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American freight trains-59 mph....German Freight Trains-80mph The FRA is FAXing US railroads over.

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  • Member since
    April 2003
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Posted by Anonymous on Saturday, December 10, 2005 7:06 AM
QUOTE: Originally posted by tpatrick

Forgive me if I am repeating something from a few pages back. I read the first page and fast-forwarded to the end. But I would be surprised if the German speed was not Kph rather than Mph. The whole continent long ago went metric and I think a 48 mph freight would be more believable than an 80 mph freight. Distances between German cities are not that great, so higher speeds would not justify the cost . If I am wrong and German freights really do make 80 Mph, please dump on me with everything you've got.


The 80 MPH is not a typo. The axle loading on European railways especially in the UK are practically toy trainlike (meaning very very light)when compared to North American practice. Alot of the equipment is designed for high speed, most of the motive power is high HP electrics for everything, the freights have to move fast to keep out the way the of the the frequent high speed passenger (even low priorty passenger trains run at 200+ KPH or 120 MPH), so can't have a big speed differentialon the those high speed multitrack mainlines it would gum up the works.
  • Member since
    October 2004
  • From: U K
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Posted by mhurley87f on Tuesday, December 13, 2005 8:10 AM
QUOTE: Originally posted by oltmannd

QUOTE: Originally posted by TerminalTower

The Problem with American Railroads is not speed... Its the time that Railroad cars (And Passengers) spend in terminals and Yards...
Why should a freight car have to go thry at least 3-4 yards enroute to its destination?
As far as Amtrak passengers on the Metroliners can be on and off the trains in 5 min.
But in the midwest it can take as long as 20 to 30 minutes to disembark the train


Because car load freight shipments have many , many times the number of unique O/D pairs that passenger operations do. There aren't great chunks of traffic going from each O to each D.

For a week's worth of car load (excluding coal and intermodal) traffic on NS, there are over 14,000 unique OD pairs (on NS - it would be more if you considered offline origin and destinations). 42% of them have only one car. 87% have less than 10 cars.

If you accept that the profitability of railroading is at least partly based on economies of scale, then the trick is to balance intermediate handlings against train size and frequency. If you run more, shorter trains, you can reduce handlings but at the expense of crew cost and line capacity.

It may not be as bad as you think. A typical carload shipment on NS has an avg of 1.5 intermediate handlings


Are we perhaps only seeing the problems, and not the possibilities? Shouldn't RR thinking be focused on the whole of the potential traffic between individual Origins and Destinations, not merely Rail's current share, and working back from there?

Martin
  • Member since
    May 2003
  • From: US
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Posted by BaltACD on Tuesday, December 13, 2005 12:17 PM
QUOTE: Originally posted by mhurley87f

QUOTE: Originally posted by oltmannd

QUOTE: Originally posted by TerminalTower

The Problem with American Railroads is not speed... Its the time that Railroad cars (And Passengers) spend in terminals and Yards...
Why should a freight car have to go thry at least 3-4 yards enroute to its destination?
As far as Amtrak passengers on the Metroliners can be on and off the trains in 5 min.
But in the midwest it can take as long as 20 to 30 minutes to disembark the train


Because car load freight shipments have many , many times the number of unique O/D pairs that passenger operations do. There aren't great chunks of traffic going from each O to each D.

For a week's worth of car load (excluding coal and intermodal) traffic on NS, there are over 14,000 unique OD pairs (on NS - it would be more if you considered offline origin and destinations). 42% of them have only one car. 87% have less than 10 cars.

If you accept that the profitability of railroading is at least partly based on economies of scale, then the trick is to balance intermediate handlings against train size and frequency. If you run more, shorter trains, you can reduce handlings but at the expense of crew cost and line capacity.

It may not be as bad as you think. A typical carload shipment on NS has an avg of 1.5 intermediate handlings


Are we perhaps only seeing the problems, and not the possibilities? Shouldn't RR thinking be focused on the whole of the potential traffic between individual Origins and Destinations, not merely Rail's current share, and working back from there?

Martin


Railroads, at least in the US/Canada where they are private enterprises can [b]only[/]b work from a position of actual traffic levels as actual traffic pays the bills. Potential traffic is always brought into the equation, howver only to the extent that the potential traffic becomes real. Rail transport is not the answer for all commodities at all times for all businesses and it is not in the railroads financial or operating interests to suggest that rail should be transporting all available traffic.

Never too old to have a happy childhood!

              

  • Member since
    December 2001
  • From: Cambridge, UK
  • 419 posts
Posted by owlsroost on Tuesday, December 13, 2005 12:48 PM
QUOTE: The 80 MPH is not a typo. The axle loading on European railways especially in the UK are practically toy trainlike (meaning very very light)when compared to North American practice. Alot of the equipment is designed for high speed, most of the motive power is high HP electrics for everything, the freights have to move fast to keep out the way the of the the frequent high speed passenger (even low priorty passenger trains run at 200+ KPH or 120 MPH), so can't have a big speed differentialon the those high speed multitrack mainlines it would gum up the works.


Actually, permissible axle loads in the UK are generally higher than mainland Europe (25.4 tonnes in the UK, 22.5 tonnes commonly elsewhere in Europe - but there are doubtless many local variations). Maximum freight train speed is 75 mph (120 kph) in the UK so I would expect Germany to be around the same.

There has been talk of raising the maximum axle load to 30 tonnes for freight on certain routes in the UK, but it hasn't happened yet.

A lot of passenger trains in Europe run at or below 100mph top speed - it's only worth the extra maintenance/running/line capacity costs to run faster than this for the long distance trains where passengers will pay more for the shorter journey times.

Tony
  • Member since
    December 2005
  • From: Hampshire, England
  • 290 posts
Posted by germanium on Wednesday, December 14, 2005 6:25 AM
In my experience and knowledge of railway management, their thinking tends to be as tramellede as their tracks! It took UK railway companies some considerable time to wake up to the threat of the tramcar (Trolley systems to you !) and just as long to wake up to the encroachment of the automobile onto their passenger traffic.
When UK railways (under the previous administration) were reverted to private ownership, each railway management seem to have ordered its own particular type of passenger car, with the attendant overheads, such as design costs. This instead of taking a leaf out of the automobile industry's book and building (say) 5000 cars with fittings as required, with obviously lower unit costs.
Posssibly MIT would be better employed in designing solutions to maximise car mileage and minimise the handling and detention of cars by railroads and shippers.

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