Great video. I think some of those coal hoppers are emptied by rotating them on a device that rotates the the entire car or cars while still coupled together. Usually one end the the car will be painted differently and have a stencil noting a rotating coupler.
Even though most freights in the northeast take forever to fully pass by, I just love it because I get to film a lot of cars and even locomotives in the middle! There are mostly locals in my neighborhood. And they are quite tiny locomotives that run UNDERGROUND! I see them in subway stations a lot. My neighborhood is New York City. Its most common to have rear locomotives there.
Grain trains also carry phosphate. Phosphate is used in fertilizer I just call the grain trains agricultural trains due to the many agricultural needs moved in grain hoppers.
Thank you! You are correct. I didn't mention everything, but since those are usually just part of manifests or sometimes their own special unit trains, I will probably mention them when I talk about different types of freight cars.
Thank you so much for this video! I want to learn not just about freight trains, but goods mobility and how products of each type get from one place to another. For example, those intermodal cars that carry clothing - where do they end up? Where does coal go and come from? How is food and drinks delivered by train to urban consumers? This is a great start; now I'd like to go into detail.
Awesome episode as always Mike! For the next episode, can you explain about the different whistles steam engines use, and how they produce those lovely sounds?
Thank you very much! With the number of requests I had for that one, it would be hard for me to not do it now! I need to get some more clips, but it is definitely coming! I'm hoping some time next year.
I would like to see an episode that explains how railroads interconnect engines to form a lashup or multi unit consist. What buttons, levers, and/or switches do they have push, throw and flip to get engines to work together as one. And how did they do this in the steam days.
How about one railroad company say Up using another company's say NS equipment , the other thing is how do you tell the difference between types of locomotives
Great video!! Coud you explain some of the info you hear when listening to one of the Class 1 road channels on a scanner.. Like maybe background on BNSF's Z-trains, and UP's Q-trains.. I understand those are what are often called "Hotshots"...
lvsluggo007 from what I've learned so far the train names come from where the train originated and it's destination and then a letter that tells you what the contents of the train may be. I believe "Hotshots" are trains that have high priority like a if a train came from a UPS facility carrying packages or mail that need to get from point a to b as quickly as possible, and they often run at a higher maximum authorized speed than trains would but train weight usually determines your max authorized speed. But don't quote me on that
Ah, now that will be a subject for another train talk! If they are not on the front, they are called Distributed Power Units (DPU) so called because they are "distributed" throughout the train. You usually see them on longer trains that will be traveling over steep grades. It is done to ease the tension on the inside of curves. I talked a little bit about them at the end of Episode 3 on Tehachapi, but I will devote an entire episode to them, hopefully next year.
Would have liked to see refrigerated transport covered (more than just mentioned), including both purpose-built refrigerator cars and refrigerated shipping containers (does the container train have a way to supply them with power, or do they have their own power supplies?).
Trailers on flat cars or TOFC was actually started in the 1920s or 1930s. There are photos of wagons being carried on flat cars in the 1800s, so I guess that would be the original or WOFC(wagon on flat car). Iron ore and other similar commodities have and are carried in a single train. A 'Unit train' is one made up of cars from one shipper to one consignee or receiver usually one commodity or type of commodity(aggregate-different grades or sizes) on one waybill.
Thank you for the clarification on that Roy. For some reason, I completely forgot about wagons on flat cars in the 20's. That may deserve its own video at some point. And yes, I guess I should have specified that about unit trains as well.
What about different types of locomotives like long distance diesel, road switchers, switchers, and terminal switchers (passenger station switchers for assembling cars)
Yes, some railroads will do that. Canadian Pacific does it too. There are also some manifests that have random strings of intermodal cars in the middle.
Honestly I think trains are the best way for shipping/mail/freight cuz these can take on a lot of weight than any other vehicle plus they do have their own road instead of a public car road and air routes use for freight and transport yes freight trains main flaw are passenger trains cuz it slows them down but they don’t have to do to much stops. So air shipping is good for world wide shipping but trains are good for a national market
While the containers themselves do carry various commodities like Merchandise (Hotshot) trains used to do, don't Intermodal freights count as unit trains since they typically include the same kind of cars?
Could you do a video on how the rail companies change cars between trains? Where are the rail yards in the US where cars a switched around between trains so they end up going to the right destination. It must be a very complex process.
1:02 are those locos all Dash 9s? 1:18 where is that bridge, and how old is it? 2:19 what company is that red boxcar between the green and yellow ones for? 3:12 that 2nd locomotive is a PR30C! it's a Progress rail rebuild of an SD40-2, with tier 3 emissions equipment! Also, the 3rd and 4th locos look like the very first Es44 locomotives! I can tell by the old paint scheme and new radiator end! Could you do a video by identifying different major locomotive classes/types?
I am currently planning out a series of videos that will serve as a guide for differentiating major different types of locomotives that will probably go and in hand with another series pointing out smaller differences such as a GP38 v.s. a GP38-2
SD70railfanning productions Those are called side dump cars. Grain and Coal hoppers are unloaded through hatches called "bays" on the underside of the car.
They were just being repositioned. Railroads will move empty cars from time to time to other parts of the system where they are needed. Sometimes, if there are long enough sets of the same type of car, they will run entire unit "REPO" trains as they're called. It happens a lot with the empty well cars and autoracks.
I’ve always noticed this about tank trains, when there is a engine in the front or back it’s always separated by a grain car or sometimes a boxcar. Why is that
The Southern Pacific that runs through our town STILL uses manifest(mixed) trains dominantly to this day. Intermodal & units trains are SUPER rare here.
What about boxcars are they still used a lot and for what? Where I live, in Tunisia umfortunately train delivery of cargo has more or less been killed by trucks because the country is small. Only in the phosphate mines where millions of tons need to be moved are they still in use.
You clarified one point for me: You described the car/truck wagons. On previous videos, because they were ventilated, I thought that they were conveying livestock, which suggested to me that cruelty was involved. You didn't mention livestock, does that mean that they are not conveyed by rail?
Livestock was carried on rail in the U.S. until the early 1990's. Due to increased regulations for caring for livestock while in transit, it was determined that it would be easier and less expensive to ship via road rather than rail and at that time, the little remaining livestock traffic was moved to tractor trailers. Now, it is all a thing of the past. Thanks for the comment and apologies for the very late reply.
