Trains...

As I think I have mentioned before in this thread, the town I live in is bisected by the Kansas City Southern (KCS) Heavener Sub. There is also a siding that runs north and south out of town and at times the tracks can be blocked for 10, 15 even 30 or 45 minutes at a time. This makes it where people that live on the west side of the tracks (of which I am one) may not either be able to get home or out of town. It can be frustrating, especially if it's been a long day and you just want to get home. You can take the dirt roads to get around the blockage, but that adds 3 or 4 miles to the trip and it's dirt roads. Not something I want to take some vehicles on.

There's also the noise. I understand that they have to blow their horn 5 times before a crossing, but if you are outside you can't hold a conversation. Plus the noise of the wheels on the track can be pretty loud, especially in the winter when the trees are lacking leaves.

Recently KCS was bought out by Canadian Pacific, pending regulatory approval (expected to be completed here in Q1 of 2023). This is going to more than double the average number of trains expected on the Heavener Sub. Taking it from an average of 11 trains a day, to 25 trains.

They also plan to extend the length of trains, and by extension, will need to make the siding longer. Making a wait for a train to clear even longer.

This was all brought to my attention when I ran across this article in the Kansas City Star about the small town of Camanche, Iowa that has worse than my town. It's right on the Mississippi River and trains blocking the roads to the side of the town that is along the river. This means there's no way around the train, no way to get home, no way for emergency services to reach people in need.

TRN_CP_KCS_traffic_map-768x631.jpg


The map above shows how many extra trains will be on rails. I live along the line south of Kansas City, just about where the 11/25 icon points. I'm not looking forward to trains every hour...
 
  • Like
Reactions: lip
CraigB said:
They barely want to put one where there's traffic, let alone inconviencing 200 people.
Click to expand...

There’s a city by O’hare airport called Des Planes. It is where a lot of train lines cross so theres a lot of tracks crossing roads. The city had to in the 80s build duplicate fire department and ambulance stations on either side of the tracks because of the long stops with trains caused problems with emergency vehicles.

Same thing happened in another town that Canadian National runs through. Their trains are known on a stretch that goes through to just stop and block crossings for an hour or so. Same issues happened, not to mention traffic of course. Same solution was made because freight companies suck. If it doesnt immediately effect the transport right now, leave it alone.

There are so many bridges in Chicago that worried me driving under them. But they still stand. 😔
 
93Flareside said:
This was cool to watch.

*Auto-train*
Click to expand...
I've always wondered why this isn't more common. It works well for the Chunnel, it would be great if the train continued all the way to Germany or wherever. A car-train to Scotland, let's say, would surely be a good incentive for people to travel up there.

Maybe there's something about the safety of untethered vehicles over long journeys. :hmm:
 
Matt2000 said:
Maybe there's something about the safety of untethered vehicles over long journeys. :hmm:
Click to expand...
Who says they're untethered?

Car trains running between northern Germany and the Alps have been a thing since forever, I think one-ish is still running. There used to be connections into France, maybe even towards Spain, but those are long gone.
 
narf said:
Who says they're untethered?

Car trains running between northern Germany and the Alps have been a thing since forever, I think one-ish is still running. There used to be connections into France, maybe even towards Spain, but those are long gone.
Click to expand...
My only experience is normal cars on the Chunnel, which don't get tied down. I suppose that's because there are no sharp corners to navigate. I hadn't come across the car trains elsewhere, sounds fun.
 
PSX_20230118_100845.jpg


Perfect example today of what I complained about above. It's raining and I'm driving the BRZ, don't want to go down the muddy dirt roads. So I'll sit here for 20 minutes waiting for this to clear.

Wonder if I could start billing them for my time? $75 per hour sounds fair.
 
Matt2000 said:
My only experience is normal cars on the Chunnel, which don't get tied down. I suppose that's because there are no sharp corners to navigate. I hadn't come across the car trains elsewhere, sounds fun.
Click to expand...
On an Austrian car train I definitely saw equipment for tying down, not sure if it was used or not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tauern_Railway_Tunnel

The closest car train to home https://www.autozug-sylt.de/de/sicherheit-und-fahrgastrechte/ says "some vehicles and some wind conditions" require tying down ... it's open cars across a dam in the North Sea 🎐
 
Matt2000 said:
I've always wondered why this isn't more common.
Click to expand...
It was more common. A few decades ago, there were a lot of regular accompanied car trains in Europe. The German railway companies mainly offered lines to vacation destinations - as far as Istanbul (for West Germany) and Budapest (for East Germany).
As you might have guessed, the shift to using planes to get to the Mediterranean, and also cars becoming ever better suited for long journeys and improved Alpine crossings, killed demand for those trains over time.
So, from over 20 stations in West Germany in the 1980s only Hamburg, Düsseldorf and Munich are left.

I've actually looked at using a connection from Düsseldorf to Austria or Italy for FG roadtrips as a way to save me the 1000 km Autobahn trip down to starting point on the other side of the Alps on my motorbike. The prices are so laughibly high (€400 for Düsseldorf to Innsbruck, €550 to Verona) that I can easily pay two nights in cheap hotels and the fuel, and have plenty of money left. And that's for a single passenger.
I would be curious to try out the experience, but with this kind of pricing, I just can't imagine a use case justifying to prefer this over a two-day drive with a hotel stay in the middle.
 
DanRoM said:
It was more common. A few decades ago, there were a lot of regular accompanied car trains in Europe. The German railway companies mainly offered lines to vacation destinations - as far as Istanbul (for West Germany) and Budapest (for East Germany).
As you might have guessed, the shift to using planes to get to the Mediterranean, and also cars becoming ever better suited for long journeys and improved Alpine crossings, killed demand for those trains over time.
So, from over 20 stations in West Germany in the 1980s only Hamburg, Düsseldorf and Munich are left.

I've actually looked at using a connection from Düsseldorf to Austria or Italy for FG roadtrips as a way to save me the 1000 km Autobahn trip down to starting point on the other side of the Alps on my motorbike. The prices are so laughibly high (€400 for Düsseldorf to Innsbruck, €550 to Verona) that I can easily pay two nights in cheap hotels and the fuel, and have plenty of money left. And that's for a single passenger.
I would be curious to try out the experience, but with this kind of pricing, I just can't imagine a use case justifying to prefer this over a two-day drive with a hotel stay in the middle.
Click to expand...
I'm bummed the routes towards Spain / SW France don't exist anymore... Would definitely give that a try next autumn otherwise.
 
I've lived no more than 40 km away from there for my entire life, and I can't remember ever using the Schwebebahn. My parents probably took me there in my childhood, but I don't remember it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top