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.
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
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
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
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
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.
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