When it comes to Shortlines/Regionals..

[JStryker722]

What makes/allows/causes a shortline or regional to maintain a railroad to:

1. 10mph standard
2. 20mph standard
3. 25mph standard
4. 40mph standard

And how do Michigan's Shortlines/Regionals follow those standards?

[SD80MAC]

Money and necessity. Some of the shorter railroads don't need to go much over 20 if their cars are just going to sit at the interchange anyway.

[JStryker722]

What about longer lines like MQT,AA,GLC,Lake State,INER,JAIL,GDLK?

[chapmaja]

Generally it is the need of the railroad to move traffic and the length the traffic has to move. The GLC will likely have to maintain the mainline to a higher speed because the length of travel is longer. Crews are limited on the hours of work, so you want the crew to be able to leave the yard, do all the work, and get back within the allotted time period. This is why the distance travelled impacts the speed needed on the line.

A line like the ADBF won't need to maintain the tracks to as high a standard because the traffic does not need to travel a long distance over the line. The ADBF has to maintain the traffic because of the dinner train though.

Now, a line like the West Michigan needs only to be able to move the cars on the rails. They serve a short distance (and the rest of the line is storage/ going to be pulled), so they don't need to spend the money to keep the track above usable at slow speeds.

The reason a company chooses how to maintain the line really has to do with keeping their costs as low as possible.

This is why NS did not want to continue maintaining the Michigan Line to 79mph standards. They had no reason for that, thus the slow orders went into affect and eventually the State of Michigan bought the line.

[CAT345C]

I could tell you so much right now and it would just make your head spin, trying to keep it simple, first, you cannot "maintain" to "20mph" You have Class 1 Track which is 10mph, Class 2 25mph, Class 3 40mph so on and so forth, I have never worked on anything higher than class 3. The classes are sets of standards set forth by the FRA.

Each class of track you have several tolerances that get tighter and tighter as speed increases. Class 1 you only need 6-7 good ties per 39' stick of rail. It depends on straight or curved track. You also can have gauge significantly wider than the standard 56 1/2". As you go up in speed you need to have more ties and your gauge has to be closer to 56 1/2". You want to avoid 12-20mph because you can have what is called Harmonic rock and rock yourself off the track. Now you can maintain to class 3 track and set a speed limit of 15 or 20 its all up to the railroad. But you have to maintain to one of the sets of standards set by the FRA. There is another condition called "excepted track" I think you may have asked about this already. Excepted track is not and I repeat not a class of track you can maintain to. Excepted track is in there so you can have lightly used sidings and branches that may see occasional use, but do not bring in enough car loads to pay for maintaining. You restrictions are no more than 5 placarded cars coupled together in train or a cut. (you can have 100 in the same track, but you better have a gap every 5 cars) Your gauge can not exceed 58".
Tangent track and curves less than 2 degrees need...
Class 1 track- 5 ties
Class 2 8 Ties
Class 3 8
Class 4 and 5 need 12 ties

In Track more than 2 degrees curved
class 1 6 ties
class 2 9 ties
Class 3 10 ties
Class 4 and 5 14 ties

Now if you need to replace ties, a mile of class 1 track is going to be significantly cheaper than a mile of class 2 track.

When you get up into class 4 and 5 track you may have noticed that the number of ties stayed the same, this is because you have different geometry to maintain too. Runoff, dip deviation super elevation so on an so forth.

Sorry if I have some bad typos or grammor, I typed this out on an Iphone.

Heres a good basic run down from Trains Mag
http://trn.trains.com/en/Railroad%20Ref ... tions.aspx

[Evan]

GLC From Owasso south to Durand is about 25-30; Durand southward on GLC Trackage is 40 to Osmer.
LSRC Varies a lot. From Saginaw to Bay City its 20 tops from what I was told. From Saginaw south to Flint, it's 35-40 depending on cargo. HESR is one I'm unsure of seeing that they have a lot of dow, making the train key.

[SD80MAC]

To add to what CAT said, passenger trains cannot operate over excepted track, they must have at least Class 1 track.

[JStryker722]

Well I'm lucky I'm 20 years old , loved trains and read up on the industry since i could read above elementary level or you would've made my head spin lol. Here's a question: what causes a railroad to set track speed below what they maintain the track,particularly those with class 2 and 3 track?

[trnwatcher]

Well I'm lucky I'm 20 years old , loved trains and read up on the industry since i could read above elementary level or you would've made my head spin lol. Here's a question: what causes a railroad to set track speed below what they maintain the track,particularly those with class 2 and 3 track?

