Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Murphy Siding wrote: Does this involve a fair amount of mountain rairoading, like in the western US and Canada?
Murphy Siding wrote: I'm trying to picture the topography of continental Europe in my head.....Doesn't a train that goes from The Netherlands, to Italy go through some majot mountains in Switzerland or France?
I am going to change the name of the thread to Continental European railway operations. It is shorter and more clear. Anybody with improvements on the name?
greetings,
Marc Immeker
marcimmeker wrote:The ore trains running from the port of Rotterdam to the steel mill at Dillingen (Saarland) Germany can weigh up to 5400 tons. They use 6 axle cars with automatic couplers (not air, that is still hand coupled). At each end there is a special car since the locomotives used (3 1600 hp class 6400 diesels or a 1600 class electric with help from 6400 class diesels) don't have these couplers. These cars come of at Venlo or Emmerich (border stations and change of overhead voltages. The German locomotives had the automatic couplers. At least the older class used, don't know about the newer ones. greetings, Marc Immeker
The ore trains running from the port of Rotterdam to the steel mill at Dillingen (Saarland) Germany can weigh up to 5400 tons. They use 6 axle cars with automatic couplers (not air, that is still hand coupled). At each end there is a special car since the locomotives used (3 1600 hp class 6400 diesels or a 1600 class electric with help from 6400 class diesels) don't have these couplers. These cars come of at Venlo or Emmerich (border stations and change of overhead voltages. The German locomotives had the automatic couplers. At least the older class used, don't know about the newer ones.
Well, I'm back from my holiday to Helgoland.
After acquiring a lot of books and photographs and then a cd with 2200 old photographs some questions are answered and there is a new one.
There was indeed a large network of narrow gauge lines, probably 2 gauges and on both Helgoland itself and later on its companion, Dune, when it was enlarged to house an airfield.
At least one steam engine was used. As were diesels on construction work around the islands.
The new mystery is a photograph of an electric locomotive with a short train next to the lower powerhouse taken in 1921 (it says so in a book). It looks like a 2 axle AEG (sloping hoods and what looks to be a high cab, no doubt due to the shortness of the hoods). Anyone with an AEG workslist?
There was a tunnel with a cable car to haul supplies. It was used again in Hitlers time but got blown up like the rest of the southern tip of the island (and that explosion left a mighty big hole...).
Interestingly, when the Germans rebuild the island after they got it back in 1952 they build a new, short tunnel at the upper end of the location of the original. {edit: they build a new cable car which used the tunnel at hte upper end. Halfway and out in the open was a passing place. It is very visible in some old photographs. The lower end isn't.} On the upland side there are some remains of tracks in the concrete. This tunnel is now used by the electric cars used to supply the businesses and hotels on the upland.
Other remains of tracks can be found at the end of the moles of the southern harbour.
The track on the ostmole (eastern breakwater) is accesible. I played archeologist and took a few pieces of the track. Under the influence of salt water it is falling into pieces that split lengthwise from the track.
The westmole is new after a storm broke it and from the air a few pieces of narrow gauge and crane track could be seen on what remains of the original westmole.
cogload wrote: Beaulieu - are you a Brit? It seems that you are very clued up on chuffer ops over here (en europe as well); thats all.
Beaulieu - are you a Brit?
It seems that you are very clued up on chuffer ops over here (en europe as well); thats all.
I'd call him an honorary Brit.
I think you will see things change in the next few years as companies in Europe no longer need to be able to interchange cars. Each will then be able to go their own way, and the use of buffers will end. Already the heavy Iron Ore trains from Rotterdam to the Saar are equipped with autocouplers. Other trains like container trains will follow. Cars used in carload service will be last.
Some (maybe all) of new freight cars EWS has acquired in UK are fitted with US-style couplers (known as 'Buckeye' here), and the majority of the EWS loco fleet is equiped with both types of coupling gear. Iron ore trains in the UK have been fitted with AAR-type rotating couplers (to allow rotary dumping without uncoupling cars) since the late 1970's. Also, most express passenger rolling stock built in the UK since the mid-1950's has been fitted with Buckeye or other types of automatic centre couplers.
If I remember correctly, there were moves in the 1970's to establish a standard European (UIC) automatic coupler, but it never really got anywhere as far as I know.
Tony
cogload wrote:Beaulieu - are you a Brit? It seems that you are very clued up on chuffer ops over here (en europe as well); thats all.
440cuin wrote:You can't just measure efficiency of a railroad just by crew sizes and traffic density. European freights often have only one crew member but cannot do any work on route exerpt at manned stations. European stations have more personel compared to the USA. Station personel are used for set offs and swicthing. A line with only one large train a day is better off with a full crew of say 3 men then keeping station staff around to help several small freights, it can easily end up using more labour to handle the same tonnage. I've seen Euro stations where a crew of 3 don't have much to do because only one freight sets off and lifts in each direction often only 3 or 4 two axle cars with 30 ton grain loads. More recently another freight comes by 3 times a week just to run around it's train with the engine and go the other way because there is no more train personel at a junction down the line where it sould realy be turning.
You can't just measure efficiency of a railroad just by crew sizes and traffic density. European freights often have only one crew member but cannot do any work on route exerpt at manned stations. European stations have more personel compared to the USA. Station personel are used for set offs and swicthing. A line with only one large train a day is better off with a full crew of say 3 men then keeping station staff around to help several small freights, it can easily end up using more labour to handle the same tonnage. I've seen Euro stations where a crew of 3 don't have much to do because only one freight sets off and lifts in each direction often only 3 or 4 two axle cars with 30 ton grain loads. More recently another freight comes by 3 times a week just to run around it's train with the engine and go the other way because there is no more train personel at a junction down the line where it sould realy be turning.
