How many train cars equal a mile?

Question

i need to know how many miles 75000 train cars equal

Answer 1

Depends the length of the train car

Answer 2

is it just curiousity? or what?

Answer 3

As others point out... it would depend on the type of car.

40' Coal hopper - 75000 cars = 568.18 miles (145.5 cars/ mile)

83' Passenger car x 75000 cars = 1178.97 miles (63.6 cars/ mile)

Enjoy the math... 75000 cars of ANY size though is absolutely INSANE !!

Answer 4

Jimbo is right.  1 car length = 50'

75,000 cars x 50'  =  3,750,000'

3,750,000' divided by 5,280' = 710.22 miles.

75,000 cars would be 710.22 miles long.

I hope this doesn't give anyone under the cloud of stUPidity in Omaha any ideas...

But, seriously, why do you need to know this, just out of curiosity?

Answer 5

It depends on how many feet the train cars are long.

Answer 6

568...

Answer 7

I'm a locomotive engineer, and when we switch/shunt cars with radio communication we use car lengths as our measurement. In our rules book It classifies a car length as 50ft. So I would say 1500 cars...

Answer 8

average coach is 80 feeet long so divide that into 5280 feet to get your answer.

Answer 9

In the old days of railroading the average car was 50', a mile back then was 105 cars. There are old timetables that show length of sidings in cars they would hold instead of feet.

Seems a bit silly by todays standards because cars can vary from 40' to over 250'.

In the real world, a closer average is 60', so a close estimate would be 85 cars for a mile.  

With intermodal trains, there is too much variation, some are almost entirely made-up of automobile cars or single platform flatcars which are 90' but if these trains are carrying very many multiple platform cars it will be much much longer.

Sorry I cant give you a closer estimate but there are too many variations in rail equipment, but for your question, if you figure averages using freight cars your car count would equal 852 miles or thereabouts.

Answer 10

Train cars vary in length but 50' is a typical length for (say) a North American box car.

So taking 50', the number of feet in a mile is 5,280.

Divide this by 50 and you get 105.6

The same formula goes for cars of different lengths - just divide 5,280 by however many feet long the car is.

Take your 105.6 50' box cars and divide 75,000 by this: you get 710.2

So 75,000 50' box cars = 710.2 miles.

I hope this helps. It's a long time since I went to school and I wasn't that good at maths.