I have read a modern day train can be assembled out to 3 miles in length. Taking a wild guess as to its actual length, I watch them go by and some trains just take forever. Those that seem to drag on I deem 3 miles long. Tonight I watch another 3 miler being pulled by just 1 engine. I have seen trains here with up to 5 engines. Mostly CSX. I find the modern autorack rail cars can contain from 10 to 26 vehicles in just one car. They are average near 90 feet in length. That's 20 feet longer than my best guess. Most are empty south bound toward Louisville or Mexico. I saw a video showing a motorized ramp used to load the cars aboard. Were a 3 mile long train fully loaded with say 15 cars per autorack, how many cars would be inside the train? If you know, please post how many automobiles and how many loaded autoracks.

As I’m sure David knows, there is one elevated crossing at Crestwood, Kentucky (available to street level traffic)on the 20+ mile stretch of track between LaGrange and Anchorage, Kentucky. These monster trains, blocking multiple ground crossings are forever to motorists. If one is engaged at the Ford Kentucky Truck Plant dropping empty rail cars, or picking up loaded ones, traffic is a mess.
During the time I had commercial work at the Truck Plant, the rail yard was and is huge. The sidings load hundreds of stripped assemblies, all the way to completed F350 trucks, so its hard to judge exact numbers per Autorack unit without seeing manifests. Good question.

From where I live, I see "parked" trains that go a long way. They seem to park them on the bridge going both ways. If you can't see the engines or what passes for the caboose, You can't be sure which way its going. You guys seem to be talking about different trains than the ones I see. Your's go over the bridge in Ludlow and snake up toward Walmart and past the turkey farm. The ones I see consist of a whole bunch of box cars and tank cars. I do see a fair number of open cars with what appear to be truck frames.

A 3 mile train of 90 foot cars would allow for 176 cars. Round that down to 170 for engines and miscellaneous stuff.

170 autoracks with 15 cars per rack would be 2550 autos.

quote:

Originally posted by Blackhorse4:
As I’m sure David knows, there is one elevated crossing at Crestwood, Kentucky (available to street level traffic)on the 20+ mile stretch of track between LaGrange and Anchorage, Kentucky. These monster trains, blocking multiple ground crossings are forever to motorists. If one is engaged at the Ford Kentucky Truck Plant dropping empty rail cars, or picking up loaded ones, traffic is a mess.
During the time I had commercial work at the Truck Plant, the rail yard was and is huge. The sidings load hundreds of stripped assemblies, all the way to completed F350 trucks, so its hard to judge exact numbers per Autorack unit without seeing manifests. Good question.

Thank you. I actually would need to look up Crestwood and Lagrange. In the Walton area the rails run north and south, both sides of US25, Dixie Highway. There can be as many as 80 per day.

quote:

Originally posted by rburg:
From where I live, I see "parked" trains that go a long way. They seem to park them on the bridge going both ways. If you can't see the engines or what passes for the caboose, You can't be sure which way its going. You guys seem to be talking about different trains than the ones I see. Your's go over the bridge in Ludlow and snake up toward Walmart and past the turkey farm. The ones I see consist of a whole bunch of box cars and tank cars. I do see a fair number of open cars with what appear to be truck frames.

Yes rburg, I too see the loads of truck frames. Wasn't sure if they are for trucks or those Transit vans. Also see the tankers, some of which carry some evil chemicals. Average weights posted on all the cars seems to be around 180,000 pounds. I see cars loaded with steel coils going south so perhaps these are materials for the frames.

quote:

Originally posted by PHPaul:
A 3 mile train of 90 foot cars would allow for 176 cars. Round that down to 170 for engines and miscellaneous stuff.

170 autoracks with 15 cars per rack would be 2550 autos.

Wow, I knew it was over 2,000 cars. I watched a video of them being loaded. The drivers run through several autoracks untill they reach their front most rack. Perhaps driving through as many as 10 autoracks. I think the drivers take a shuttle back to get more cars to load. It seems a slow process. Somewhere along the line, the vehicles get loaded onto car carrier road trucks, taken to dealerships.

Specificallly at the Ford F-350 Plant (previously their over the road tractors were built there), frames are delivered on flat cars, plus some are trucked in. It’s not uncommon for special sections, or whole single engine units, of box and tanker cars carrying oils, paint, etc., to pull into and out of the OBannon/Chamberlain Lane switch point.
Ford has a large fleet of truck haulers at the plant for dealer service of ordered units.

quote:

Originally posted by Blackhorse4:
As I’m sure David knows, there is one elevated crossing at Crestwood, Kentucky (available to street level traffic)on the 20+ mile stretch of track between LaGrange and Anchorage, Kentucky. These monster trains, blocking multiple ground crossings are forever to motorists. If one is engaged at the Ford Kentucky Truck Plant dropping empty rail cars, or picking up loaded ones, traffic is a mess.
During the time I had commercial work at the Truck Plant, the rail yard was and is huge. The sidings load hundreds of stripped assemblies, all the way to completed F350 trucks, so its hard to judge exact numbers per Autorack unit without seeing manifests. Good question.

It's always amazing to me how small this world can be. I'm sitting in Seneca, SC at the moment, I live in North Carolina, and I know exactly the spot you are talking about in a small city 20 minutes from Louisville. Hell, my wife just pulled into Buckner about a hour ago. I used to wait on that train all the time before that underpass was built.

KDR - connections on this entire Forum are absolutely amazing!
About 500 yards West of that overpass rail crossing is Railroad Avenue, a grade crossing that hosts a simi tractor trailer grounding on the rail crossing 2 or 3 times a month. CSX nails a grounded trailer every now and then, adding to the excitement.
Kindest regards, to you and all.

You could put 30 Vegas into a rail car putting them in this way:

That'd be worth maybe $500! I wouldn't pay that much, but someone might.