CSX Plymouth Sub Longest Trains (200+ cars)

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Saturnalia
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Re: CSX Plymouth Sub Top 10 Longest Trains (190+ cars)

Unread post by Saturnalia »

So, HUGE thanks to BL2. He went through 13 years of logbooks from the 1970s and 80s, and found this one train: the doubled-up empty.

What he found was that is was actually only 206 cars, thus our 212-car Q335 is actually the champion of recorded history for this line, which is near-continuous from the early 1970s to present.
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Re: CSX Plymouth Sub Top 10 Longest Trains (190+ cars)

Unread post by GP-35 »

MQT3001, Thank You for posting, I enjoyed your work and reserch on the long trains, keep up the good work. When I worked for the WC I took maney 500 car empty ore jenneys back north from Fondalac. We would take 250 jenneys south and they would hook two emptys trains together. But remember jenneys are only 25 feet long.

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Re: CSX Plymouth Sub Top 10 Longest Trains (190+ cars)

Unread post by Saturnalia »

GP-35 wrote:MQT3001, Thank You for posting, I enjoyed your work and reserch on the long trains, keep up the good work. When I worked for the WC I took maney 500 car empty ore jenneys back north from Fondalac. We would take 250 jenneys south and they would hook two emptys trains together. But remember jenneys are only 25 feet long.
That must take forever to pump up the air? Or would you guys run with different trainline setups to mitigate air-loss, like SOU and NS would do on Saluda?
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Re: CSX Plymouth Sub Top 10 Longest Trains (190+ cars)

Unread post by Standard Railfan »

redside20 wrote:Tonnage for tonnage. How do 190 car trains on the CSX Plymouth Sub compare and fare to something like the old school N& W which would operate with huge trains in the 30s, 40s,50s with manned mid train helpers, over grades, and with steam power no less.
With friction bearings no less.

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Re: CSX Plymouth Sub Top 10 Longest Trains (190+ cars)

Unread post by Saturnalia »

Added Q335-14 and Q335-16 to the list, at 206 and 195 cars, respectively.

They've been running some impressive loco consists on these, too. Q335-14 had a C40-8W, C40-8, a couple SD40-2s, a SD60, a GP15T and a CN SD70M-2?
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Re: CSX Plymouth Sub Top 10 Longest Trains (190+ cars)

Unread post by Saturnalia »

Added two more to the list, a new champion of 220 cars from Jun 2, and another 201-car example from today. 10th place is now at 199 cars, so this thread may go to a 200 or more club shortly!
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Re: CSX Plymouth Sub Top 10 Longest Trains (190+ cars)

Unread post by donnieland »

a side note to the june 2 335 of 220 cars,
os'd east wy wb with 38 cars from that train iirc
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Re: CSX Plymouth Sub Top 10 Longest Trains (190+ cars)

Unread post by chapmaja »

MQT3001 wrote:Added two more to the list, a new champion of 220 cars from Jun 2, and another 201-car example from today. 10th place is now at 199 cars, so this thread may go to a 200 or more club shortly!

Quick question. What time was this train through Howell today. I recall hearing what sounded like a long train in Howell today while I was sitting in the lounge grading papers. I thought maybe it was a pair of trains meeting in Howell, given the way the whistle sounds were.

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Re: CSX Plymouth Sub Top 10 Longest Trains (190+ cars)

Unread post by Saturnalia »

chapmaja wrote:
MQT3001 wrote:Added two more to the list, a new champion of 220 cars from Jun 2, and another 201-car example from today. 10th place is now at 199 cars, so this thread may go to a 200 or more club shortly!

Quick question. What time was this train through Howell today. I recall hearing what sounded like a long train in Howell today while I was sitting in the lounge grading papers. I thought maybe it was a pair of trains meeting in Howell, given the way the whistle sounds were.
By at 5:30 or so according to BL2 in the Train Location Updates. A 334 was by a couple hours later in the 8 o'clock hour.
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Re: CSX Plymouth Sub Top 10 Longest Trains (190+ cars)

Unread post by Typhoon »

Look for 335 to back to normal size trains soon. Also kiss it goodbye on the west end.

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Re: CSX Plymouth Sub Top 10 Longest Trains (190+ cars)

Unread post by BL2-1843 »

Typhoon wrote:Look for 335 to back to normal size trains soon. Also kiss it goodbye on the west end.
Thank goodness. It's been a disaster since it started. Can not believe CSX has let this go on as long as it has.

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Re: CSX Plymouth Sub Top 10 Longest Trains (190+ cars)

Unread post by KC8RBK »

I heard 334 & 335 talking as they passed in Lansing tonight and they said the Chicago cars are a thing of the past. Not sure when the actual cut off was. It was nice to see some long trains through here though. I have video of a number of them preserved on my YouTube channel. Kc8rbk73 for anyone interested. Also from what I've read recently the dispatch time for these trains are now moving back by 4 hours every day so they're coming at all different times.

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Re: CSX Plymouth Sub Top 10 Longest Trains (190+ cars)

Unread post by Saturnalia »

The four-hour timetable refers to the 28/hour schedule they've been using on at least Q334. Perhaps now they will do the same to Q335. Otherwise Q335 was being called each day, but generally based on whenever a crew and train was ready.

So goes the long trains. 'Twas fun for chasing for awhile, but terrible for crews and I know it probably pissed off a LOT of people on the SE side of GR and probably Plumouth, too - slow, sometimes stopped trains that'd be on crossings for over 20 minutes. Kinda surprised the GRPD didn't start handing out tickets for blocking Grandville, Oakland and Godfrey. Oakland actually locks both DTE Energy and a City lot in, as it only connects to the road network via that crossing.
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Re: CSX Plymouth Sub Top 10 Longest Trains (190+ cars)

Unread post by Saturnalia »

Added the last huge Q335 from the 11th. It was fun, maybe someday we'll get to drag this list up again!
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Re: CSX Plymouth Sub Top 10 Longest Trains (190+ cars)

Unread post by ~Z~ »

:( sad to see it disappearing on the west end... that was a nice daily train to get the chance to see, often running in daylight.
Knew it would go bye bye though since they never started routing any BRC cars from Chicago to GR to Toledo and start 334 in Chicago instead of in GR. With more westbounds than eastbounds, crews got out of balance and lots of deadheads, plus likely power management issues. Wish they'd have first tried getting some cars eastbound from BRC instead of removing Q335 from the west end.

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Re: CSX Plymouth Sub Top 10 Longest Trains (190+ cars)

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That' a very short train compared to some of the others during the BRC cars from/to Chicago routing
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Re: CSX Plymouth Sub Top 10 Longest Trains (190+ cars)

Unread post by SD80MAC »

It was never as big west of GR since half of the train out of Toledo was all cars destined for Grand Rapids. Most of the time those 200 car trains were about half GRs and half BRCs.
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Re: CSX Plymouth Sub Top 10 Longest Trains (190+ cars)

Unread post by MRC_Andrew »

So, can it be safely assumed that the BRC traffic is back to a routing via the old B&O?

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Re: CSX Plymouth Sub Top 10 Longest Trains (190+ cars)

Unread post by SD80MAC »

MRC_Andrew wrote:So, can it be safely assumed that the BRC traffic is back to a routing via the old B&O?
Back on Q509 AFAIK.
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Re: CSX Plymouth Sub Longest Trains (200+ cars)

Unread post by Saturnalia »

Added two more trains from recently, I335 from 6-30 and L335 from 8-2. 204 and 201 cars, respectively.

List is now 200+ cars, as we have 11 trains with 200 or more.
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