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Trouble in open access paradise?

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Posted by beaulieu on Sunday, August 6, 2006 4:55 PM
 daveklepper wrote:
Are not their any ports with tracks on the docks allowing direct to rail movement of containers?  It would seem the a ship unloading to a dock filled with flat cars and locomotives to pull one string out and replace with additional empties anbd then to replace it with the loads intended for the ship would be a great way to reduce port time for ships.  Is anybody doing this outside of one port in Israel?


Let's take a large 6,000 TEU container ship arriving at Rotterdam Maasvlakte terminal. It left Asia with a full load, stopped at Antwerp and unloaded 1000 containers, and loaded 500 empties.  Lets say it plans on unloading 2,000 of those containers here at Rotterdam. Of those containers  300 are for various destinations in the Netherlands, 800 for locations in Germany, 200 for Poland, 300, for Austria, 100 for Switzerland,  and 300 for Italy. Lightest containers are on top, heaviest on the bottom,some of the Antwerp empties will have to be unloaded then reloaded.  The container train can take 80 TEU, and you have 4 tracks holding 4 such trains under the cranes. The 4 trains will serve say 6 inland terminals. What are the odds that the first 320 loaded containers off the ship will fill any of the trains, near zero, and since the trains belong to different companies you can't sort the cars, takes too long anyway, much easier to sort the containers. The ship has to be kept in balance so it must be unloaded evenly, also some containers will have to be unloaded and then reloaded to reach the lower containers remember 3,500 containers are not getting off here, but lightest must be on top, very embarassing if the ship capsizes. The cranes movements are carefully planned, even the pile of containers stacked on the ground must be planned so that they can be reloaded in the right order and of course the opportunity is taken to load some containers while others are being unloaded. So even a large port like this does not load directly to train. They use unmanned robots to haul the containers away from the port cranes to holding piles, which correspond to the correct train load or for the  trucking companies. In the case of the trains, they use dedicated road-trains consisting of a special tractor pulling 5 trailers each capable of handling 1 40ft. or 2 20ft. containers to get the containers from the holding area to the rail loading terminal. These run over dedicated roadways to the rail terminal, where two Portal cranes load the trains. The ground storage is also necessary because ships are frequently late, and time for the ship alongside the quay is more precious than loading tracks for the trains.
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Posted by TomDiehl on Sunday, August 6, 2006 4:47 PM
 futuremodal wrote:
 TomDiehl wrote:
 futuremodal wrote:
 owlsroost wrote:

Why can't all rail consists move at the same speed?  More to the point, why not make all rail traffic move at the same speed, to avoid unidirectional congestion?  I know part of it is to optimize fuel economy on tonnage moves, but even with lower fuel economy by having to increase the hp to t ratio, it's still preferable to not moving the tonnage by rail at all, e.g. back on the mode of last resort aka trucks nee lorries.

In Europe, this would basically mean having freight trains with the performance of passenger trains - it's possible, but the extra equipment and energy costs would push up rail freight rates to the point where the truckers would be laughing all the way to the bank. A few shippers might be willing to pay the extra for few hours off the transit time, but most wouldn't (over the short distances - up to a few hundred miles - that most freight moves in Europe, trucking is already faster and cheaper door-to-door in many cases).

That's an interesting take.  In most cases, the ability of a railroad to increase it's average train speed is the key in drawing freight off the roads.  The only real advantage trucks have over rail is the ability to go dock to dock, whilst railroads need to transload between rail cars and trucks at terminals, or add/remove trailers or containers at the terminal, e.g. an inherent time cost.  Thus, the usual approach is to focus on trip length, because the longer the haul, the greater ability of the railroads to overcome the inherent terminal delay as the impact of the time differential is diminished.  By increasing train speed, preferably to a significant degree over corresponding road trip times, the terminal time cost is overcome at some distance threshold, a break-even point if you will where the trip length turns from the trucker's favor to the railroad's.  The faster the rail trip, the shorter the distance threshold.  Therefore, it is possible for mostly short haul country like Great Britain to move certain types of freight by rail within the nation's borders, if that inherent terminal delay can be overcome by raw speed to a point where it is faster yet still more economical to ship a container or trailer by rail than by over the road.  The economies of scale germaine to railroad technology should still be enough to outweigh a surmised increase in costs associated with freight moving at passenger speeds and overcome over the road shipper.

