tracks. It's cheap, uses less resources and takes a lot less real estate then building a huge bridge overpass.
The crossing at 3:58 is on St. Claude Ave in New Orleans, LA. I grew up here and that train yard is incredibly active. Generally, there are a lot of 5-10 shuffles of the locomotives stacking cars. It does happen very frequently throughout certain parts of the day. However, the line you see being used in this video is for freights passing through the yard/town that are fully assembelled/carrying loads. And they are LOOONNNNNGGGG. Getting caught by 1 is a nightmare length of time. I've noticed in the 30+ years i've lived here how much longer they have become.
Seems to me the obvious solution to the crossing times would be to eliminate the crossings by keeping the rail at its current height and making the road go over or under it.
that's common sense, they don't do common sense anymore
Depending on one stream of income had never made any millionaire and earning check doesn't put you in Forbes
Interesting most people don't understand the market moves and tend to be mislead in facts like this and depend on money in the bank.very bad Idea
Crypto is a lucrative way of making money
I tried investing once but withdrew due to the fluctuations in price
You are right, in the past I tried trading on my own but made almost no profit until I was link to a professional, the result was exceptional
My first investment with a professional earned me $4150 with $1000 in less than a week
There's a CSX line behind my central Alabama house. Many southbound loaded coal trains, about 110 cars, I've counted them. The northbound empty coal cars number over 200. Limited speed 45
When I lived in Ft Lauderdale in 2013-14, there was this crazy long freight train that would come through town NB and somewhat parallel with 95. It would come through around 11pm and it would last about 15 minutes. I always wondered how long it was.
"Conjunction Junction, what's your function?" 🚂
I help to drain Road traffic strain I help each train To make a gain By hauling freight Dry through the rain. Well, that was probably my best light bulb moment for this year 😁
What's the vector, Victor? And don't call me Shirley.
🚂🚂🚂🚂🚂
“On Snow Piercer 1001 cars long”
Just waited 16 mins one train. Once it passed there was another one right behind it that waited for us to cross. Double stacked right outside St.Lo
In Germany the maximum allowed train length is like 800m or 1/2mile. Thats because there is so much traffic and the sections where only one train is allowed in are kinda short
wow, imagine standing still for 20 minutes because of a train. Not even the 405 can beat that!
0:52 "industry stifled by overwhelming federal regulations". 1980: Carter's last year before anti-regulation Reagan years
I remember that. inflation at about 15% Gas lines.
Thanks for giving both units standards :)
I live in Flagstaff Arizona, and we only have one overpass for the main line through downtown with 5 grade crossings. Just one train blocks 3 of our crossings at the same time, and the overpass at Milton Rd will get clogged with traffic for 2 miles, all the way through town back to the freeway. One time I sat at a crossing (Ponderosa parkway) for 45 minutes because one of these 16k trains went through, then as soon as it ended another 16k train went by going in the other direction, then stopped. I was trapped because the center median is a raised concrete divider, so you can't make a U-turn and no one would reverse out (because it's illegal and dangerous to do that in any case)..... also trapped with me and 50 other cars were a police car and ambulance who had their lights and sirens on. They gave up and shut down, presumably transferring their calls to other responders on the other side of the tracks. Now, I am a locomotive engineer for that railroad, so my own trains cause that same problem on a regular basis, and it still annoys me lol That being said, at both West Flagstaff and East Flagstaff (or McPhetridge), we have holding signals that are just outside the city, and dispatch will usually hold trains short of town until the last train fully clears the city, but not always.
HEAR ME OUT: In Europe we make the cars go under or over the trains. We call the underpasses and overpasses. I know innovating.
For many crossings in the us where maybe only 2 trains pass each a day, its probably not worth it...
OK Ivan. Innovate your way into finding the resources to do that with a rail network that has over 1,000x as many crossing as any European country's trains. Applying Europe's solutions to America is like applying the building techniques of a single family house to 50,000 seat stadium. The scale is completely different.
Bruh in Europe you guys barely have freight trains. You only have fast passenger trains which just like the passenger trains in the US and Canada, use overpasses and underpasses. But most freight trains travel really slow and blow their whistle well before a level crossing, hence there is no need for a underpass/overpass.
