John and Joe have raised an excellent example, and the earliest so far. Perhaps
THE first CP unit train service. Began around April, 1970.
Here's a five-part series of pages:
http://www.crowsnest.bc.ca/revival1.html ;
http://www.crowsnest.bc.ca/revival1.html
which, in the second of the five pages, includes the following definition:
"A very important part of the concept was that the trains should operate as
units (or "unit trains") and not be broken up into individual cars at yards in
the way traditional freight trains were handled by the railways. Unless a car
was taken out of a train for scheduled maintenance, it stayed in the train from
one cycle to another from the mine to the coast and back to the mine, without
ever being uncoupled."
Here's an article about the unit trains heading for Roberts Bank:
http://www.okthepk.ca/dataCprSiding/articles/201206/month00.htm ;
http://www.okthepk.ca/dataCprSiding/articles/201206/month00.htm
and another one on the bathtub cars:
http://www.okthepk.ca/dataCprSiding/articles/201206/news01.htm ;
http://www.okthepk.ca/dataCprSiding/articles/201206/news01.htm
Remember the publicity photos CP took of the trains in the mountains, with
Centuries and red (later black) bathtubs?
It depends on our definition of 'unit train'. Once that's agreed, we can look
for examples. I think these coal trains provide an excellent example.
Eric Gagnon
Kingston, Ontario
My three new books on VIA Rail available at:
http://newviarailbook.blogspot.ca http://newviarailbook.blogspot.ca
---In cpsig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, <kvrailway@...> wrote:
This is a discussion which easily can descend into hair-splitting and
semantics. Technically, Jon may be correct in stating that the silk trains
were an early example
of a unit train. However, it wasn't a unit train in the same sense that we
think of unit trains today. For one thing, silk trains were a speciality
train which were absolutely
unique in North America for their absolute priority and ability to operate
at regular passenger train speeds and above. To the best of my knowledge,
even though they handled merchandise,
the equipment handling silk was special service equipment and had passenger
service braking equipment, which right there separated them from freight
service. Silk
trains were more truly an express train operating essentially to passenger
train standards, but without the passengers. Silk trains were in a category
all by themselves
and I doubt that anybody in the industry at that time would have considered
the silk trains to be unit trains as we think of them today.