It should be noted that in the US and Canada there is a healthy TOFC and domestic COFC trade over the long haul, but because of the North American railroads's embarrassing average velocity numbers (even for intermodal) our railroads are way behind the curve in drawing freight off the roads for the medium and short haul corridors as well as those time sensitive long hauls.

Boy Dave, you contradict yourself more all the time. First you say that railroads are suffering from terminal time losses causing the average trip speed to be low. Then you state that railroads need to signifcantly increase the speed between terminals to increase average trip speed. Unfortunately, the terminals are causing these delays because of the bottlenecks at this point, and increasing speeds between terminals would cause a larger backup of traffic, increasing the bottleneck. Any tain that has to go through these terminals is going to lose time, and the worse the bottleneck, the more time lost. So even if they travel 100 MPH between terminals, the increase in terminal time is going to cut the average speed down until the problem of therminal time is cured.

And that's not even taking into consideration the increased maintenance and construction costs of building and maintaining the rails and rolling stock to allow these speeds. An additional increase in costs, and price to the shipper.

Tom, Tom, Tom, we've explained this to you before.  "Terminal time delay" refers to the amount of time it takes to physically load/unload cargo from rail to road and vis versa.  Over the road trucks do not have this inherent intermodal delay factor, which is the one big advantage they have over rail.  For rail to overcome this delay, one needs to increase the transit speed between terminals to the extent where the time saved during transit offsets the time cost of terminal transloading.

European railroads don't have an overabundance of freight on rail anyway, so your theory of terminal congestion due to increases transit speeds has even less merit than usual.  It's a simplistic take, one that is not backed up by factual evidence.  You seem to assume that all trains will arrive at the same time, forgetting that arrivals and departures are intermittent throughout the 24 hour day.  Unless the fast freights are arriving one right after the other on top of each other, there is more than enough time between arrivals to get the transloading completed and the next train released before the next one arrives.  Fluidity of terminal operations is enhanced by faster transit speeds, and conversely is degraded by slower transit speeds.

Dave, Dave, Dave, "terminal delay time," as you're using it, only applies to through or unit trains with a short enough run that they need no servicing enroute. Any fueling stop, change of crew, inspection, or other servicing, is "terminal delay time." Over the road trucks DO have the same thing especially if the run is over 12 hours. Simply running them faster between these points will cause a build up of trains waiting to be serviced. The time required for all this servicing must be shortened before any gains will be realized in terms of speed from one end of the run to the other.

To make things a bit more "simplistic" for you, a train travelling 500 miles between servicing stops at 50 MPH will require 10 hours end to end. A train travelling 100 MPH will require 5 hours. If the servicing terminal can't handle more trains per day, the 5 hour gain will be lost waiting for the their turn at the diesel pumps.

Since I never mentined anything about European railroads, I don't see how the entire second paragraph has anything to do with this.

Smile, it makes people wonder what you're up to. Chief of Sanitation; Clowntown
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Posted by Simon Reed on Sunday, August 6, 2006 4:36 PM

Beaulieu - It's no good, my friend.

I more or less explained this to FM on the BR operations thread several months ago, but still the arguement appears.

I've been keeping out of this until now (so has Hugh Jampton, who is very qualified to provide compelling arguments.)

 Folks - the pivotal point is SCALE.

 I am an unabashed Socialist. I would have found myself in prison in 50's America but I believe in open access in Europe because IT WORKS.

What needs to be understood is the population density, a consideration sadly lacking from this this thread. My postcode (zipcode) is BD2 1EA. Look it up on Google Earth.

Now - the closest station to me is Frizinghall - about .75 of a mile away. Have a look, if you would, at all the industries you can see, as well as residential property, within a two mile radius of my home.

Britain - and virtually everywhere else in Europe - can provide an intensive and cost effective passenger rail network because of the sheer number of people who turn to mass transportation, either through socio -economic necessity or to avoid the congestion that you can doubtless imagine on the road network.

Surely the very best way to serve such a large and willing market is to present them with a choice of transportation providers so that the consumer can make an informed decision. OK, we have'nt got to that stage nationally yet but there is the principle. 

