Continental European Railway Operations

[beaulieu]

Does anyone know if there was an AC high voltage electrification anywhere in the World in 1903?

10Kv. 50 Hz 3-phase in the Berlin area from 1901 to 1904.

10Kv. 16 2/3 Hz. 1-phase Murnau to Obergammarau from 1904

The common 15Kv 16 2/3 Hz. began in 1911 between Bitterfeld and Dessau

[owlsroost]

Does anyone know if there was an AC high voltage electrification anywhere in the World in 1903?

Dave,

Out of interest, why 1903 in particular ?

Tony

 

[beaulieu]

Here is a first look at the new Vossloh built, GM powered Euro 4000 locomotive. This is a SD70M-2 in a European package.

Euro 4000

[Tulyar15]

The cabs remind me of the EWS Class 67, which have the same engine as the Class 66's built in Canada by EMD, but the 67's were built by Alsthom in Spain and are Bo-Bo rather than Co-Co.

[MStLfan]

Didn't Alsthom sell a plant in Spain (Valencia? Formerly Macosa or something like that? They held a license from EMD) to Vossloh? That may be the explanation to the similarities in cabstyling. Does this mean an end to the deliveries of class 66 from Canada? 

Personally, I think Siemens has a better looking cab but as long as it gets the job done...

By the way, I prefer the Seehafen Kiel loks for looks.

greetings,

Marc Immeker

[owlsroost]

Didn't Alsthom sell a plant in Spain (Valencia? Formerly Macosa or something like that? They held a license from EMD) to Vossloh? That may be the explanation to the similarities in cabstyling.

Yes, they did, and that would explain the styling heritage (personally I think the 67's are ugly - much prefer the class 66 styling, but I appreciate the aerodynamic styling issues with a 125mph loco).

Does this mean an end to the deliveries of class 66 from Canada?

I doubt it - the 66 is a proven, reliable design built in quantity, almost certainly cheaper to buy than the Euro 4000 is ever likely to be.

Does anyone have more technical details on the Euro 4000 - the only stuff I could find from a quick Google search was that it uses a V16 710G prime mover, D43 traction motors and weighs about 120 tonnes, with (from the pictures) Vossloh's own Co-Co bodyshell and truck design. I think this would make it electrically more akin to an uprated 66 than an SD70M (which I assume has D77 traction motors).

Tony

[Hugh Jampton]

I don't think we'll se the end of the 66s too soon.
The Euro 4000 is quite big at 4264mm high and 2850mm wide so it's a bit big for a lot of the loading gauges as it'll only fit in a UIC-GC gauge.
While the 66 is a tiny 3900mm high and 2640mm wide and can fit in a lot more places.

[beaulieu]

I don't think we'll se the end of the 66s too soon.
The Euro 4000 is quite big at 4264mm high and 2850mm wide so it's a bit big for a lot of the loading gauges as it'll only fit in a UIC-GC gauge.
While the 66 is a tiny 3900mm high and 2640mm wide and can fit in a lot more places.

The Vossloh plant in Spain is the one that built the Class 67s for the UK. The RENFE locomotive has the same bogies as the Class 67, same powertrain too. With all the requirements for approvals and the length of time it takes to get them, I doubt if the Class 66 will disappear any time soon. I think the Euro 4000 was targeted to the new German passenger operators like Nord Ost Bahn (NOB). Tony, the SD70M-2 actually has D100TR traction motors, quite a bit stronger (heavier too!) than the D77 type found on the Class 59s. It will be interesting to see how the Euro 4000 does against its competitor the Voith Maxima, which also was released from the factory this week, and also to be shown at Innotrans 2006.

[Murphy Siding]

Here is a first look at the new Vossloh built, GM powered Euro 4000 locomotive. This is a SD70M-2 in a European package.

Euro 4000

     Maybe it's just me, but I liked the look of the smaller road switchers in the photos better.  What are they?

[Hugh Jampton]

Here is a first look at the new Vossloh built, GM powered Euro 4000 locomotive. This is a SD70M-2 in a European package.

Euro 4000

     Maybe it's just me, but I liked the look of the smaller road switchers in the photos better.  What are they?

They appear to be Vossloh G-1200s
http://www.vossloh-locomotives.com/fs_main.html
(you'll need to poke around a bit to find them)

or possibly they're G 1100s if this site is to be believed http://www.railfaneurope.net/pix/de/private/port/SK/pix.html


in any event Seehafen Kiel is the Port of Keil and these engines are part of their railway.