I get that volumes are different both between the us vs europe and urban vs rural areas. I just can't understand why the us can build big 6-lanes through downtown, but can't build a simple overpass or underpass.
@@daelbows5783 We have enough freight trains, they are just max 700m long. And we usually dont have to blow whistle because we have crossed technically secured, so we dont have to worry about them, unless some idiot gets stuck.
You missed some major factors that drive long US freight trains: 1) the rail cars weigh much less than a comparable grain or coal car, at 80 vs 100+ tons. 2) remotely controlled locomotives make it possible to add power to the middle and end of the train, limiting the risk of breaking a drawbar. 3) precision scheduled railroading made for much tighter alignment of demand and capacity. 4) longer trains are a much more efficient use of everything from power to crews, but mainly of track time. Most US and Canadian mainline sections are single track, and sending a convoy of 3-4 very long trains in a row through a certain sector is a major track time efficiency move vs sending 8 trains from each side in turn.
Pause at 4:40, my hometown did something brilliant 15 years ago to solve the problem of emergency vehicles not needing to wait for trains. We have 2 tracks, one of which has an unloading/loading station. And we only have 2 roads that connect the northern part of the city to the southern part. The solution? They closed one of the two roads, built an underpass bridge (well, 2 of them since we have 2 sets of tracks), opened that road up when it was finished, then built an overpass bridge on the other road.
As a Canadian (though not a rail enthusiast by any stretch) I guess we've generally had longer trains than in the US. Even back in the 90s it wasn't uncommon to wait 15-20 minutes for a train to go past. I live in a dense urban area (by Canadian standards) and live right by a bunch of train crossings. It's usually faster to drive a few blocks down the road to an overpass instead of waiting.
I love trains, definitely needs more investments like over bridges and electrification. Trains are the most environment friendly mode of transport on ground.
Indeed. Electric train + nuclear power is probably the greenest transport. Even non electric trains are a lot greener than trucks.
Electricify american freight trains? LMAO
@@AbelG8781 yeah? They used to be electrified in the Pennsie area, and the Trans-siberian Railway is fully electrified along it's many thousands of miles across basically all of Asia.
@@userequaltoNull yeah. This wont work on heavy American trains, these arent nifty little trains in other countries that dont weigh anywhere near our trains.
@@AbelG8781 And that's a Reason to go Electric as Electric Locomotives have a much better Power to Weight and Power to Size Ratio than Diesels.
They should make it so trains go down, cars go up or the other way around and everyone will be happy.
@@marioferreira7605 that's why I said cars up first since there might be one or two cases of trains going up
No, nothing will make "everyone" happy, we all know that!
The issue is not the length of the train, rather level crossings. The longer the train, the higher volume of freight that can be moved; but level crossings not only drop the speed of the trains, but increase the risk of accidents.
My hometown in Kansas, which has never had a population of over 4,000, has had two fire stations for decades. It used to be a major switching point on the Union Pacific, so trains had to slow down to stop in the yards. It could take forever for a train to pass the crossings. So now, even tho' the yards are no longer in the middle of town, they're set up for much longer trains.
4:06 That's Greensboro, NC! I live and work less than a mile from where that video was taken and I cross those exact tracks every day on my way to work... Off right of screen and down the road there's a really nice brewery called Natty Greene's lol
ayee Nice. I live in Winston so that's cool to see!
Why not build an over or underpass under the tracks?
Because there are too many crossings. The cost in resources would consume the entire infrastructure budget of the US and all the individual States for decades.
I think that it's too expensive or there is not enough of space.
That won't work in every area trains run. It certainly wouldn't work here in my tiny city (mid MO)---it would absolutely destroy the infrastructure around the one and only level crossing we have, and we're not at all about to let that happen! All of us here would rather just wait a few minutes for the trains to go through---they're always fast, and always out of the way before it's an inconvenience.
too expensive and you’d have to close the roads AND the rail to build it
@@ZaHandle : Not always. Nowadays there are tchnologies that allows building tunnels under rails without interrupting traffic on them. You can also build temporary bypass.