My local station sees six trains an hour, all day until the dead of night. Market economies say that this MUST be a viable station - who would provide such a frequency for a dead loss.      

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Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, August 6, 2006 4:27 PM
 beaulieu wrote:
 futuremodal wrote:
 owlsroost wrote:

Why can't all rail consists move at the same speed?  More to the point, why not make all rail traffic move at the same speed, to avoid unidirectional congestion?  I know part of it is to optimize fuel economy on tonnage moves, but even with lower fuel economy by having to increase the hp to t ratio, it's still preferable to not moving the tonnage by rail at all, e.g. back on the mode of last resort aka trucks nee lorries.

In Europe, this would basically mean having freight trains with the performance of passenger trains - it's possible, but the extra equipment and energy costs would push up rail freight rates to the point where the truckers would be laughing all the way to the bank. A few shippers might be willing to pay the extra for few hours off the transit time, but most wouldn't (over the short distances - up to a few hundred miles - that most freight moves in Europe, trucking is already faster and cheaper door-to-door in many cases).

That's an interesting take.  In most cases, the ability of a railroad to increase it's average train speed is the key in drawing freight off the roads.  The only real advantage trucks have over rail is the ability to go dock to dock, whilst railroads need to transload between rail cars and trucks at terminals, or add/remove trailers or containers at the terminal, e.g. an inherent time cost.

It's also a monetary cost. Cranes are very expensive and they have a finite lifespan.


  Thus, the usual approach is to focus on trip length, because the longer the haul, the greater ability of the railroads to overcome the inherent terminal delay as the impact of the time differential is diminished.  By increasing train speed, preferably to a significant degree over corresponding road trip times, the terminal time cost is overcome at some distance threshold, a break-even point if you will where the trip length turns from the trucker's favor to the railroad's.  The faster the rail trip, the shorter the distance threshold.

Yes, that is one determinant, there are many others.

Another is that as distances dock to dock get shorter the dray distance from dock to rail terminal, and from the other rail terminal to the receiving dock can become longer than the dock to dock distance. I think you would agree that the railroad is done at that point.


Let me cite others, lets take the case of the UK.

First off, the locomotive costs more than the tractor portion of the truck, second train paths have a basic cost, to which is added additional fees depending on factors such as weight and how hard they are on the track. Next you add for each freight car, now in the case of freight cars, the charge is based on the weight and number of axles, but you can get discounts for using trucks that lower the force on the track. Next your Train Driver (UK terminology) costs more than a truck driver. Enough for now. Now you have to balance these factors out.


  Therefore, it is possible for mostly short haul country like Great Britain to move certain types of freight by rail within the nation's borders, if that inherent terminal delay can be overcome by raw speed to a point where it is faster yet still more economical to ship a container or trailer by rail than by over the road.  The economies of scale germaine to railroad technology should still be enough to outweigh a surmised increase in costs associated with freight moving at passenger speeds and overcome over the road shipper.

Let's take a hypothetical UK case, we'll use a maritime container and say that both the trucker and the railroad start out at the same point. The trucker has to go 100 miles with his container the train also has to go 100 miles, but the container then has to be trucked a further 10 miles to the customer. Further we will say that the train will load thirty containers and the trucker will get the 16th container unloaded,
about as fair as you can get. So lets say that the train now has 15 on board and the trucker gets his container. Trucker departs, train takes 30 minutes to load its remaining containers and then it departs. Let's say the trucker averages 30 mph, It will take him 3 hours and 20 minutes to deliver his container. The train departs 30 minutes after the trucker. Let's say the train can average 45 mph. (It will hit 75mph). The train runs 2 hours 20 minutes. Let's say the right container is the 15th unloaded, 30 minutes after the train arrives, the trucker just arrived at the customer. The Railways container is still 10 miles away. My average train speed is probably a bit too high, to raise the average speed on such a short journey may require raising top speed to 90 mph. And there is another kicker not yet mentioned, the train was fully loaded at 2:00pm, the trains pathed departure time is at 2:20pm. So it can't leave for a further 20 minutes.

