Here are a couple of videos showing train action in Switzerland.
The first is shot at Wohlen station along the northern approach to the Gotthard Pass. This area is the aagricultural heartland of Switzerland. There is Industry clustered along the railway, but otherwise it is all farmland. When you are looking at the station you are facing north towards Basle, and when you are looking the other way you can see the peaks of the Alps in the distance. The railways climbs gently southwards. The freights you see are mostly International freights crossing Switzerland between Germany and Italy.
Wohlen Station freight
The second is a very evocative night scene shot at Zürich Main Station from the end of a platform. The majority of trains must reverse out of here as it was built as a terminal station, however a pair of platforms were built a few years ago to allow some Zürich S-Bahn trains to continue east into tunnels under the city to serve station along the north shore of Lake Zürich and to swing north towards Oerlikon. You can see these trains dip down into a cut when the camera pans towards the right.
Zürich Hauptbahnhof by night
If you can I recommend viewing them full screen and at higher resolutions. I typically start and then stop the video and allow time for it to download it to my computer so as to not require rebuffering during my viewing.
John Beaulieu
Amazed at how short the freight trains are in the first video. Look to be 1000 feet or less.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
The length allowed in Italy over the relevant parts is 600 meters (about 1900 ft.) I would expect the Intermodals are about that length, including locomotives. The Swiss allow 750 meters over the main lines normally traveled by freight. The Steel train is likely to be shorter because of weight, and the grades ahead 2.7 %.
The second video is wild!!!! Never seen so many double slips and so many trains moving so close together. I am trying to figure out the signal aspects of the clear lights. Towards the end one changes from vertical lights to horizontal but I didn't notice anything change at the double slip. It was still setup for straight routing.
John:
The short train lengths mentioned; is that due in part to the grades or the length of the bocks, or both factors?
It is my impression that most of the cars used there are now versions of various container equiped styles? Noticed on one of the container trains shown going away from the camer, as they seemed to cross a switch or track anomly that caused a sort of sideways wiggle as the trucks crossed that pat of the track structure in that part of the train. The little sideways shimmy seemed pretty obvious in the video.
Having just returned from our walk this morning, I was struck particularly by the train lengths. The last several day, and Thanksgiving Day, especially, was really busy; quite a bit of traffic on the Transcon. I'd guess 4 to 5, or more trains per hour. Thursday there seemed to be an endless parade of them. The area here seems to be an area where they meet and pass on this double tracked section. This morning while out, I counted 6 trains. All but two were long Stackers, with three or four units on the point and two DPUs pushing.
There was one long grain train and a westbound long tank train. When I say long, the track crosses two Sections at a diagonal and they are pretty much stretched out that distance.
HEY DAD ! What's a boxcar? Seems them there Europeans only use Containers and passenger cars and have shorter trains. Well, Billie, they have MORE trains More often, and they don't travel 4000 miles like we do here, we haul lots of stuff over longer distances than our Swiss brothers, and we really don't believe (any more) in establishing a long distant rail system in North America. Will it happen in your lifetime Billie? likely not , I think it's a Government thing.
I enjoyed it until that music came on. What part of the engine produces the music. Is the first car after the engine the sound car. I use to have to do that before the miniaturation of the sound board and memory chip.
I stood in the Zurich station. I was so overwhelmed by the number of tracks. The amount of traffic through the station. How fast they make or break a train.
I still can not believe the very tight radius of the switch tracks.
I looked out over the tracks and thought of the switch tower job. I would have gone crazy in less than a minute.
Watching your footage. Now I wish I would have thought of some night shots and video. I spent many hours a day and a couple of days watching. I walked the couple of KLICKS to around the back from the passenger platforms. All the storage tracks, problem to many over grown fences.
I also stood on the bridge over the station yard attempting a look. To much over growth even on the bridge.
samfp1943 John: The short train lengths mentioned; is that due in part to the grades or the length of the bocks, or both factors?
Signal Blocks are 1 km long, when you subtract the signal overlap you have about 800 meters of usable length so trains are limited to 750 meters. In Italy signal blocks on the Classic lines (non-HSR) can be as short as 700 meters, so in some places train lengths are limited to only 400 meters which is a big problem with freights, Germany is experimenting with 1 km freight train lengths with the intent of getting to 1.5 km on certain lines equipped with sophisticated signalling systems like LZB and ETCS. These can give an unlimited number of signal indications because they tell you how fast you can go in increments of 10 kph, not just Green, Yellow, Red.
Wohlen station has four tracks with just a single island platform serving the inner pair of tracks which are straight. Normally the freights are routed via the two outside tracks which are the diverging tracks through the switches leading to the station area, hence the wiggle.
Having just returned from our walk this morning, I was struck particularly by the train lengths. The last several day, and Thanksgiving Day, especially, was really busy; quite a bit of traffic on the Transcon. I'd guess 4 to 5, or more trains per hour. Thursday there seemed to be an endless parade of them. The area here seems to be an area where they meet and pass on this double tracked section. This morning while out, I counted 6 trains. All but two were long Stackers, with three or four units on the point and two DPUs pushing. There was one long grain train and a westbound long tank train. When I say long, the track crosses two Sections at a diagonal and they are pretty much stretched out that distance.
Yes things seem to be getting better, even if it is painfully slow.
tatans HEY DAD ! What's a boxcar? Seems them there Europeans only use Containers and passenger cars and have shorter trains. Well, Billie, they have MORE trains More often, and they don't travel 4000 miles like we do here, we haul lots of stuff over longer distances than our Swiss brothers, and we really don't believe (any more) in establishing a long distant rail system in North America. Will it happen in your lifetime Billie? likely not , I think it's a Government thing.
Actually the third train shown was almost completely boxcars, only three tarpaulin covered steel carriers in the train. European boxcars (Sliding Wall Vans) are like our All-Door boxcars in that the complete side of the boxcar is composed of two doors that make up the whole side of the car. So with the door open you have complete access to one half the length of the car from a loading dock. Their newer reefers are built the same way.
The length (and weight) issues relate also to speed and track capacity. The key transalpine routes are mixed traffic and to keep capacity up all trains need to travel at something near the same speed. This means freights have to romp up hills at 40-50mph with high powered (c 12,000 hp a pair) and relatively light electric locos as opposed to drag slowly up using the adhesion powers, and creep control, of heavy diesels. These speeds are 10-20mph less than the passenger trains on the routes. As set out many times on this forum as speed increases the need for horsepower goes up big time.
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