How many engines do you own?


How many engines do you own?


  • Total voters
    37
108 diesels (94 are union pacific engines)
613 freight cars
Now there are some interesting numbers. Your line basically has 1 locomotive per 6 freight cars. One could make 108 six car trains. That is not terrible. I've always wondered if there are ANY model railroads out there what have a balanced fleet. My ratio of locomotive to freight cars is way out of proportion. And my ratio of passenger cars to freight is also out of whack. At one time I am guessing my loco to freight car was down to 1 to 1.

The Union Pacific, a railroad known for having too many locos, has 8,000, and 64,191 freight cars, or 1 to 8. BNSF has similar 8000 locos but almost 90,000 cars, or 1 to 11.

BUT these locos do not just move railroad owned cars. I am guessing that fewer that half the cars on the system at any given time are their own. Think of all the other railroad cars in interchange. Seven class ones interchanging equally would yield some challenging calculations. Then all the private companies out there (chemical companies UTLX, general transportation ABOX, all the power companies APOX, grain companies CGCX, etc. ). Simple on-line searches have not been helpful. I am guessing the ratio is at least to 1 to 20. Someone should do some research and write a scholarly work to submit to the model railroad related rags.

And then of course there is length of rail to loco ratios to talk about/consider. For me with zero rails the ratio doesn't even work since division by zero is undefined.
 
Now there are some interesting numbers. Your line basically has 1 locomotive per 6 freight cars. One could make 108 six car trains. That is not terrible. I've always wondered if there are ANY model railroads out there what have a balanced fleet. My ratio of locomotive to freight cars is way out of proportion. And my ratio of passenger cars to freight is also out of whack. At one time I am guessing my loco to freight car was down to 1 to 1.

The Union Pacific, a railroad known for having too many locos, has 8,000, and 64,191 freight cars, or 1 to 8. BNSF has similar 8000 locos but almost 90,000 cars, or 1 to 11.

BUT these locos do not just move railroad owned cars. I am guessing that fewer that half the cars on the system at any given time are their own. Think of all the other railroad cars in interchange. Seven class ones interchanging equally would yield some challenging calculations. Then all the private companies out there (chemical companies UTLX, general transportation ABOX, all the power companies APOX, grain companies CGCX, etc. ). Simple on-line searches have not been helpful. I am guessing the ratio is at least to 1 to 20. Someone should do some research and write a scholarly work to submit to the model railroad related rags.

And then of course there is length of rail to loco ratios to talk about/consider. For me with zero rails the ratio doesn't even work since division by zero is undefined.

It never occurred to me to look at ratios. Interesting topic you brought to light! Funny thing I had more locos but I purged a lot out I think I sold off like maybe 30-35 of them ten years ago. As for freight I may of purged like maybe 20 of them out. My acquisition requirements have become more in tune or refined now. I like this topic on ratio though it's got me thinking. So with your calculations I need more freight cars lol but some of my locos are run through power and interchange power so.... I will ponder this for a bit. :)


EDIT:

As of October 2013, the Union Pacific had 8,185 locomotives on its active roster. The locomotive fleet consists of 43 different models and had an average age of 17.8 years. According to Union Pacific, this is the largest fleet of diesel-electric locomotives in the US.
 
I will ponder this for a bit.
I didn't notice but if you are in a caboose era would you have 108 caboose for those trains? A couple years back that was my huge shortfall. I think I only had 20 or so caboose.

As of October 2013, the Union Pacific had 8,185 locomotives on its active roster. The locomotive fleet consists of 43 different models and had an average age of 17.8 years. According to Union Pacific, this is the largest fleet of diesel-electric locomotives in the US.
That was a long time ago. Since the advent of precision railroading, UP no longer runs the local freighters with 3 GPs on the point. Each train gets only what it needs which is often exactly 1. Likewise the superintendent of locomotives went out through the system and found hundreds of locos sitting there where the yard master said, "just in case". They are now gone. It will be interesting to see what the current count is at next reporting.
 
It might also be good to distinguish between not just how many owned, but how many in service (used regularly), how many in shelf duty (being displayed somewhere), how many on the service or paint track, and how many are just in storage. As for me I have about 20 that are certified to run at the museum. I would consider those in service. I have three on display. Probably another 20 in shop, and 20 on the paint track. The other several hundred are just in storage waiting for whatever I bought them for.
 



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