It should be noted that in the US and Canada there is a healthy TOFC and domestic COFC trade over the long haul, but because of the North American railroads's embarrassing average velocity numbers (even for intermodal) our railroads are way behind the curve in drawing freight off the roads for the medium and short haul corridors as well as those time sensitive long hauls.

I would expect that the train in this example is a night freight or midday freight to avoid the morning and evening commuter rush.  But let's also say we're using single stack bi-modal technology like RailRunner, and the port is using direct ship to rail container transloading.  Now we have two time mitigating factors in favor of rail - (1)usually a container is unloaded onto a chassis which is then parked where the trucker can then hook on, or the container is lifted to a dockside stack and then later is lifted onto the over the road chassis or railcar.  With direct ship to rail, the railway is able to bypass certain interport drayage activities, and although it is concievable to do the same for the over the road trucker, most ports don't want the over the road trucker driving around dockside, so his load is first handled by the longshore employee to the transfer area.  Perhaps we've just saved 30 minutes over the over the road trucker by utilizing direct ship to rail container transfer.  (2) With the RailRunner technology, when the train arrives at the destination terminal, there is no need to remove the containers one by

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Posted by beaulieu on Sunday, August 6, 2006 3:37 PM
 futuremodal wrote:
 owlsroost wrote:

Why can't all rail consists move at the same speed?  More to the point, why not make all rail traffic move at the same speed, to avoid unidirectional congestion?  I know part of it is to optimize fuel economy on tonnage moves, but even with lower fuel economy by having to increase the hp to t ratio, it's still preferable to not moving the tonnage by rail at all, e.g. back on the mode of last resort aka trucks nee lorries.

In Europe, this would basically mean having freight trains with the performance of passenger trains - it's possible, but the extra equipment and energy costs would push up rail freight rates to the point where the truckers would be laughing all the way to the bank. A few shippers might be willing to pay the extra for few hours off the transit time, but most wouldn't (over the short distances - up to a few hundred miles - that most freight moves in Europe, trucking is already faster and cheaper door-to-door in many cases).

That's an interesting take.  In most cases, the ability of a railroad to increase it's average train speed is the key in drawing freight off the roads.  The only real advantage trucks have over rail is the ability to go dock to dock, whilst railroads need to transload between rail cars and trucks at terminals, or add/remove trailers or containers at the terminal, e.g. an inherent time cost.

It's also a monetary cost. Cranes are very expensive and they have a finite lifespan.


  Thus, the usual approach is to focus on trip length, because the longer the haul, the greater ability of the railroads to overcome the inherent terminal delay as the impact of the time differential is diminished.  By increasing train speed, preferably to a significant degree over corresponding road trip times, the terminal time cost is overcome at some distance threshold, a break-even point if you will where the trip length turns from the trucker's favor to the railroad's.  The faster the rail trip, the shorter the distance threshold.

Yes, that is one determinant, there are many others.

Another is that as distances dock to dock get shorter the dray distance from dock to rail terminal, and from the other rail terminal to the receiving dock can become longer than the dock to dock distance. I think you would agree that the railroad is done at that point.


Let me cite others, lets take the case of the UK.

First off, the locomotive costs more than the tractor portion of the truck, second train paths have a basic cost, to which is added additional fees depending on factors such as weight and how hard they are on the track. Next you add for each freight car, now in the case of freight cars, the charge is based on the weight and number of axles, but you can get discounts for using trucks that lower the force on the track. Next your Train Driver (UK terminology) costs more than a truck driver. Enough for now. Now you have to balance these factors out.


  Therefore, it is possible for mostly short haul country like Great Britain to move certain types of freight by rail within the nation's borders, if that inherent terminal delay can be overcome by raw speed to a point where it is faster yet still more economical to ship a container or trailer by rail than by over the road.  The economies of scale germaine to railroad technology should still be enough to outweigh a surmised increase in costs associated with freight moving at passenger speeds and overcome over the road shipper.