My town used to only have one railroad crossing and it would make for horrible traffic. Eventually they got enough money to build a bridge over the railroad close to downtown and it helps a lot
Longer trains are a great Idea. It kinda behaves like a conveyor belt between cities and what would be more efficient. But there needs improvement to be done. Like tunnels and bridges over crossings for the community to stay connected. Existing infrastructure is mostly old and not ready for 2021 cargo demands, that should be taken into account, but It's great if trains are getting utilized more
I'm worried about our infrastructure to handle these longer trains. Especially in small towns with only one viable way out of town- being stuck at a level crossing could be life or death. My folks live in a small town close to a freight yard, and I have seen trains stopped on tracks blocking the road. The only viable detour is 7 miles each way out of the way. Never mind the fact that I have seen plenty of close calls with people trying to beat the train to avoid taking the detour. I also worry that the tracks and bridges might not be able to handle the extra weight, especially in inclement weather. We definitely need to address our infrastructure.
_they_ won't care until something real bad happens, as per usual
Wow... the government actually realized it was hindering something instead of helping it for once
Keep in mind this was in the Reagan years.
Cheddar, you used footage from Escalon CA!!!! You know our pain at that 10-15min long wait crossing! Crazy seeing our little town on youtube
I live behind railroad tracks. It’s just as well that one of the two local hospitals is on my side of the tracks. I’m pretty sure that the newer one was intentionally put on the other side. Trains here, about 100 miles north of Miami, are usually fairly short. But there are a few ports south of me and I can imagine them getting a lot longer. Seeing more shipping containers on them nowadays.
Can't you just make underpass or overpass at the crossings that are known to accommodate long freight trains?
Yep but that's not cheap
@@Kanbei11 shortsighted argument
Railroads spend many times than $25,000,000 per year on their property. What are your script editors doing?
I live in a neighborhood close to the city right outside of phoenix,Az. Literally down the street there is a main crossing that comes in from the east and cuts west, Its not a main main line but it has trains passing going to the west coast and vice versa
Thank you for also using the metric system. :)
I just wish we had an actual transcontinental high-speed rail system
Dude same
Not feasible. That’s way to long a distance. High speed rail can only compete with airplanes and cars in the 300 to 500 miles range. To long to drive to short to fly. There is a lot of potential for high speed rail in the US especially between major cities (Houston Dallas, Chicago- Toronto or Indianapolis and of course the NEC). Building high speed tracks over mountain ranges is way to expensive anyway
@@MrJimheeren if the tracks are well thought out and capable of prolonged 330 km/h, 1000 km would still be better done by train than by plane.
@@Kuatier well that’s never going to happen. Your train has to stop along the way. Crew needs to be changed and even in a scenario where you would have a coast to coast high speed rail it would take you more then a day. The US is almost 3000 miles across. Even without stopping that makes it a 20 hour journey. With an airplane it’s a little over 5. Take a look at China’s hst network. It’s all around the coast connecting big urban centers. In Europe it’s the same. Big cities are connected especially in France and Spain but you can’t take a TGV from let’s say Madrid to Berlin. You have to change trains 4 times at least and it will take you more then 24 hours
@@MrJimheeren still, in the eastern plains of the US, e.g. Idk Washington-Nashville (around 1000 km, a train would need around 3 hours IF, and thats the problem I believe, the tracks were pretty straight and for the whole runtime capable of 330 km/h or more. To cross the whole US however, plains are only replacable by something along the lines of the hyperloop or Transrapid. Still this would be way to much infrastructure to build and maintain, therefore it would be better to go with planes.
They're the most ecologically friendly and economical mode of transportation. Some people are never happy.
I'd like to see train travel come back, and I don't mean Amtrak, which doesn't run anywhere in my state to begin with. I mean real trains, like there were in the 1950's and 60's (and earlier, but I wasn't born until 1953).
On land. Ships and barges are much more efficient still.
I think the concern over train length is something everyone experiences at some point in their life. There's so much misinformation about the average train length out there, that it causes concern about train length that can be confusing until each individual becomes comfortable with their own train length.