[beaulieu]

Here is a first look at the new Vossloh built, GM powered Euro 4000 locomotive. This is a SD70M-2 in a European package.

Euro 4000

     Maybe it's just me, but I liked the look of the smaller road switchers in the photos better.  What are they?

The lead locomotive is a Vossloh (MaK) G1206 built in 2001, the trailing roadswitcher is a MaK G1203 built in 1991, the G1206 is an improved G1203 slightly more powerful etc.
Seehafen Kiel had a G1100 but sold it to NEG when they bought the new G1206. The G1100 was a bit more powerful and was succeeded in the Vossloh lineup by the G1700. There are hundreds of these roadswitchers running around Europe built by Vossloh and its predecessors under various models.

[owlsroost]

Finally tracked down where the EMD website has moved to - http://www.emdiesels.com - there's Euro 4000 info at http://www.emdiesels.com/en/locomotive/international/euro4000/index.htm

Tony

[sebamat]

The Rolling Highway hauls tractors and trailers. It survives only because it is more heavily subsidised than unacompanied combined traffid (trailers or containers). This is a political decision. Subsidies come from the taxpayers, although trucks have to pay a heave-load-tax in Switzerland and in some other countries. In Germany, for example, the tax is limited to highways (and some other roads), while in Switzerland, it is general. In France and Italy, you have to pay for using highways, there are toll-gates. I thing, France wants to introduce a Rolling Highway too. A few years ago, the Germans tried it to avoid congestion in the Munich area, but the trains were discontinued after a few months because of insufficient patronage.

There is another kind of patronage: azmat loads that are not allowed in the long highway's tunnels under the Alps (Gotthard, Gran Sanbernardo). On the Gotthard line the majority of the loads are tank trucks.

 

sebastiano

[sebamat]

I've admired those huge threads about British railroading or the coffeeshop.
So I am going to start one here about European railroading in general.

Marc Immeker

A question I had im my head from long time: why did european RRs choose to use 4 wheels (2 axes) freight and passenger cars (even after having tried the 8 wheels cars in 1860-80s, e.g Wuertenger and some ante SBB swiss rrs), and only after WW1 started using again 4 axes passenger cars (after going with the 3 axes ones)? They are still building 2 axes freight cars today (but the percentage of 4 axes increased a lot in the last 20-30 years).

US RR started almost from the beginning with the 4 axes, and never changed. What are the advantages (and the down side?) of this choice.

Sebastiano

[TH&B]

Switzerland is in a unique position in that as far as freight traffic is concerned most of it is bridge traffic between Italy, germany and France. Sitzerland would have very little benifit in having large amounts of trucks driving through only gengeling the hiways and poluting the valleys with little economic gain for Switzerland itself. It is not an EU country so EU laws don't apply, so if the surounding big countries insist on wanting to truck or rail their comerce through Switzerland then wring them dry, make the shippers pay wich is what they are doing by charging the truckers heavily who will have to recover the charges from the shippers who are the Germans, Italians and French and even the rest of Europe.

The Swiss taxpayers cover the great internal passenger train services and the very expensive mountainous roads.

[Murphy Siding]

    In general, who owns the railroads/track/equipment in Europe.  I understand the situation in Britain from the British thread.  Ownership on the continent is a little fuzzier.  I thought most were state owned, but mention of Ed Burkhardt owning parts of some European roads makes me wonder.

[Hugh Jampton]

    In general, who owns the railroads/track/equipment in Europe.  I understand the situation in Britain from the British thread.  Ownership on the continent is a little fuzzier.  I thought most were state owned, but mention of Ed Burkhardt owning parts of some European roads makes me wonder.

Railways of the European Union generally are organized into separate units for management of infrastructure, freight operations, and passenger operations, although in most countries all units are still government-owned. There's some open access operations in most countries now, but these are relatively small potatoes in the grand scheme of things.

[beaulieu]

    In general, who owns the railroads/track/equipment in Europe.  I understand the situation in Britain from the British thread.  Ownership on the continent is a little fuzzier.  I thought most were state owned, but mention of Ed Burkhardt owning parts of some European roads makes me wonder.

