(Video Added) What A Way To Celebrate Casey Jones - My Longest Freight Train 954 Axles With 234 Freight Cars 4/30/17

That is a long train!  I'll look forward to the video.  I know what the C40-9W designation means but I am not familiar with "YN2".   What does it mean?  Thanks.

NH  Joe

When a train like that breaks down with a stuck brake or gets a knuckle broke because of all that slack the conductor has to go back and find the problem and if the train goes in emergency then a walk to the rear end has to be done inspecting both sides . a good guess is two hours in each direction. mean while the world is tied up at every crossing and when you walk across and get in their cross hairs it is very disconcerting. They run LONG trains like that because they get away with it most the time.  Id say old casey rolls over in his grave when he sees what they ve done to railroading.  Im glad its in the rear view mirror......

The real shock here is that EHH has been on the job since early March and CSX is still running these "clean everything out of the yard" trains.  

Curt

Joe: YN2 means Yellow Nose version 2.

John: Your right about that.

Curt: Yes, I guess it's becoming to that.

What a long train!  Even the most dedicated railfan could get a little tired filming it!

In Africa they keep a bicycle or motorcycle in a compartment on the engine for use to save time when the conductor has to go back to flag or check on a long train.

john f penca jr posted:

When a train like that breaks down with a stuck brake or gets a knuckle broke because of all that slack the conductor has to go back and find the problem and if the train goes in emergency then a walk to the rear end has to be done inspecting both sides . a good guess is two hours in each direction. mean while the world is tied up at every crossing and when you walk across and get in their cross hairs it is very disconcerting. They run LONG trains like that because they get away with it most the time.  Id say old casey rolls over in his grave when he sees what they ve done to railroading.  Im glad its in the rear view mirror......

Fun for the Conductor especially at night carrying a hand lamp  ,radio, hose bag, pipe wrench. (maybe even a hammer and chisel)  Hopefully the problem is not a knuckle or draw bar......  Even more fun in the winter.

My beloved Conrail had a idea in the late 80s to double two eastbound freights at collinwood yard east of cleve and run the 200 plus cars  with engines in the middle to Buffalo where they were split back into two trains ,the head train for the yard and second train continuing east to SElkirk NY...well.....one day at Ripley NY where 5 crossings in the space of a half a mile are bi sected by the chicago line. the monster train went into emergency . coincedentally a fire breaks out in a factory just south of the tracks and the fire dept is on the north side just shouting distance from the fire and you guessed it ! the building burned to the ground in the time it took the conductor of said monster train to get in position to cut the crossing !  State of NY said WHATT !!! and that was the end of that experiment !    Over sized trains are a bad idea.   They are not toys.   cant wait for the video !

Thanks to everyone who replied. At this time, the video is uploading and will be up tomorrow morning on here. As for getting tired of filming such a long train, no I really didn't get tired of filming it. I actaully got notified about this train ahead of time that it was coming and wanted to see it as this marks my longest freight I've seen. This freight is just half of what went through here back in Feb or Mar from what I found out. A gentleman that one day a week ago when I went to go see a pair of Citirail Units went through, told me there was a CSX westbound freight S351 that had 350+ cars. Now that's ridiculous. But still 234 cars in my opinion is to long. Also when you see the video tomorrow you'll hear him in Notch 6 or 7 and is really pulling passed this location. He was only going around 20MPH when he passed the camera and when he rear end passed he was around 30MPH. But because of how slow and long he was, dispatch on my scanner before he arrived was talking to the engineer or conductor about how long he is. If I overheard right, he was 12,000+ feet long. But the issue was I guess he was suppose to go into a siding or Collinwood Yard and because of the size, I guess they didn't have a track available for his length. But before he passed through Mentor about 10 to 15 minutes before was a fast CSX westbound Intermodal that ran around him somewhere near Perry Ohio. But to conclude this reply, having trains this long will cause issues in the future and will cause delays. Trains this long should be split in 2.

But to tell you how long it took him to pass by this location was 7+ minutes. Can't imagine the people at the really busy crossing of Hopkins Road about 1.5 miles east of Deekers here in Mentor.

Yes I can certainly imagine the problems of long trains like this.  That earlier one, 350+ -- WOW!

Mark Boyce posted:

Yes I can certainly imagine the problems of long trains like this.  That earlier one, 350+ -- WOW!

Yea, now that's what I was told. Yes, I still do believe it though. But 350 cars shouldn't even be running. Anyway, I went back to my video I saved of this 234 car freight and recounted the cars and it is 234 cars. But after re watching it, I did hear something interesting. As the first unit was passing it sounds like the wheels are squealing which means it's to much weight and is slipping. I do believe they were using sand to. But there should be some type of DPU Distributed Power Unit somewhere back in the train to help some. Video shows the uploading going to take around 1 hour and 25 minutes to go. So I'm going be heading for the sleeper soon and will let it upload until tomorrow morning when I will be sharind it here. What the issue why I could upload the video directly to here instead of using youtube is because because of how long the train I recorded it, is 159 megabytes and the forum only allows 100MB. So the file is do large to upload here. So I'm using my youtube to do it tomorrow morning.