Let's take a hypothetical UK case, we'll use a maritime container and say that both the trucker and the railroad start out at the same point. The trucker has to go 100 miles with his container the train also has to go 100 miles, but the container then has to be trucked a further 10 miles to the customer. Further we will say that the train will load thirty containers and the trucker will get the 16th container unloaded,
about as fair as you can get. So lets say that the train now has 15 on board and the trucker gets his container. Trucker departs, train takes 30 minutes to load its remaining containers and then it departs. Let's say the trucker averages 30 mph, It will take him 3 hours and 20 minutes to deliver his container. The train departs 30 minutes after the trucker. Let's say the train can average 45 mph. (It will hit 75mph). The train runs 2 hours 20 minutes. Let's say the right container is the 15th unloaded, 30 minutes after the train arrives, the trucker just arrived at the customer. The Railways container is still 10 miles away. My average train speed is probably a bit too high, to raise the average speed on such a short journey may require raising top speed to 90 mph. And there is another kicker not yet mentioned, the train was fully loaded at 2:00pm, the trains pathed departure time is at 2:20pm. So it can't leave for a further 20 minutes.


It should be noted that in the US and Canada there is a healthy TOFC and domestic COFC trade over the long haul, but because of the North American railroads's embarrassing average velocity numbers (even for intermodal) our railroads are way behind the curve in drawing freight off the roads for the medium and short haul corridors as well as those time sensitive long hauls.




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Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, August 6, 2006 1:18 PM
 TomDiehl wrote:
 futuremodal wrote:
 owlsroost wrote:

Why can't all rail consists move at the same speed?  More to the point, why not make all rail traffic move at the same speed, to avoid unidirectional congestion?  I know part of it is to optimize fuel economy on tonnage moves, but even with lower fuel economy by having to increase the hp to t ratio, it's still preferable to not moving the tonnage by rail at all, e.g. back on the mode of last resort aka trucks nee lorries.

In Europe, this would basically mean having freight trains with the performance of passenger trains - it's possible, but the extra equipment and energy costs would push up rail freight rates to the point where the truckers would be laughing all the way to the bank. A few shippers might be willing to pay the extra for few hours off the transit time, but most wouldn't (over the short distances - up to a few hundred miles - that most freight moves in Europe, trucking is already faster and cheaper door-to-door in many cases).

That's an interesting take.  In most cases, the ability of a railroad to increase it's average train speed is the key in drawing freight off the roads.  The only real advantage trucks have over rail is the ability to go dock to dock, whilst railroads need to transload between rail cars and trucks at terminals, or add/remove trailers or containers at the terminal, e.g. an inherent time cost.  Thus, the usual approach is to focus on trip length, because the longer the haul, the greater ability of the railroads to overcome the inherent terminal delay as the impact of the time differential is diminished.  By increasing train speed, preferably to a significant degree over corresponding road trip times, the terminal time cost is overcome at some distance threshold, a break-even point if you will where the trip length turns from the trucker's favor to the railroad's.  The faster the rail trip, the shorter the distance threshold.  Therefore, it is possible for mostly short haul country like Great Britain to move certain types of freight by rail within the nation's borders, if that inherent terminal delay can be overcome by raw speed to a point where it is faster yet still more economical to ship a container or trailer by rail than by over the road.  The economies of scale germaine to railroad technology should still be enough to outweigh a surmised increase in costs associated with freight moving at passenger speeds and overcome over the road shipper.

It should be noted that in the US and Canada there is a healthy TOFC and domestic COFC trade over the long haul, but because of the North American railroads's embarrassing average velocity numbers (even for intermodal) our railroads are way behind the curve in drawing freight off the roads for the medium and short haul corridors as well as those time sensitive long hauls.

Boy Dave, you contradict yourself more all the time. First you say that railroads are suffering from terminal time losses causing the average trip speed to be low. Then you state that railroads need to signifcantly increase the speed between terminals to increase average trip speed. Unfortunately, the terminals are causing these delays because of the bottlenecks at this point, and increasing speeds between terminals would cause a larger backup of traffic, increasing the bottleneck. Any tain that has to go through these terminals is going to lose time, and the worse the bottleneck, the more time lost. So even if they travel 100 MPH between terminals, the increase in terminal time is going to cut the average speed down until the problem of therminal time is cured.

And that's not even taking into consideration the increased maintenance and construction costs of building and maintaining the rails and rolling stock to allow these speeds. An additional increase in costs, and price to the shipper.