Very true but those days are gradually coming to an end. Particularly in those countries with Open Access. You may be familiar with the German program called MORA-C which was a program by DB Cargo to reduce losses on single carload railfreight in the mid -nineties. The government decided to reduce subsidies which raised losses at DB so they had to cut off the most expensive part of single car operations . They also have invested in improving their humpyards to more make them State of the Art for 2000, they are about halfway through the program of rebuilding their yards. Recently they began a new round of carload cutbacks. Open Access and the desire, and requirement to end subsidies is doing this. The Swiss who have a Railfreight marketshare similar to the US just went though a similar carload service cut back which they finished in April, 2006. Due to social concerns they don't tend to layoff employees like in the US. In the Swiss case there will be enough retirements to take care of the extra Employees, although there will need to be some shifting of where people work.
US railroads adjust their freight trains more to customer demand compared to many Euro freight trains wich often are very compromised to fit between passenger scheduals. US trains only handle freight that is profitable to handle and just turns down other traffic that is less profitable or non profitable.
Of course in Europe, the solution because the trains are smaller is to cutoff trains. Remember what you saw in the Eighties and early-Nineties in Europe no longer applies. Open Access in the central core of Europe has changed everything. The changes in France will be delayed, but should happen also.
Also if you think about ot why should there be two buffers at the end of each car? one buffer to the right on all equipement would accomplish the same for half the amount of buffers. Some permanemtly coupled cars are like this. Buffers are used in Europe but not in Russia (a huge rail network) and not in Japan or large parts of Austaria and Africa.I'd say most trains in the world do not use buffers .
Hugh Jampton wrote:and I,, oh forget it...It's easier to work out the various efficiencies (I'm but a simple engineer, % efficiency is work out / work in * 100, but my economist friends can work out efficiency a hundred different ways) for the American railroads as they're mostly freight. This report from the University of Minnisota is quite comprehensive on the American side. http://www.trb.org/conferences/railworkshop/background-McCullough.pdfThe difficulty is that Europe is a much more mixed traffic affair, and I'm sure to try and work out tonne km / employee would probably never give an accurate answer (e.g. signallers and track maintenance people who don't work directly for the freight operator). RRUK have looked at efficieny of route usage and show that the US is 3.4 times more efficient than the UK. http://portal.railresearch.org.uk/RRUK/Shared%20Documents/BENCHMARKING2.pdf The comparison table is at the bottom of page 2 and compares a number of countries.
Murphy Siding wrote: Is all European rail traffic predominately centered on passenger traffic?
Simon Reed wrote:And I disagree with...etc.. The Phillips article is a generalisation so I have also generalised. I think we're all familiar with the concept of UP's triple track raceway across Nebraska and I'd completely agree that this diesel freight railroading at it's optimum, with uninterrupted high speed running over a well engineered level-ish route. That, however, is very much an exception. Let's think about a unit coal train heading East from Powder River. UP and BNSF have the whole Powder River operation running quite nicely - see this months Railfan and Railroad. Once you're across Nebraska, however, both roads suffer a huge dwell time in Kansas City. Dwell time is pretty much an unknown concept in Europe. It does exist, but is managed. East of KC the comparison is no longer viable, primarily because you're on single track routes. I've often wondered how much of a US crew's 12 hours is tied up waiting for meets. You're also climbing, so will maybe need 4 locos. As I say, the Europe/US comparison is'nt valid but how cost effective is 2 men and 4 locos doing maybe 100 miles in 12 hours?
And I disagree with...etc..
The Phillips article is a generalisation so I have also generalised.
I think we're all familiar with the concept of UP's triple track raceway across Nebraska and I'd completely agree that this diesel freight railroading at it's optimum, with uninterrupted high speed running over a well engineered level-ish route.
That, however, is very much an exception.
Let's think about a unit coal train heading East from Powder River. UP and BNSF have the whole Powder River operation running quite nicely - see this months Railfan and Railroad. Once you're across Nebraska, however, both roads suffer a huge dwell time in Kansas City.
Dwell time is pretty much an unknown concept in Europe. It does exist, but is managed.
East of KC the comparison is no longer viable, primarily because you're on single track routes. I've often wondered how much of a US crew's 12 hours is tied up waiting for meets. You're also climbing, so will maybe need 4 locos.
As I say, the Europe/US comparison is'nt valid but how cost effective is 2 men and 4 locos doing maybe 100 miles in 12 hours?
Simon Reed wrote:I've just got my July Trains magazine. Don Phillips suggests that European freight operations are inefficient and labour intensive in comparison to the North American model. I'd disagree. How can a freight travelling at maybe 25MPH on a secondary route with three or four crew members aboard be more efficient than a single manned 75MPH freight? I accept that European railroads can't move 100+ unit coal or intermodal trains but in cost per mile terms which is the more efficient? I'm asking this from a European perspective - any offers? Possibly this is a question that cannot be answered. Later in the same magazine I read that Ohio Central crews consider themselves lucky to know their assignments a week in advance...I'd imagine most Western European passenger and freight crews will have rosters up to three months in advance, indicative of the enormous divides between US and European railroading cultures.
I've just got my July Trains magazine.
Don Phillips suggests that European freight operations are inefficient and labour intensive in comparison to the North American model.
I'd disagree. How can a freight travelling at maybe 25MPH on a secondary route with three or four crew members aboard be more efficient than a single manned 75MPH freight?
I accept that European railroads can't move 100+ unit coal or intermodal trains but in cost per mile terms which is the more efficient?
I'm asking this from a European perspective - any offers?
Possibly this is a question that cannot be answered. Later in the same magazine I read that Ohio Central crews consider themselves lucky to know their assignments a week in advance...I'd imagine most Western European passenger and freight crews will have rosters up to three months in advance, indicative of the enormous divides between US and European railroading cultures.
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