There are other ways around it too (literally). More funding can be put into grade crossing separation, so either have the tracks go above or below the road, or have the roads go above or below the tracks. Not only do they decrease vehicles being held back at crossing but it also decreases incidences of trains and vehicles colliding into one another. The state where I live in just eliminated close to 50 crossings in the last 6-7 years.
I feel there needs to be a push for more bridges over and tunnels under trains rather than level crossings. If there are sufficient opportunities to avoid level crossings, trains can be sparsely regulated on such routes and limited in length should they choose a path that takes them through a level crossing. As for the inconvenience and hazzards of level crossing and long waits, I have seen people drive around gates to avoid the wait. I have seen houses burn do to fire crews getting stuck on the wrong side of the tracks and for a former job, the train could be the difference between a 5 minute commute and a 20 minute commute (because they have to slow down when passing through my township).
Bridges and underpasses have been built at a fairly quick pace in the US for the last 30 years now. I can think of probably 50 new bridges I have seen go in the last 10 years alone by me. The problem is that the US railroad network is the world's largest, spanning thousands and thousands of miles over the world's largest road network. And bridges and underpasses are very expensive to do. But you also run into having to often buy land and people's homes as well as business to put them in. Not to mention you have to deal with many environmental laws too. Also if a rail line sees maybe just 6 very long trains a day. It's hard to justify the cost of a bridge. And local towns often don't have the money to pay for such projects. Today there are fewer crossings in the US than there ever has been by far, because of the upgrades and rail abandonments of branch lines and consolidating of main lines through buyouts and mergers between the major railroads.
In my home town many a person died in the back of an ambulance waiting at a crossing because the hospital was on the other side of the tracks.
Everything wrong with this video in one comment: 1. The train in the clip that shows “One train” isn’t actually that long, the Tehachapi loop is only a 0.73 mile spiral, granted we do not know how far back or forward that train extends. 2. This video paints a 5000 foot freight train as average, where in reality this has not been an average for a long time. Average length in my area is 7,937 feet with about 8000 tons. 3. The 20 minute cutoff is nowhere near met. I once filmed a 9238’ train going 10 mile per hour and it only took about 9 minutes 54 seconds to clear. 4. Intermodal well cars are on average about 67’. However this may be talking about a multiple pack of wells. 5. This video doesn’t mention precision scheduled railroading, a huge reason train length increases 6. This video does not mention Distributed power unit service 7. Longer trains don’t necessarily mean more wear and tear on the tracks. A local freight with 3 cars all weighing 200 tons each will have relatively the same impact as a train with 100 cars of the same weight because of even weight distribution. Thank you for reading this useless comment
why useless? many people here pointing out that the vid is kinda sh*t
There are so many points where just a tiny bit more information would be super useful, like that train taking 275 trucks off the road, how much fuel does it use compared to the trucks? Considering how efficient trains can be, I wouldn't be surprised if it's something like 3 or 4, but having that information explicitly would be informative for a lot of people
five locomotives (as you can see in the video) still take a lot of fuel, tho'... and these trains aren't electric, so... yeah (275 trucks sounds a bit random, almost as if they're pulling that number out of their arse or something)
@@ArinJager1 I was thinking of this withouthotair.com/c15/page_92.shtml But to be fair, I'm not sure if he's assuming the rail transport here is electric or not. That makes a big difference, plus seems I misremembered how much of a difference it was ^^" But yeah, that number feels a little... suspect
I think the increase in train length means train spotters can watch/record more trains that might has something cool on it like trains moving military vehicles which I got to say is cool and fun to watch.
Yessss train daddy, make them loooongerrr
They should build underpass or overpass to cut roads from rail tracks.
Would be a huge waste of money. Spending a pile of money on an overpass in a town that may experience one or two trains a day...
@@puggzsley may be! But in the long run it would be beneficial for the people and the rail transport both.
@@paswanravi5888 the cost benefit analysis doesn't compute. The railroads have zero incentive to address this "issue" which isn't even an issue. It amounts to people complaining about traffic.
That was estimated in the 100 Billion range in the mid-50s. No way trillions of dollars will become available for that.
