How many railroad cars in one mile? Am trying to understand how many it takes to equal one mile of cars?

Question

How many railroad cars in one mile? Am trying to understand how many it takes to equal one mile of cars?

Answer 1

All I do is coal trains.  A train used for domestic power plants averages 100 cars for a mile long train.

Answer 2

Years ago railway freight car were between 40 to 50 feet in length plus the length of the coupler it gave a 40 foot car an actual lengrh of about 46 feet. Today the autorack (cars that carry automobles)  cars are 100 feet long so a train of 52 autoracks is over 1 mile in length. Then you have some well cars (cars that carry containers) that can carry 2 - 48 foot containers on the bottom and 2 more on top. these cars are also over 100 feet including the couplers. There are now well cars that are constructed in groups of three 3 together with the cars sharing the same bogies (wheels) where they are joined together. These sets are almost 300  feet long, thus reducing the length of the train. In some areas in Canada it is not permissable to have a long train because of multiple RR crossings because who wants to have to sit at a railway crossing while a long train goes by at a slow speed.

Answer 3

5280 feet in a mile.  A mixed train will have different length cars.  As a general rule of thumb, 120 cars will make a mile.  I have measured some that 110 cars would make a mile, and a few over 130 but not many.

Answer 4

Freight cars range anywhere between 34' to 89', with "well cars" or other types of multiple platform cars for inter-modal service that are considerably longer.

If looking for an average then that would be around 67'.

Answer 5

To start with, while dana5169 states that boxcars are 40 feet, that applies to very old cars which are used very rarely today.  Most boxcars today are in the range of 50-60 feet.  GeorgeO states that trains a mile in length are 110-130 cars in length.  If you do the math, it would make a 110 cars in a mile equal 48 feet avg, 120 cars = 44 feet avg, 130 cars = 40.62 feet avg.  That is very unrealistic in todays age.  May have applied 30 years ago when cars were 40 feet long.  Hoghead is quite right with his statement on the length of railcars in this day.  The information I am about to give is based on my personal observations.  I quite often hear on my scanner trains requesting dispatcher permission to leave their terminal.  One of the things they have to state is the length of their train (so the dispatcher can arrange meets).  Based on those lengths and the subsequent counting of cars, i get a number very similar to Hoghead.  Average feet per car works out to be 65 to 75 feet. So if you do the math, the number of railroad cars in one mile would be 70 to 80, on average.  Given the various sizes of cars, it is impossible to give a definive answer.  Hopes this helps you out.

Answer 6

As it already been said, that depends on how long each railroad car is.

A mile is around 1600 meters.

A French TGV car or a normal Japanese railroad car is around 20 meters long, a mile long of of them would be around 80 cars.

A Japanese Shinkansen car is around 25 meters long, a mile long of of them would be around 64 cars.

Answer 7

Car length is everything.

I work with Auto racks...Typically they are the longest railcars on the train and it would take far fewer than 100 to equal a mile.

On the other hand, if you had a unit train of coal tippers or mini tankers, you would have over 200 equal a mile...They are 1/4 the length of the autoracks I work with!

Answer 8

The new rule for the railroad is= 1 car no matter what kind,is 50ft.  Although they aren't actually all 50 feet, by railroad standards the term 1 car means 50 ft.

Answer 9

well, most box cars are 40 feet, and there is 5280 in a mile so that looks like 132 box cars doesn't it?

Answer 10

anywhere between 59 to 75 depending what kind of cars are in the consistment of train.

Answer 11

well my friend most of your answers were right, hoghead was pretty much on point when gave you the car average, most trains carry all types of different loads and then you have the articulated cars, while i was in conductor school a while ago, the most widely used railcars were class C cars  - - class C cars are the 50' cars so ur looking at about 104 car on the average, but if memory serves me correctly trains can't be any longer than 9000' (little useless info for you)