rossiI saw Union Pacific has a intermodal speed of ~32 mile(~51km). While I saw intermodal/container rail at Russia, Kazakhstan, China has a speed of 46 km(1100 km/day).
I highly suspect this has more to do with dwell time than with actual speed developed by the power. The statistics you linked are averages, and include (as zero or near zero) the time the intermodal cars or trains are physically not moving. I expect there are longer 'bridge' runs involved with the Russian/Kazakh/Chinese runs, and perhaps a limited set of destinations (or pairs), so their trains are running more of the time. I don't know what they use for hours of service; perhaps someone here can tell you directly.
What you really want to see is something UP probably won't show you directly: the average speed actually spent moving and not stopped for some reason. (This could be net of all decelerations and accelerations at sidings, but not including dwell at them). I suspect UP, like some other railroads, is making intensive use of systems like LEADER to get better and better control over even momentary fuel burn relative to something like desired road speed or time-to-destination; I refer you to those who work with these systems for a better idea of how they are being used.
http://www.railroadpm.org/home/RPM/Performance%20Reports/UP.aspx
I saw Union Pacific has a intermodal speed of ~32 mile(~51km).
While I saw intermodal/container rail at Russia, Kazakhstan, China has a speed of 46 km(1100 km/day).
https://www.railfreight.com/corridors/2017/09/12/xl-trains-on-track-in-kazakhstan-russia-and-belarus/
Not sure what this mean? USA uses double stack container(on well cars), but Russia and China use single conatiner(on flat cars). Double Stack Container rail should have a lot larger gap than that of single container rail. A bigger gap translates into a biger Aerodynamic drag loss.. Does anyone know the diesel use percentage(%) in US rail companies(UP, BNSF, CSX, NSC).
Conrail counted on a range of 1200 miles from any six axle locomotive in intermodal service - provided the train was properly powered.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
CSX in the pre EHH days was advertising 480 miles for one ton on on gallon of fuel. That was calculated off the total tons CSX handled vs. the fuel used during the same period of time. The fuel used was used in yard, shops, idling during cold weather and any other time a locomotive would be operating and consuming fuel. What the specific fuel use would be in a specific service, I don't know.
The rule of thumb that was applied was 1000 miles per 5000 gallon fuel tank.
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Average speed are more like 30 mph for intermodal and low 20s for merchandise trains.
Fuel consumption for various train types, in fact, right down to the individual car and mile, can be pulled from modern costing systems - allocating fuel is one of the things they do very well - but I don't know any RR that's published numbers.
From memory - very roughly - intermodal trains get about 250-400 ton-mile/gallon, merchandise about 400-600, unit coal trains 700-1000.
Al Krug once did a chart showing fuel consumption of locomotives. I doubt it's up to date. And you'll have to search for it. Many of his files have been preserved on-line. Still, it may illustrate your question.
That said - it's speed that takes horsepower. Hence, the "fast forties," especially the GP40, etc. Lots of HP on four axles. I understand they tended to be a bit slippery, but that's the locomotive you put on your hot freight.
I've heard that you can move a pretty sizable train with a properly ballasted Briggs and Stratton 5HP motor. Just not very fast.
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We all know that at US+Canada Intermodal(40 +53 ft) has about 40 to 45% of volume in total railroad volume.
However, the average speed of Intermodal is about 60s mph, comparing with snail speed(~20s mph) of gondola, and other coal or tank cars.
I was wonder diesel consumption ratio of Intermodal sector is not at 40 or 45%..
The aerodynamic penalty of bluff/bricky conatiners, + double stack container is big at this speed(~60mph).
I wonder does anyone know the percentage(%) of diesel consumption in each sectors(IM, coal, chemical/tak, etc).
If anyone know, please post the URL link.
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