Tom, Tom, Tom, we've explained this to you before.  "Terminal time delay" refers to the amount of time it takes to physically load/unload cargo from rail to road and vis versa.  Over the road trucks do not have this inherent intermodal delay factor, which is the one big advantage they have over rail.  For rail to overcome this delay, one needs to increase the transit speed between terminals to the extent where the time saved during transit offsets the time cost of terminal transloading.

European railroads don't have an overabundance of freight on rail anyway, so your theory of terminal congestion due to increases transit speeds has even less merit than usual.  It's a simplistic take, one that is not backed up by factual evidence.  You seem to assume that all trains will arrive at the same time, forgetting that arrivals and departures are intermittent throughout the 24 hour day.  Unless the fast freights are arriving one right after the other on top of each other, there is more than enough time between arrivals to get the transloading completed and the next train released before the next one arrives.  Fluidity of terminal operations is enhanced by faster transit speeds, and conversely is degraded by slower transit speeds.

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Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, August 6, 2006 1:06 PM

 daveklepper wrote:
Are not their any ports with tracks on the docks allowing direct to rail movement of containers?  It would seem the a ship unloading to a dock filled with flat cars and locomotives to pull one string out and replace with additional empties anbd then to replace it with the loads intended for the ship would be a great way to reduce port time for ships.  Is anybody doing this outside of one port in Israel?

That's a good point, and one in which the Europeans have a big advantage over the North American railroads.  Clearance restrictions on European railways prevent double stacking, so it all goes single stack.  Ironically, single stack is easier than double stack to facilitate direct ship to rail container transload, in that container weights don't have to be considered.  On ships and US double stack consists, the heavy containers are on the bottom and lighter ones one top.  The first portion of containers unloaded from a ship are the lighter ones, while the last portion are heavier, so to load from ship to a double stack consist would require all those lighter containers to be put aside somewhere until the heavier containers were reached, wherein the heavier containers would be loaded directly from ship to the bottom of the wellcar, then all those lighter containers would have to be brought back from where they were temporarily stored and then placed in the upper position of the wellcar.  After all that, it just isn't worth the hassle for NA ports to try and facilitate direct ship to rail loading.

There was some talk a few years ago in which containers of similar weights would be kept interlocked together, and then both containers transloaded from ship to double stack well cars in one move.  Logistically, this is very hard to accomplish, since container weights are not a constant that can be relied upon.

Ideally, for our European example, the containers would be loaded directly from ship onto RailRunner bi-modal chassis....

http://www.railrunner.com/

......already connected in rail mode, then railed to the eventual regional distribution city, wherein the chassis are disconnected from the rail bogey and trucked to the final destination.  This way is both the quickest way to get the goods from ship to consumer, and the cheapest as well.  RailRunner terminal modal transfer times average a few minutes per chassis, and depending on how many trucks are available and waiting, the whole consist can go from rail to road in as little as half an hour.  And the rail to road terminal area can be just about anywhere with no need for a lot of terminal equipment, all you need is one free siding and a few loads of gravel over the siding to allow the trucks to hook up to each chassis.

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Posted by TomDiehl on Sunday, August 6, 2006 11:18 AM
 futuremodal wrote:
 owlsroost wrote:

Why can't all rail consists move at the same speed?  More to the point, why not make all rail traffic move at the same speed, to avoid unidirectional congestion?  I know part of it is to optimize fuel economy on tonnage moves, but even with lower fuel economy by having to increase the hp to t ratio, it's still preferable to not moving the tonnage by rail at all, e.g. back on the mode of last resort aka trucks nee lorries.

In Europe, this would basically mean having freight trains with the performance of passenger trains - it's possible, but the extra equipment and energy costs would push up rail freight rates to the point where the truckers would be laughing all the way to the bank. A few shippers might be willing to pay the extra for few hours off the transit time, but most wouldn't (over the short distances - up to a few hundred miles - that most freight moves in Europe, trucking is already faster and cheaper door-to-door in many cases).