I love to see a long train it, always amazes me how the engines can pull/push all that weight. 💪🏻
The weight of railcars is much easier to pull than the same weight on rubber tires on a road. The rolling friction is much less. Yes, its still a lot of weight but the force to move it is much less than what you think. A pickup truck could pull a few loaded freight cars on level ground. That same pickup couldn't pull an empty semi-trailer because it's too heavy. The freight cars require much less force to get moving.
I'm a factorio player and the way we use trains is mostly in small 34m trains because everything is close together. The production lines are fairly small and the benefit of using trains is that you can use trains carrying different items on the same track, which is significantly more space efficient than belt spaghetti
I think you really should specify 'trains in the US' ... not all your viewers live there loll
Canadian trains are also the same.
Nationalize or deregulate? The eternal question. Also, why don't train crossings go under the train?
$$$
A bridge or tunnel cost way more than just laying some wooden planks or concrete between the tracks
The crossings are always UNDER the train----how else would the train move if it didn't have the tracks under it??
I have a train track that goes through my neighborhood and I feel this...
This of course won't get as much engagement as the people arguing against the video, but I appreciated the information presented and though it was well put together and concise. Also, the title is "why trains are getting longer" not "what technologies allow for longer trains"
The 200 plus trucks will still find other goods to carry
You wait longer for a single train than this vid is long
I remember my first trip to Vegas, I was in my west facing room and heard a train horn… I looked out the window and quickly realized that train had a lot of locomotives and was miles long… never saw that before.
In case you are wondering , the longest train in the world is in South Africa's Northern Cape , it runs from Hotazel to Africas biggest port at Saldhana bay a few hundred kilometres north of Cape Town
Can you please name all units in imperial AND metric? I really don’t know how long 5 miles are or even 5,194 feet… :D
Lol 8km
This is a North American thing and trains in North America are measured in Freedom units not normal units, even in Maple land.
@@woodalexander Rebranding Imperial as "Freedom units" is some prime Orwellian shit. It's almost as if they're ashamed of the empire part.
@@Roxor128 It's meant as a joke about how MURICA can't do metric like almost everyone else.
1 mile = 5280 feet
Yeah I think it is good, the biggest downside to it that I see are the emergency vehicles not being able to pass as fast, but the upsides are too big to ignore
So the profits outweigh people dying en route to the hospital because of the increased wait time?
Just checked; in The Netherlands the maximum length of a train - freight or passenger - is 750m (2460 feet). If the longest sidetrack on its route is shorter, the the maximum length is adjusted to accomodate for that. In some stretches of the Dutch railway network, a train nearly 5km long could even have its tail end at one station, pass a second one and reach a third ...
I’m sure it has been said but railroads have been cut in half after deregulation. Basically corporate management sold the land or abandonment simply to cut costs of operations for quick bonuses and fast short term profit. Probably would not be a long haul truck on the road if railroads kept what they once had.
law proposal: trains child not interfere with other transportation members, or only road traffic for longer than 5 minutes, here in Europe you usually pass below or above trains, it's very rare to pass through the track
*in Western Europe
Not true. They are actively being eliminated, yes, but it's a slow process. There's even a railway crossing KZhead Channel: kzhead.info It's got nearly 1 million subscribers lol.
I implore everyone: it's so much more fun to say "mid-noughties" than "mid-toot-aw-sands".
🤨 I've never heard anyone say noughties
Just for a bit of perspective, train length in Spain is around 500m (1640ft) for normal trains and around 750m (2460ft) for high speed trains. This length cannot be increased as the whole system (specially the distance between signals) is designed for such lengths.
The video basically says "because it's more cheaper" without saying why that's the case.
Personally, I like watching trains, so one that makes me wait 15 minutes to me is ok. :/
The answer to a question I never knew that I needed! What's next? Why are car door handles all the same? But in all seriousness, it was an interesting topic :)
From my experience car door handles are very different in interaction.
This video is full of lies. Their expert is a idiot. The real reason is PSR.
I can remember counting cars on freight trains when I was a kid in the late 70s and we often saw trains with over 100 cars.
100 cars of average length 50’ + couplers (let’s say 5’ per car) still works out to 5,500’. I remember those train lengths as a kid too, but on transcontinental mainlines, many of the trains are FAR longer now.