Hugh, hit the answer, the details are more complicated. In simplest form, in all European countries the government owns the infrastructure. Exactly how they own it varies from country to country. In a few cases its as simple as that, in most cases its more complicated. I am not sure of the arrangements in the two "B"s, the Baltic Republics and the Balkans. Let me run down some of the countries,
in these countries the Infrastructure is owned by a Government owned company separate from the National Railway, France, Italy, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Spain, Finland, Bulgaria, Romania.
In these countries the Infrastructure is owned by the National Railway, at least theoretically in an independent subsidiary, Germany, Belgium, Poland, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary.
In Switzerland it is a little more complicated as there are several railways separate from the SBB, the National Railway. As an example BLS (Bern-Loetschberg-Simplon) In Switzerland it is a subsidiary of the operator that owns the Infrastructure.
One place I do disagree with Hugh is over the Open Access freight operations. In the Netherlands there is no longer a National Freight Operator, the National Operator is now the German National Railway's freight operator Railion. In the Netherlands it is as open as it is in the UK. In Germany Railion is the National Operator and is a tough competitor but the young lions are eroding its share of the market. In 2005 the OA companies including SBB Cargo the Swiss National Railway now have 15 percent of the market up from just over 10 percent in 2004. They have accomplished this while Railion has lost less than 1 percent of its tonne-kilometers.

Regarding Ed Burkhardt. Ed bought a franchise in Estonia which is named Estee Raudtee (Estonian Railways), and which was the main freight part of the National Railway. This included exclusive use of the tracks for something like 25 years. At the time Estonia was not yet part of the EU. Now with Estonia part of the EU they are working to break the contract with Ed as it violates EU law. Also the Russian's on whom Ed depends for most of his traffic are playing rough. They would like him out of there. Ed's other venture is a small Open Access operator in Poland. Poland has implemented a limited form of Open Access, you have to establish a separate company in Poland. Ed's company is very small so far. The National Freight Railway in Poland is PKP Cargo, they are many times the size of Ed's company.

[beaulieu]

Here is a listing by size of the largest freight operators in the EU and EFTA leaving out the Baltic Republics.
* - indicates a OA only operator (Not a National Railway) Ranking is by 2005 tonne-kilometers
figures are in millions of tonne-kilometers.

Name              Country                2004              2005        Change

Railion              Germany           77,621          83,111      +7.1 %
PKP Cargo       Poland             47,847           43,791     - 8.5%
SNCF Fret      France               46,348           40,697    - 12.2%
Green Cargo  Sweden              32,300           32,200    -0.3%
Trenitalia         Italy                      21,046          20,118    -4.4%
RCA                Austria                19,026           18,012    -5.3%
FOC*               UK                       15,020          16,100    +7.2%
CD Cargo      Czech Republic  14,586           14,356   -1.6%
SBB Cargo    Switzerland           9,282            11,482   +23.7%
RENFE          Spain                    11,365           10,823   -4.8%
VR                   Finland                 10,105             9,706   -3.9%
ZSSK Cargo Slovakia                  9,675             9,328   -3.6%
MAV               Hungary                  8,270             8,517   +3.0%
B-Cargo         Belgium                  7,690             8,130   +5.7%
Rail4Chem*   Germany                                        3,600
SZ                   Slovenia                 3,147             3,245    +3.1%
BLS Cargo*   Switzerland            2,126             2,823   +32.0%
CP                   Portugal                 2,280             2,422    +6.2%
TX Logistics*  Germany                2,000     
HGK *              Germany                                       1,748  
GySEV*           Hungary/Austria        670               658    -1.8%
OSE                 Greece                       593               625   +5.4%
CFL                  Luxembourg              561               392    -30.1%


BLS and GySEV are not National Railways but do own significant sections of track.
Note that both Swiss Railways did well, with SBB Cargo moving up three places on the list. Rail4Chem is growing at a double digit rate. The figure for the UK is the combined total for EW&S, Freightliner, GB Railfreight, and DRS.

[daveklepper]

1903 is the year that the New York New Haven and Hartford management decided on 11000 volt 25 cycle AC electrification.  The first New Haven electrics into Grand Central ran in 1907.  Apparenly the German electrication of 1904 was the first single phase AC electrification.

[owlsroost]

1903 is the year that the New York New Haven and Hartford management decided on 11000 volt 25 cycle AC electrification.  The first New Haven electrics into Grand Central ran in 1907.  Apparenly the German electrication of 1904 was the first single phase AC electrification.

The London, Brighton and South Coast Railway in the UK also decided on 6600V 25Hz overhead electrification in the same year (apparently after a visit to the USA), but the first trains didn't run until 1909.

