Banana Train The Illinois Central ran banana trains from New Orleans to Chicago many years ago. All reefers from one point to another.
If I remember correctly it was illegal under ICC rules to run unit trains per se until the 1960's due to the rates to be charged. So although all the cars were the same and were all hauling the same commodity they were not unit trains with the lower charges to the shipper that the name Unit Train implies. Rick
true enough, the "unit train" moniker really has more to do with pricing than equipment. It's post-steam, but the Hammermill Unit Train from Lock Haven to Erie, PA (Conrail-ALY-Conrail, train symbol HPA) during the 80's and 90's ran with three car types - log, wood chip, and boxcar (pulp) and was charged unit-train rates by CR. One origin and one destination though. It may have been one of the few that different car types were loaded going in different directions, as the pulp was backhauled to Lock Haven from Erie, and the log cars and chip cars were loaded going to Erie. During steam days I'll add another - Stock extras. ATSF sure had them. Stock cars in particular need handling like reefers due to in-transit handling. You had to let the stock off the cars, water, etc. You're just delaying any regular train, so they tended to be handled as origin-destination trains wherever possible. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Santa_Fe_stock_car_train_rev.jpg As far as the "44 car" observation... I'm quite confident my Kato/GHQ L1 2-8-2 could do that on an Ntrak layout. The longest I've personally observed on a non-Ntrak is 95 cars (MT 50-ton hoppers) behind a single Con-Cor 2-8-8-2 mallet on .5 % grades and 22" curves. It wasn't slipping, either.