Well, at least on the BNSF, unit coal and oil trains regularly run with about 120 cars, and manifests are usually about the same, if not less.
@@everettrailfan they are up here as well on the CN & CP mainlines where I live; intermodals even longer.
Where I live, there's a train track less than half a mile from my apartment complex. They don't bother me because they go through only about six times a day, and that's not every day. They don't block very many crossings, either, someone having had the foresight to run the tracks parallel with most of the roads, and the trains, whoever schedules them, don't run during such times as when school is about to start, nor when it gets out. They do run during the middle of the day, maybe two trains during normal business hours, and the rest of the runs are very late at night/very early in the morning. I do know some of the trains have been as long as 4 or 5 miles---I was driving parallel to one last year that was going only a little faster than I was (I was doing 55), and we stayed side by side for five full miles before it finally followed the track to the right, going over a bridge above the city I was going to. I also used to live in another state where the trains were very easily 5 miles long, and held up many, many crossings at one time as they went through. It was quite bad there, because the trains went through--much closer to my apartment complex than here, btw--at least 15 times per day, so it was very hard to know when to leave for work, and whether one could get to any appointments on time because the trains' schedules weren't the same day-to-day.
what is terrifying to me is the one man train. there is literally ONE ENGINEER on these super long train when they are going very unpopulated areas such as the american west and many parts of canada. the Lac-Mégantic accident resulting from operator errror with the correct brakes on a parked train resulted in a run away train full of CRUDE oil rolling down a grade. as it reached the town of Lac-Mégantic it was going 65 MPH, 6x the safe speed of a train on that part of the system. Once it arrived in the town sparks flew and KABOOM! the oil blew up in the downtown area killing 47 people. what an ugly situation where there is NO EXCUSE for not having at least 2 engineers to double and triple check when parked at the top of a grade. this should have never happened. One man trains are terrible things and there is no reason to think that it is only a matter of time before another incident like this happens.
Spread the word. I work as a conductor and there are way too many people that don't understand how dangerous one man crews are. The railroad wants to remove my and 10,000 other jobs to save money at the expense of public safety.
@@scopie49 WOW. thank you for speaking up. i am so sorry your job is under threat for the worst possibly reason. that is an ugly situation for everyone. is this choice overtly expressed and framed as such, that this is indeed choosing money over humanity? or is it thinly veiled behind corporate decision making. i really hope you will be okay and that this doesn't cause a huge death toll. i wish you well!
@@lizzzzzzzz The actual amount of deaths has been relatively low. Just a few hundred in Canada and various small events across the US. Most of that is luck. We had a train roll away a couple months ago in Colorado and if it wasn't for the terrain having a U bowl shape it probably would have killed two people on the train behind it. It's only LUCK that no one got hurt because it came to a stop. The company preaches safety. For example I'm required to wear snow spikes during winter. It says on the packaging "Do not wear over rocky terrain." 99% of what I have to walk on is rocks. Or how I have to take training courses every year about how important it is to get 8 hours of sleep a night. But then our "schedule" to work can vary by 18 hours or more. Imagine thinking you're going to go to work at 2100 at night so you lay down to sleep 2pm. Then at 3pm your phone rings to go to work. Now you have one hour of sleep with a 12 hour day. Repeat this 365 days a year and we are all in a permanent state of jet lag. It would cost money to hire people to fix this problem OR it would cost money to have extra crews available on a set schedule. If you're scheduled to go to work at 7am and the train doesn't show up until noon, you're effectively wasted money. This is all in tandem with them taking more and more of our time off work with threat of termination. I currently get three days off per month. The UP has even less.
It doesn't seem like there's a problem with longer trains at all.
"Railroads need tracks and siding to be able to handle these ultra heavy ultra long trains" @ 4:39. The man said earlier that the coal cars were shorter and heavier than the intermodal. I would say if a train is shorter but weighs the same as a much longer train, that shorter one would be much more damaging. If the trains weight is spread out over a distance, it's less impacting to the rails.
My friend's and his neighbor's townhouse burned down because a train was blocking the only road into their neighborhood, they were loading cargo, and by the time the trucks could get through it was too late for both houses. It was started by someone knocking over and ashtray and not picking the contents up.