Eventually the LBSCR system was converted to 660/750V DC 3rd rail in the late 1920's to bring it in line with the rest of the Southern Railway system (formed by merging the LBSCR, LSWR, SER and LCDR in 1923). Pity really - in modern terms, the 6600V 25Hz system would be much more suitable for the sort of high-performance trains running on the system today. DC 3rd rail is fine for short distance urban systems because it keeps the train equipment simple (which is why it's common in metro/subway systems) but it takes a lot of feeder stations to cover the 140 miles from London to Weymouth....

Tony

[martin.knoepfel]

Rail4Chem is focused on chemicals. Other OA-carriers as well as the state-owned companies haul a large degree of differtent goods.

[Simon Reed]

Lancaster, Morecambe and Heysham began running at 6600V 25Hz in 1908.

The original motor cars were equiped by Siemens (Germany) or Westinghouse (USA) suggesting that the board had made fact finding enquiries in both directions.

An interesting and comprehensive history is here:-

http://glostransporthistory.softdata.co.uk/electrif.htm

An interesting reference in the article is to the South India Railway. Are we looking at the wrong continents for pioneering HV electrification? 

[beaulieu]

1903 is the year that the New York New Haven and Hartford management decided on 11000 volt 25 cycle AC electrification.  The first New Haven electrics into Grand Central ran in 1907.  Apparenly the German electrication of 1904 was the first single phase AC electrification.

Now that I know what you are looking for I can answer it for you. In 1903 Swiss engineer Hans Behn-Eschenburg working for Maschinenfabrik Oerlikon (MFO) successfully demonstrated a fully controllable single phase AC motor of a size useful for a railway. In 1904 MFO electrified a SBB  branchline from Zurich Seebach to Wettingen at 5.5Kv 16Hz AC. The New Haven probably heard or saw the demonstration and were convinced.

[beaulieu]

I've admired those huge threads about British railroading or the coffeeshop.
So I am going to start one here about European railroading in general.

Marc Immeker

A question I had im my head from long time: why did european RRs choose to use 4 wheels (2 axes) freight and passenger cars (even after having tried the 8 wheels cars in 1860-80s, e.g Wuertenger and some ante SBB swiss rrs), and only after WW1 started using again 4 axes passenger cars (after going with the 3 axes ones)? They are still building 2 axes freight cars today (but the percentage of 4 axes increased a lot in the last 20-30 years).

US RR started almost from the beginning with the 4 axes, and never changed. What are the advantages (and the down side?) of this choice.

Sebastiano

There are many reasons to use 2 2-axle bogies (trucks), the reason that US railroads went to them early is due to the poorer quality of our track. Rolling stock with bogies handles bad track better.
As to why the Europeans stayed with two axle stock longer, I can think of three contributing factors.
One, speeds were low for freight and distances were short. Two on the Continent frequent wars probably  meant there was greater demand for the money to rebuild the railways, certainly there was an incentive to make freight cars last as long as possible. Three in many cases lack of competition, so little or no innovation. I think now that open access is taking hold you will see most freight cars built with capacity, up to the maximum weight allowed. Many of the current 2 axle freight cars have no more weight carrying capacity than a highway truck.

[beaulieu]

Switzerland is in a unique position in that as far as freight traffic is concerned most of it is bridge traffic between Italy, germany and France. Sitzerland would have very little benifit in having large amounts of trucks driving through only gengeling the hiways and poluting the valleys with little economic gain for Switzerland itself. It is not an EU country so EU laws don't apply, so if the surounding big countries insist on wanting to truck or rail their comerce through Switzerland then wring them dry, make the shippers pay wich is what they are doing by charging the truckers heavily who will have to recover the charges from the shippers who are the Germans, Italians and French and even the rest of Europe.

The Swiss taxpayers cover the great internal passenger train services and the very expensive mountainous roads.

Further to your point, it is now codified in the Swiss Constitution that the Government must get truck traffic levels down to 1990 levels within two years after the completion of the Alpine Base tunnels. Originally it was to be 2 years after the Loetschberg opened, but the Government said there was no way that could be done, so it will be two years after the Gotthard Base Tunnel is done.

The heavy taxes on large trucks is providing between half and 2/3 of the money for boring the two railway base tunnels. The Swiss are influenced by the EU, by treaty the EU agreed not to contest the Swiss truck taxes since the Swiss used the money for two things, the first is to construct the two base tunnels, and the second is to subsidize transalpine Intermodal service. All Intermodal service operating in or though Switzerland is subsidized by the Government with the money being paid to the IM company, this also includes the Rolling Highway services. The Swiss Government also provides money to build or upgrade Intermodal facilities based upon how much traffic will move across Switzerland. The Swiss agreed to spend all the money raised by the truck taxes on improved transportation facilities, so they aren't wringing the rest of Europe dry.

