Why is it some trains go up and down the country and some other trains only travel a short distance?

Question

Why is it some trains go up and down the country and some other trains only travel a short distance?

Answer 1

The ones that go up and down the country have more fuel than those that only travel short distances.

Answer 2

Because the track runs out.

Answer 3

Some trains are very insecure and will not venture far from home, on the other hand some are very adventurous and will travel great distances

Answer 4

It would not make sense for local (stopping) trains to travel long distances, otherwise the journey time from, say, London to Glasgow would take forever.  This would also block the line for faster trains.

Answer 5

All depends where you are going,if you are going on a small journey,it will go a short distance,if you going on a long journey it will take you further or else you change trains.

Answer 6

Kevan M sums it up quite well and as this question was asked in UK & Ireland the Amrfeican answears are not relevent.

Answer 7

It's not a matter how far a train can go, it's what's on the train that makes a difference, like.. If thers a train of 100 cars, all in New York City, 20 have to go to Phoenix, 50 have to go to LA, 15 have to go to maine and the last 15 needs to go to Florida. Well most of those are way off. So they will bring like a train, from New York to go to Maine, another to go to Floida, and one to go to LA and Phoenix, so it would be h**l if one train had to go to all of those places, so yeah, but of course they would add some.

Answer 8

The routes that companies operate are bid for to the rail regulation authority. A bit like Ebay so to speak. For instance, the east coast mainline is up for grabs. The only real competitors for this are Virgin and GNER. They would put forward a bid stating what they intend to do and how many trains an hour they would run. Thr RRA would then choose the "best" that was on offer to the public. The competition would be too stiff if all companies bid for one route so they are all split up. Obviously a HST would be wasted on a local route, so they are left for the local operators, with the smaller trains.

Answer 9

You have made a very astute observation. This phenomenon is a consequence of the government's action to reduce carbon emissions. Trains have had to replace their deisel engines with emission-free motors.

On modern trains there are three classes of passenger. They all sit in the same type of seats and the difference is only apparent when the clockwork runs down in the engine:

1st Class stay seated,

2nd Class get out and walk,

3rd Class push.

It's now apparent that if there are a lot of 3rd class passengers they'll push the train further and if there are not many then they'll get tired and only push it a short distance.

Like all wonderful things this is subject to the 'law of unintentional consequences' which are only obvious when someone draws attention to it.

Answer 10

Service. Schedules. Use of equipment.

All decided by the rail planners.

Answer 11

It all depends. In passenger trains, there are long-distance routes that travel across the county, like the Empire Builder which travels from Chicago to Seattle/Portland. Other passenger trains, like commuter trains, may only have a route of 10 miles because just like it says, they're used to commute shote distances. In freight trains, basically, it all depends upon destination & purpose. Coal trains coming out of the Powder River Basin may be destined to power plants in eastern Montana, Utah, Colorado, or Washington. Small local freights usually have short routes because their main purpose is to pick up & drop off cars in small towns, like switching out a grain elevator. They pick up full/loaded hoppers from the elevators & drop off empty ones. A local might pick up some cars from various industries/towns. Those cars could have different destinations, maybe being as far apart as some being destined for Seattle, & others destined for Birmingham, Alabama. So what happens next, is once a train w/ cars destined for oh, lets say 8 different locations arrives in the yard, what they do it basically tear the train apart, then sort the cars by destination. So all the cars destined for New York are put together & all the cars destined for Billings, Mt are put together. Once they have enough cars headed for the same destination, they put them into a train consisting only of cars headed for that peticular destination.

Think, would it make sense if we only had short-distance trains, & if you wanted to ride a train from Denver to Los Angeles & to do so you'd have to get on a different train every 50 miles? And if you have a bunch of cars headed to the same destination, wouldn't it make sense to put them on a train consisting only of cars going to that destination, so you can have 1 train going directly from point A to point G, rather than putting them on a train going to poin B, then put them on another train bound for point C, & so on until you reach point G?

Answer 12

Trains actually have a curfew so they have to be home in bed. If they get a late start then they cant go far.

The truth of course is that trains are made up of "local" or thru freight shipments depending on where the loads go. They dont want a train full of cars destined for a city 500 miles away stopping every few miles to drop off local delivery cars.

Answer 13

You have short haul commuter services, medium to long range services and Intercity services.

For example if you want to travel London to Glasgow it would take about 2 days if the trains called at every stop. Hence Intercity services stop at principal locations, semi fasts stop at a few more places and the all station services travel a much shorter distance.

hope this makes sense

Answer 14

All Trains go UP or DOWN.

As a rule of thumb UP services always go towards London. DOWN services always go away.

The problem then comes if they are on a Branch or Main Line that does not connect with London, in which case it is where the Major Terminus Depot is.

As for Short distance trains and Country wide trains. There are more people commuting to and from work on your so called short distance services than the longer trains which travel country wide.

Answer 15

It depends on the job they do.  Commuter trains travel short distances because they have many stops, and serve (usually) one large metro area and its surrounding suburbs.  Amtrak trains are (usually) used for intercity transportation, have infrequent stops, and are naturally longer routes to avoid having to change trains frequently.

In freight service, long runs are usually the result of dedicated services, such as coal trains from the Powder River basin of Wyoming to power plants in the east, or fast freights of UPS shipments.  Shorter runs are the domain of the way freight, trains that service all or most industrial sidings in a particular territory, and switching operations consume much more time than the train spends moving down the line.  Some trains, called turns, work their way to a certain point, then return to the same yard they started from.  Some industrial turns never leave the large city they originate from.