What is the milage of a diesel train engine?
Fuel consumption for a locomotive is not indicated in mileage. It’s calculated in fuel consumption per ton per mile. And railroads are very fuel efficient. A steel wheel on a steel rail creates very little resistance. For example, one man can push an empty 25 ton rail car with about the same effort as pushing an automobile. I’ve done it. Actual fuel consumption depends on the terrain where the railroad is, the length of train, the weight, and other factors. As an example however, I had a 101 car wheat train yesterday, Friday (13,100 tons). I’ll use this as an example. Each car carried about 100 tons of wheat (it could have been corn, coal, liquids, what ever). Each car holds close to 3 1/2 semi truck loads. So that 101 cars took 353 trucks off the highways. Now this is a loose guess here because I’m not sure of actual mileage, but I’m going to say that it cost about one gallon of fuel to haul each ton 290 miles. That’s a whole lot cheaper than fuel for all those trucks. A steel wheel o
