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Re: BNSF HiLine traffic density?
Author: Bruce Butler
Date: 11-12-2013 - 14:13
I live adjacent to the BNSF double track on the "funnel". We are at the east edge of Otis Orchards, almost at the Washington - Idaho boarder. I see lots of grain, oil, and stack trains.
I will add my unscientific observations to SP5103's comments above.
At certain times of the day train traffic is almost bumper to bumper. Early morning hours and then the evening hours seem to be busiest. Middle of the day can be much quieter, but I suspect that some of this may be due to MOW windows.
There are a couple of bottlenecks worth mentioning:
1) Eastbound trains sometimes backup waiting to go into the Hauser fuel depot.
2) Westbound trains can backup waiting for their shot at the single track between Barker Rd and Pines Rd, especially if eastbound traffic is heavy.
Other observations:
Sometimes Yardley can be a problem with trains stacked up waiting to go into the yard if they need to do work at Yardley.
Then there is the UP with their trackage rights between Napa St and Fish Lake. UP traffic is up now, too and they love to do their meets on BNSF. UP could use more siding capacity on their own line. Last Saturday night BNSF was so constipated that they would not allow UP to make a meet on their line and this caused the UP considerable consternation.
While the ex GN line from Spokane to Everett is somewhat underutilized (mostly "Z" trains with some empty eastbound grain trains) it has a bottleneck at the 7.79 mile long Cascade tunnel because it takes almost an hour to blow out the tunnel after a train passes through. Especially true with eastbounds because they are on an ascending grade and the diesels can be working hard.
The "Pioneer" tunnel, just south of the main bore, goes about 2/3ds of the way through from west to east. I have often wondered if they have considered enlarging and punching Pioneer the rest of the way through, effectively making the tunnel a double track railroad. Bi-directional signalling and crossovers at each end could increase line capacity significantly. Run a train through one bore while blowing out the other.
When GN dropped their Wenatchee - Skykomish electrification in 1956 one of the options they considered at the time was to extend electrification to Spokane on the east and Seattle on the west. Maybe that wouldn't have been a bad idea.
Another bad idea they implemented about 20 years ago was abandoning the former SP&S mainline between Fish Lake and Pasco. It would be handy to have that line back now.
I will add my unscientific observations to SP5103's comments above.
At certain times of the day train traffic is almost bumper to bumper. Early morning hours and then the evening hours seem to be busiest. Middle of the day can be much quieter, but I suspect that some of this may be due to MOW windows.
There are a couple of bottlenecks worth mentioning:
1) Eastbound trains sometimes backup waiting to go into the Hauser fuel depot.
2) Westbound trains can backup waiting for their shot at the single track between Barker Rd and Pines Rd, especially if eastbound traffic is heavy.
Other observations:
Sometimes Yardley can be a problem with trains stacked up waiting to go into the yard if they need to do work at Yardley.
Then there is the UP with their trackage rights between Napa St and Fish Lake. UP traffic is up now, too and they love to do their meets on BNSF. UP could use more siding capacity on their own line. Last Saturday night BNSF was so constipated that they would not allow UP to make a meet on their line and this caused the UP considerable consternation.
While the ex GN line from Spokane to Everett is somewhat underutilized (mostly "Z" trains with some empty eastbound grain trains) it has a bottleneck at the 7.79 mile long Cascade tunnel because it takes almost an hour to blow out the tunnel after a train passes through. Especially true with eastbounds because they are on an ascending grade and the diesels can be working hard.
The "Pioneer" tunnel, just south of the main bore, goes about 2/3ds of the way through from west to east. I have often wondered if they have considered enlarging and punching Pioneer the rest of the way through, effectively making the tunnel a double track railroad. Bi-directional signalling and crossovers at each end could increase line capacity significantly. Run a train through one bore while blowing out the other.
When GN dropped their Wenatchee - Skykomish electrification in 1956 one of the options they considered at the time was to extend electrification to Spokane on the east and Seattle on the west. Maybe that wouldn't have been a bad idea.
Another bad idea they implemented about 20 years ago was abandoning the former SP&S mainline between Fish Lake and Pasco. It would be handy to have that line back now.
