Question:
how many train cars equal a mile?
kash840
2007-11-18 16:53:37 UTC
i need to know how many miles 75000 train cars equal
Eleven answers:
Samurai Hoghead
2007-11-19 01:32:10 UTC
Jimbo is right. 1 car length = 50'



75,000 cars x 50' = 3,750,000'



3,750,000' divided by 5,280' = 710.22 miles.



75,000 cars would be 710.22 miles long.



I hope this doesn't give anyone under the cloud of stUPidity in Omaha any ideas...



But, seriously, why do you need to know this, just out of curiosity?
2007-11-18 19:21:16 UTC
In the old days of railroading the average car was 50', a mile back then was 105 cars. There are old timetables that show length of sidings in cars they would hold instead of feet.

Seems a bit silly by todays standards because cars can vary from 40' to over 250'.

In the real world, a closer average is 60', so a close estimate would be 85 cars for a mile.

With intermodal trains, there is too much variation, some are almost entirely made-up of automobile cars or single platform flatcars which are 90' but if these trains are carrying very many multiple platform cars it will be much much longer.

Sorry I cant give you a closer estimate but there are too many variations in rail equipment, but for your question, if you figure averages using freight cars your car count would equal 852 miles or thereabouts.
micco
2016-09-29 15:49:32 UTC
Years in the past railway freight vehicle have been between 40 to 50 ft in length plus the size of the coupler it gave a 40 foot vehicle an unquestionably lengrh of roughly 40 six ft. immediately the autorack (vehicles that carry automobles) vehicles are a hundred ft long so a convention of fifty two autoracks is over a million mile in length. then you definately've some properly vehicles (vehicles that carry packing containers) which could carry 2 - 40 8 foot packing containers on the backside and a couple of greater on desirable. those vehicles additionally are over a hundred ft inclusive of the couplers. There at the instant are properly vehicles that are built in communities of three 3 including the vehicles sharing the comparable bogies (wheels) the place they are joined at the same time. those instruments are merely approximately 3 hundred ft long, as a consequence reducing the size of the practice. In some areas in Canada that's not permissable to have a protracted practice by using fact of particularly some RR crossings by using fact who needs to could take a seat at a railway crossing on an identical time as a protracted practice is going by ability of at a sluggish speed.
squeaky guinea pig
2007-11-19 05:40:49 UTC
Train cars vary in length but 50' is a typical length for (say) a North American box car.



So taking 50', the number of feet in a mile is 5,280.



Divide this by 50 and you get 105.6



The same formula goes for cars of different lengths - just divide 5,280 by however many feet long the car is.



Take your 105.6 50' box cars and divide 75,000 by this: you get 710.2



So 75,000 50' box cars = 710.2 miles.



I hope this helps. It's a long time since I went to school and I wasn't that good at maths.
mariner31
2007-11-18 21:57:04 UTC
As others point out... it would depend on the type of car.



40' Coal hopper - 75000 cars = 568.18 miles (145.5 cars/ mile)

83' Passenger car x 75000 cars = 1178.97 miles (63.6 cars/ mile)



Enjoy the math... 75000 cars of ANY size though is absolutely INSANE !!
GSH
2007-11-19 11:48:35 UTC
Depends the length of the train car
sydney h
2007-11-18 16:56:37 UTC
It depends on how many feet the train cars are long.
jimbodwarf
2007-11-19 01:15:40 UTC
I'm a locomotive engineer, and when we switch/shunt cars with radio communication we use car lengths as our measurement. In our rules book It classifies a car length as 50ft. So I would say 1500 cars...
Michael M
2007-11-19 06:38:56 UTC
average coach is 80 feeet long so divide that into 5280 feet to get your answer.
2007-11-18 17:01:37 UTC
568...
nvrdunit90605
2007-11-20 01:08:09 UTC
is it just curiousity? or what?


This content was originally posted on Y! Answers, a Q&A website that shut down in 2021.
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