"Praise the Lord"
As I occasionally say this line to my
good friend and colleague Mike Green at News 8, Sunday is a quiet day for me.
Other than watching all of the trains speeding through the Central Avenue grade
crossing in downtown Kearney, Nebraska, you need at least one day to just
plain....take...it....easy. Good for your blood pressure and your own demeanor.
Yes, we all have our crazy lives and whatever they entail. But please, take a
day and, you know, relax. "Amen", responds Mr. Green. And so it goes.
Anybody who knows me knows I love
trains, both models and the full size ones. And coming out here to Union
Pacific's Transcontinental mainline between Gibbon and North Platte, Nebraska
is pretty much the Mother Lode of the U.S. Railroads. Upwards of 120 trains
traverses this mainline every day. You have unit coal trains moving coal loads
east and empties west to the Powder River Basin in eastern Wyoming. You have
unit auto rack trains, moving cars from Japan and South Korea to the East and
new American made cars to the West coast. You have double stack trains which
can move upwards of 280 containers. You have piggy-back flat cars that carry
trailers. Most of these cars are tagged onto the end of shorter double stack
trains. And both UP and BNSF move trailers for UPS, United Parcel Service. Many
of your packages shipped from the West coast and greater Texas will travel via
rail. In fact, some of those trailers actually passed through Kearney this afternoon.
And you have the manifest freight, which moves just about anything from
refrigerators to fruits & vegetables to just about anything else.
One thing that always fascinates me
about trains is how much weight can be moved. Case in point: here is a snapshot
of one of the hopper cars that carry coal from the Powder River Basin in
Wyoming passing through Kearney today on an empty unit coal train:
If you enlarge the picture, you will see
2 ratings. These ratings vary from car to car, but for this example, we will
consider a unit coal train with identical cars. The first rating: LD LMT 256100
(LoaD LiMiT of 256,100 pounds) is the maximum allowable weight of the car's
load.
LT WT 49900 (LighT WeighT of 49,900
pounds) is the weight of empty car; also called tare weight.
So a load of coal would be 256,100
pounds or 128.05 tons. Add the tare weight of the car and you have a combined
unit weight per car of 306,000 pounds or 153.00 tons.
So for your empties going west, based on
the standard of 135 cars per consist, you have a consist weight of 6,736,500
pounds or 3,368.25 tons.
For your loads going east, again based
on the standard of 135 cars per consist, you have a consist weight of
41,310,000 pounds or 20,655 tons of which 34,573,500 pounds or 17,286.75 tons
is coal.
Quite impressive, eh??
And then you have what are known as
"reporting marks" which are on each freight car. Kinda like a license
plate on a truck or automobile. Again, we refer to our picture from the
westbound empty unit coal train passing through Kearney this morning:
Normally you would see UP or BNSF
followed by a 4 to digit number which would indicate this car is owed by the
railroad or could be leased from a car pool but carries a railroad number. Well
in this case, the "OMA" stands for the Omaha Public Power District in
Omaha, Nebraska. The "X" indicate that the cars are assigned to
companies or individuals who own rail cars but not the operating railroads. From our friends at Wikipedia.Org:
"Omaha Public Power District, or OPPD, is a
public electric utility in the State of Nebraska, headquartered in Omaha. It is
one of the largest publicly owned electric utilities in the United States,
serving more than 352,000 customers in 13 southeast Nebraska counties." Its
power plant in North Omaha runs on coal from this train with those reporting
marks.
And there is also the new type of train
coming that we saw yesterday: that 117 car unit tank car train. Again, you can
see how efficient railroads can be. As we mentioned, each tank car can hold
31,809 gallons of crude oil. Multiply that times 117 cars and you get 3,721,653
gallons of crude oil. If you were to move that oil via tanker truck at 8000
gallons per truck, you would need 466 tanker trucks to move that much fuel.
Until the XL Keystone pipeline is built out of the Bakken Oil Fields in North Dakota, the oil will most likely
go to whatever refinery can handle it via rail. Any railroad involved transporting this
entity will, in their best interest, keep their railroads up to specs and safe.
And
did you know that freight cars can be followed anywhere on the U.S. rail
system?? On each car is a passive device called an AEI, or an American
Electronic Identification tag. It looks like a small aluminum block about the
size of an iPhone 6 Plus. These tags are read by the railroads to keep track of
where their cars are at anytime, especially if a customer of the railroad is
wondering where their shipment might be. One of these readers is located about
2 miles east of The Bailey Classification Yard in North Platte, Nebraska:
Just like when you through a toll tag
reader on a toll highway anywhere in the country, rail cars go through the same
thing. Out here where freight trains average over 100 cars easily, you can
imagine the size of the railroad databases to keep track of all of this
information. Very logical indeed, eh, Mr. Spock??
And getting back to the weight thing?? Below is a flat car carrying replacement concrete ties. With 210 ties at 550 pounds per tie, you have 115,500 pounds or 57.75 tons.
At about 3000 ties per mile on today's
modern U.S. railroads, this car would take care of 0.07 miles of railway. These
cars have side rails, which when bridged together, can be coupled to track
renewal trains. Gantry cranes shuttle back and forth to retrieve the old ties
and bring in the new ties. Plug "Track Renewal Train" into YouTube
and you can see what this train can do.
Anyway, it's been a beautiful day in
Kearney. 77 degrees and sunny. No clouds. A very slight breeze. And some
observations for today: a Union Pacific Hi-Rail car inspecting
Main 3 as a loaded unit coal train flies by on Main 2:
A group of bikers' rides in the Arby's
parking lot as said bikers take a break for lunch. Beth Bolen!! Friends of
yours??
That nice cell tower just outside my
office. A 5 dot signal and very good surfing speeds..,just gotta keep an eye on
that date usage meter!!
And for the record, I did a train count today from 10:15am to 4:15pm. In those 6 hours, I counted 20 westbound trains and 11 eastbound trains which works out to 5 trains an hour which puts the daily count at an average of 120 trains per day. Still the busiest main line in the country.
Before we head out, a quick shout-out to
former News 8 collegue Dave Schroder currently doing medical treatment in Tucson,
Arizona. He loves sunsets. So David, this one's for you!!
Finally tonight, a shout-out to Kathy
and Ever from Kearney. Kathy is a grandmother and Ever is her 2-year old grandson who is an
upcoming railfan. Kathy brought her grandson down to the municipal parking lot
to see the trains roll by this eveing. While talking to Kathy, Ever got his wish as an
eastbound manifest freight train came rolling through town. Ever was in his
grandmother’s lap for a reassuring hug but his eyes never lost sight of that
freight train. Looks like the railfan community has a new member.
Monday is our last full day in Nebraska
before we head home on Tuesday. Cannot believe how great the weather has been.
Truly a treat.
I’m Philip J Zocco. On The Road. In Kearney,
Nebraska.