[beaulieu]

Rail4Chem is focused on chemicals. Other OA-carriers as well as the state-owned companies haul a large degree of differtent goods.

Martin, Rail4Chem certainly hauls a lot of chemicals, its biggest stockholder is BASF, but they are also the third largest contractor for Hupac, ahead of Trenitalia, TX Logistics, and Dillen & LeJeune Cargo. So they are big in Intermodal too.

[martin.knoepfel]

In Switzerland, railways are in a somehow privileged position. They can run day and night. Trucks are not allowed to run during the night and on weekends, exept for perishables.

In several other European countries, IIRC Germany being among them, trucks are banned on weekends, too. However, there is no EU-standard as to weekend-bans for trucks.

[Anonymous]

I've admired those huge threads about British railroading or the coffeeshop.
So I am going to start one here about European railroading in general.

Marc Immeker

A question I had im my head from long time: why did european RRs choose to use 4 wheels (2 axes) freight and passenger cars (even after having tried the 8 wheels cars in 1860-80s, e.g Wuertenger and some ante SBB swiss rrs), and only after WW1 started using again 4 axes passenger cars (after going with the 3 axes ones)? They are still building 2 axes freight cars today (but the percentage of 4 axes increased a lot in the last 20-30 years).

US RR started almost from the beginning with the 4 axes, and never changed. What are the advantages (and the down side?) of this choice.

Sebastiano

There are many reasons to use 2 2-axle bogies (trucks), the reason that US railroads went to them early is due to the poorer quality of our track. Rolling stock with bogies handles bad track better.
As to why the Europeans stayed with two axle stock longer, I can think of three contributing factors.
One, speeds were low for freight and distances were short. Two on the Continent frequent wars probably  meant there was greater demand for the money to rebuild the railways, certainly there was an incentive to make freight cars last as long as possible. Three in many cases lack of competition, so little or no innovation. I think now that open access is taking hold you will see most freight cars built with capacity, up to the maximum weight allowed. Many of the current 2 axle freight cars have no more weight carrying capacity than a highway truck.

There isn't necessarily a correlation between maximizing load factor and using 2 axle bogies.  Indeed, the opposite is true - load factor actually improves with single axle bogies vs two axle bogies because a lot of extra parts are disposed with, e.g. no need for a center plate et al.  It is the rigid wheelbase of railcars with single axle bogies that limits their use for cars that require a solid platform at maximum length.  Single axle bogies work well for cars that come in multiple platforms wherein the commodity is aggregatable such as coal (the Southern 100 4 unit coal car comes to mind), or with lighter weight items where the space between platforms can straddled such as the Iron Highway ro-ro car. 

If you follow the discussion on the Iron Highway thread....

http://www.trains.com/trccs/forums/878549/ShowPost.aspx

...you will see that single axle bogies were paramount in many of the innovations that were meant to increase load factor.  The TTOX/Four Runner TOFC cars, the Southern 100, the Iron Highway, the Trough Train, all used single axle bogies in whole or in part (althought the original Iron Highway actually used axleless independent wheels, which was a primary problem with the concept).  The consensus seems to be that single axle bogies work fine for cars with a wheelbase of 25' or less, or if implemented with some form of articulation to offset the drawbacks of a rigid wheelbase.  It should be noted that these innovations were eventually scrapped not because of the single axle bogies, but because of other quirks related to non standardization of parts.

Standardization is the primary reason US railroads have stuck with the two axle bogie over single axle or three axle bogies. 

In a somewhat ironic twist of historical fate, back a few years ago before they went bankrupt, the US bogie manufacturer ABC-Naco had developed an axle set with independent suspension that could be offered in single axle, two axle, and three axle configurations.  All the parts were interchangable with each other, and the independent suspension gave a superior ride quality over the US standard three piece bogie.  This innovation would have allowed complete standardization of any axle configuration for bogies, which may have finally paved the way for wider acceptance of cars which use single axle bogies.

[daveklepper]

Westinghouse demonstrated single-phase AC electrification on the Camden and Ambay line of the P in 1902 or 1903, probably the latter, and impressed the New Haven management.  PRR took a wait and see attitude and New York Central decided on DC underruning third rail with GE.   That was the U demonstration.