# freight train schedule



## blackpup (Apr 8, 2017)

So, there is a freight train that sometimes comes on the tracks on my commute to work. It is very sporadic, sometimes it's there and sometimes not. Does anyone know if there is a site where you can find freight train schedules for trains that go through small towns. Thanks.

There is one set of tracks that I have to drive through on my way to Amtrak on Monday. If I get stopped by the train, it is very very slow, and would really like not to have to be stopped by it, I would hate to miss my train.

It is the Union Pacific RR line


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## CCC1007 (Apr 8, 2017)

The freight trains seem to have no real schedule, they run when they show up...


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## ehbowen (Apr 9, 2017)

Except for some very high-value hotshot intermodals and unit trains, most freight trains these days are dispatched as "extras"...meaning, basically, whenever they have enough cars to fill out a consist and at no set time.

This is a change (for the worse, in my opinion) from traditional practice in which "extra" trains were the exceptions and freight service was coordinated with passenger service like a ballet. I understand that Santa Fe, for one, used to run many of its premium freight trains as second or third sections of passenger trains...not the _Chiefs_, obviously, but the _Grand Canyon__s_ and such. I understand that the _Grand Canyon_ often operated as a mixed consist with TOFC intermodal equipment in its final years.

It used to be that a general freight customer could consult the railroad freight timetable and have a good expectation of when the boxcar with his load would reach its destination. These days, unless it's a high value intermodal shipment or a unit train operated on a contract, he usually can't. One reason that the general freight business has largely gone glimmering....


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## blackpup (Apr 9, 2017)

ok, thanks for the info, lets all hope no freight when I cross the tracks.


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## railiner (Apr 9, 2017)

When I worked for the BN, in the early seventies, certain local freight trains more or less were on a schedule...trains like The Buckwheat, which ran over the former 'Q' between Denver and Lyons, Co...then there was The Market Street...

also the TOFC/COFC thru trains like Number 64 and 100 that departed for Chicago in the evening, as well as many others....then there were the C&S trains for Wyoming and Texas, and last, but not least the "Beer Runs", to the Coors brewery in Golden....

Not sure if they still run on any kind of schedule, or not. As for The Buckwheat, I believe the 'Q' route between Broomfield and Longmont, via Lafayette is gone...not sure about Longmont to Lyons. Of course, the former C&S route between Broomfield and Longmont via Boulder still exists...


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