Mostly money. Operating a locomotive at higher speeds burns more fuel, wears the track more, etc. It's similar to the US interstate highway system. It was build for speeds of 80 mph but rarely do you get to do above 70 legally. Just because you build or maintain a system to operate at a certain maximum speed does not mean you run ti at that high speed constantly.

[JStryker722]

Is there a perfect speed where fuel economy is at a peak? I would've thought the faster you went, once you got up to speed you could take advantage of forward momentum of the train pushing from behind to offset having to keep the throttle at a higher setting. I guess that may only work for downhill grades I suppose.

[CAT345C]

Depends on the railroad characteristics, locomotives, tonnage. Sd40s burn more fuel than a gp38 does but a gp38 may have to work harder than the sd40s thus burning more fuel.

[Raildudes dad]

Sorry if I have some bad typos or grammor, I typed this out on an Iphone.

Heres a good basic run down from Trains Mag
http://trn.trains.com/en/Railroad%20Ref ... tions.aspx

You did great typing this on a phone. I wouldn't want to do it on a keyboard

My rule of thumb is: Class 1 every 4th tie must be good plus 1 good one under every joint. Class 2 is every 3rd tie plus 1 under a joint.

[J T]

Sorry if I have some bad typos or grammor, I typed this out on an Iphone.

I think your iPhone is broken. It should have corrected "grammor" to "grammar."

[AARR]

Much of the GLC is rated for 40mph including some of the track north of Cadillac however they prefer the trains to run in the 30ish mph range for better fuel economy

[JStryker722]

Okay.good to know for future reference.

[TSB]

Much of the GLC is rated for 40mph including some of the track north of Cadillac however they prefer the trains to run in the 30ish mph range for better fuel economy

Don, also considerations for banking of curves, length of signal circuit and added margin
below "legal" speed defending against ambulance chasers.

[Robert MacDowell]

To add to what CAT said, passenger trains cannot operate over excepted track, they must have at least Class 1 track.

Which opens a whole 'nother chapter in the story. Congress passed a law which requires FRA to lighten up on tourist railways and railroad museums.

If the railroad is in the "General System of Transportation" where revenue freight gets hauled for pay, the full regs already apply. If not, then FRA takes a less formal approach, and wants only to see that their operations are not unsafe, and inspect only to get a general sense of that. We call it "FRA-Lite".

I remember when Larry Coe had me use my hy-rail truck to drive him and the FRA inspector down his line. The FRA inspector wrote up 3 pages of defects in as many miles, (and this is totally normal in an FRA inspection, it didn't really reflect anything bad about Coe's track conditions)... and Coe had to fix every one and document that he did, and do a followup inspection. It's very tedious and paperwork-heavy, and that's life in the general system. Coe stopped the tour at Haggerty Lumber because revenue freight did not move east of there, and that territory got the "FRA Lite" treatment.

The idea is that railway museums are labor-poor, and should focus their time on actually fixing track, rather than doing paperwork and inspections.

[Standard Railfan]

The maintain to a lower class mindset is not unique to regionals and shortlines. CN maintains, or doesn't maintain, the entire line from Trout Lake to Munising as Class 1.

[chapmaja]

The maintain to a lower class mindset is not unique to regionals and shortlines. CN maintains, or doesn't maintain, the entire line from Trout Lake to Munising as Class 1.

That is like the NS Jackson-Lansing line before it was sold off. The Class 1's have realized they have a limited number of resources, and as such, they basically treat certain lines like they are a shortline, not like a portion of a Class 1 system. Why maintain a section of track that see's a single train daily to high standards when the usage of the line does not require that level of track.

My take on this is that tracks should be able to support their intended use, and don't require more than that. If a line is 30 miles in length, with a few customers that take 2 hours total to switch, why maintain the line to 40 mph standards. A crew would take 3 hours to travel one way, two hours to switch the customers, then have 3 hours back the other way at 10mph. That still leaves them plenty of hours to do other work in the yard as needed and still not run out of time. Now if they are paid hourly instead of for the day, the company might want them done and back sooner, and the costs would justify an increased speed on the line to get crews back and off the clock quicker. Each line is different and each situation is different.

[Old Hogger]

It is strictly money and ROI.

I know of a shortline that is about 30 miles long - all 10mph. To upgrade to 25mph would cost nearly a million dollars. How long would it take to recover that expense? Saving payroll (2 people, about 3 hours per trip) you'd never get it back. So why upgrade? I'm sure Class 1's have the same ROI to deal with.