Union Pacific No. 6945 hustles past the railroad park in Rochelle, Ill., with double-stacked K-Line containers from Global 3. Photo by Sean Valk […]
Doing the hustle
Tag: Freight
Rolling by rocks
A southbound Canadian National freight rolls through a limestone quarry in Waukesha, Wis., in August 2011. Stone, sand, and gravel make up the largest source of originating traffic on Wisconsin railroads. Photo by Matt Van Hattem […]
Coal plants of the Northeast and Great Lakes, 2002
Coal is the most important rail commodity in the United States. In the early 2000s, when this map was produced, coal accounted for one of four cars loaded and slightly more than 20 percent of rail revenue. Eighty percent of the coal goes to the generation of electricity at steam power plants, so a map […]
Grade profiles of the Pocahontas coal roads
Compared here are the main lines of railroads that, for most of the 20th century, fed the nation with its most important natural resource: bituminous coal mined in Appalachia — the critical ingredient in power plants, steel mills, home furnaces, and factories. In 1927, the year of our comparison, the Chesapeake & Ohio and Norfolk […]
Great Lakes ports in 2003
Commercial shipping on the Great Lakes follows a 2,300-mile corridor from the St. Lawrence Seaway to the western edge of Lake Superior. Over 200 million tons of cargo a year cross the five lakes and connecting waterways, hauled in some 150 U.S. and Canadian lakers, 50,000 barges, and about 1,000 visits by ocean-going vessels, or […]
Top intermodal lanes in North America, 2004
This Map of the Month was featured in the August 2004 issue of Trains magazine. This map shows a commodity flow, or what everyone treats as a commodity flow: the trailers and containers that move in intermodal lanes in the U.S. and Canada. These boxes might actually contain anything from hay to helicopter parts, but almost […]
Autumn in Montana
Montana Rail Link’s Missoula-Laurel manifest freight rolls through Bearmouth, Mont., on Sept. 2, 2003. This is MRL’s 3rd Subdivision which is from Helena to Missoula. Photo by Tom Danneman […]
Going In Reverse
Long hood first, Wisconsin Central SD45 No. 7514 leads the rock train southbound through Vernon, Wis., on Jan. 2, 2007. Photo by Karl Riek […]
BNSF Railway’s carload network
This Map of the Month appeared in the January 2004 issue of Trains. Al first glance, this looks like the route map of an airline. In reality, it’s BNSF Railway’s merchandise freight traffic network (i.e., cars not moving in unit trains from one common origin to one destination). It’s no coincidence they look the same, for […]
Western mainline tonnage growth: 1979 to 2001
This Map of the Month was featured in the June 2003 issue of Trains magazine. We know railroads experienced a lot of traffic growth since they were deregulated in 1980, but where? And more importantly, which lines did better or worse than average? This map of western main lines compares the growth rate in tonnage […]
Hear that lion roar
A westbound Z-train roars through West Chana, Ill., on the BNSF Aurora Sub. Photo by Nathan Beecher […]
Pounding the diamonds
A westbound BNSF Z-train, hauling new J.B. Hunt Intermodal containers, pounds the diamonds at Rochelle, Illinois. Photo by Nathan Beecher […]