Good morning. At the top of this topic I added the video. Hope you enjoy.

wrawroacx posted:

But after re watching it, I did hear something interesting. As the first unit was passing it sounds like the wheels are squealing which means it's to much weight and is slipping.

Who told you that? Did you give any thought to what you wrote?
You have better ears than I have. I didn't hear any wheels squealing and even if I did, that is how Hi-Ad units get their pulling power. The traction control allows for a certain amount of slippage in order to achieve more pulling power.

"Joe: YN2 means Yellow Nose version 2." = Railfan lingo.

Nice job Tom, thanks for sharing.

Tommy posted:

In Africa they keep a bicycle or motorcycle in a compartment on the engine for use to save time when the conductor has to go back to flag or check on a long train.

In some places there, crews could get eaten by the wildlife, kidnapped or killed by poachers and locals.

I'd want a motorcycle in any of those cases, but some wildlife could still run you down in such a case.

p51 posted:

Tommy posted:

In Africa they keep a bicycle or motorcycle in a compartment on the engine for use to save time when the conductor has to go back to flag or check on a long train.

In some places there, crews could get eaten by the wildlife, kidnapped or killed by poachers and locals.

I'd want a motorcycle in any of those cases, but some wildlife could still run you down in such a case.

A motorcycle can't get over all terrain in order to get to the rear of a train. Think about it!

I've heard stories about crews having to flag in remote areas in the middle of the night north of the border .... Bears etc.  I always carried an extra supply of fusee's when flagging. Better than nothing I suppose....

Do we have any crews from the southern states., I hate snakes and would be terrified  if called out flagging there.  At least fixing a train problem you always could climb up  on a rail car....out in the middle of no where  flagging is a little scrary... It's a little scary at the best of times ,your fellow crews life  depend on you  .

Big Jim posted:

p51 posted:

Tommy posted:

In Africa they keep a bicycle or motorcycle in a compartment on the engine for use to save time when the conductor has to go back to flag or check on a long train.

In some places there, crews could get eaten by the wildlife, kidnapped or killed by poachers and locals.

I'd want a motorcycle in any of those cases, but some wildlife could still run you down in such a case.

A motorcycle can't get over all terrain in order to get to the rear of a train. Think about it!

Sure beats being on foot if you suddenly encounter a lion!

Big Jim posted:

wrawroacx posted:

But after re watching it, I did hear something interesting. As the first unit was passing it sounds like the wheels are squealing which means it's to much weight and is slipping.

Who told you that? Did you give any thought to what you wrote?
You have better ears than I have. I didn't hear any wheels squealing and even if I did, that is how Hi-Ad units get their pulling power. The traction control allows for a certain amount of slippage in order to achieve more pulling power.

"Joe: YN2 means Yellow Nose version 2." = Railfan lingo.

Jim, I was just going by what I heard. I've heard when the wheels make a squeal sound on the engines, and it's a straight track, means the units wheels are slipping. Now I could be wrong, but that's what I thought it was. As for the sound, it's so faint in the video, but when I was there in person you could hear it. It wasn't loud, but still I could hear it. As for YN2 Yellow Nose 2. Yea, that's what I've always known how to decipher the different CSX paint schemes. YN1 was known as the Stealth Paint Scheme. YN2 is what's in the video. YN3 is the dark blue with the CSX yellow and YN3b is the Boxcar Logo's. But, most of my life, that's what I've always heard for CSX units on how to know the different CSX paint schemes.

And yes, to walk a whole train, say if something happened at the rear and say the conductor has to walk all the way to the end, now I'm just saying this, I would wait till another train passing on the other track went by and he or she could get picked up and be taken down and once another train coming back the other direction would come to pick him or her up and take them back up to the front of the train. Now I'm just saying. I know this doesn't happen often, but that's just an idea. 

Also the one thing that struck me stupid on the railroad, is why would they put empty center I-beam lumber cars to the front of the train and not to the rear like the last 5? Not balanced at all. Even if the cars behind the lumber cars say are empty, that's still a lot of weight. But what my friend did tell me, is I guess there were 48 loads on the this train and the rest were empties. So to put empty cars on the front and loads somewhere back is not set up correctly.

wrawroacx posted:

Also the one thing that struck me stupid on the railroad, is why would they put empty center I-beam lumber cars to the front of the train and not to the rear like the last 5? Not balanced at all. Even if the cars behind the lumber cars say are empty, that's still a lot of weight. But what my friend did tell me, is I guess there were 48 loads on the this train and the rest were empties. So to put empty cars on the front and loads somewhere back is not set up correctly.

You need to stop thinking like a model railroader and stop listening to your uneducated friend. Obviously, putting those cars there make no difference. Now, empty 89' flats do have a tonnage restriction. The tonnage restriction will vary depending on the ruling grade.
234 cars and 48 of them were loaded. So what's the big whoo? Think about it! There comes a time when one needs to stop using their head for something other than a hat rack and start making educated decisions on their own.
Did your friend happen to say exactly where those 48 loads were located in the train. Chances are, they were spread out through those 234 cars and it made no difference what so ever.
Did the train make it to its destination? If so, then it wasn't too heavy as you suggested. Again, Think about it!