That's an interesting take.  In most cases, the ability of a railroad to increase it's average train speed is the key in drawing freight off the roads.  The only real advantage trucks have over rail is the ability to go dock to dock, whilst railroads need to transload between rail cars and trucks at terminals, or add/remove trailers or containers at the terminal, e.g. an inherent time cost.  Thus, the usual approach is to focus on trip length, because the longer the haul, the greater ability of the railroads to overcome the inherent terminal delay as the impact of the time differential is diminished.  By increasing train speed, preferably to a significant degree over corresponding road trip times, the terminal time cost is overcome at some distance threshold, a break-even point if you will where the trip length turns from the trucker's favor to the railroad's.  The faster the rail trip, the shorter the distance threshold.  Therefore, it is possible for mostly short haul country like Great Britain to move certain types of freight by rail within the nation's borders, if that inherent terminal delay can be overcome by raw speed to a point where it is faster yet still more economical to ship a container or trailer by rail than by over the road.  The economies of scale germaine to railroad technology should still be enough to outweigh a surmised increase in costs associated with freight moving at passenger speeds and overcome over the road shipper.

It should be noted that in the US and Canada there is a healthy TOFC and domestic COFC trade over the long haul, but because of the North American railroads's embarrassing average velocity numbers (even for intermodal) our railroads are way behind the curve in drawing freight off the roads for the medium and short haul corridors as well as those time sensitive long hauls.

Boy Dave, you contradict yourself more all the time. First you say that railroads are suffering from terminal time losses causing the average trip speed to be low. Then you state that railroads need to signifcantly increase the speed between terminals to increase average trip speed. Unfortunately, the terminals are causing these delays because of the bottlenecks at this point, and increasing speeds between terminals would cause a larger backup of traffic, increasing the bottleneck. Any tain that has to go through these terminals is going to lose time, and the worse the bottleneck, the more time lost. So even if they travel 100 MPH between terminals, the increase in terminal time is going to cut the average speed down until the problem of therminal time is cured.

And that's not even taking into consideration the increased maintenance and construction costs of building and maintaining the rails and rolling stock to allow these speeds. An additional increase in costs, and price to the shipper.

Smile, it makes people wonder what you're up to. Chief of Sanitation; Clowntown
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Posted by daveklepper on Sunday, August 6, 2006 10:54 AM
Are not their any ports with tracks on the docks allowing direct to rail movement of containers?  It would seem the a ship unloading to a dock filled with flat cars and locomotives to pull one string out and replace with additional empties anbd then to replace it with the loads intended for the ship would be a great way to reduce port time for ships.  Is anybody doing this outside of one port in Israel?
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Posted by Anonymous on Saturday, August 5, 2006 11:16 PM
 owlsroost wrote:

Why can't all rail consists move at the same speed?  More to the point, why not make all rail traffic move at the same speed, to avoid unidirectional congestion?  I know part of it is to optimize fuel economy on tonnage moves, but even with lower fuel economy by having to increase the hp to t ratio, it's still preferable to not moving the tonnage by rail at all, e.g. back on the mode of last resort aka trucks nee lorries.

In Europe, this would basically mean having freight trains with the performance of passenger trains - it's possible, but the extra equipment and energy costs would push up rail freight rates to the point where the truckers would be laughing all the way to the bank. A few shippers might be willing to pay the extra for few hours off the transit time, but most wouldn't (over the short distances - up to a few hundred miles - that most freight moves in Europe, trucking is already faster and cheaper door-to-door in many cases).

That's an interesting take.  In most cases, the ability of a railroad to increase it's average train speed is the key in drawing freight off the roads.  The only real advantage trucks have over rail is the ability to go dock to dock, whilst railroads need to transload between rail cars and trucks at terminals, or add/remove trailers or containers at the terminal, e.g. an inherent time cost.  Thus, the usual approach is to focus on trip length, because the longer the haul, the greater ability of the railroads to overcome the inherent terminal delay as the impact of the time differential is diminished.  By increasing train speed, preferably to a significant degree over corresponding road trip times, the terminal time cost is overcome at some distance threshold, a break-even point if you will where the trip length turns from the trucker's favor to the railroad's.  The faster the rail trip, the shorter the distance threshold.  Therefore, it is possible for mostly short haul country like Great Britain to move certain types of freight by rail within the nation's borders, if that inherent terminal delay can be overcome by raw speed to a point where it is faster yet still more economical to ship a container or trailer by rail than by over the road.  The economies of scale germaine to railroad technology should still be enough to outweigh a surmised increase in costs associated with freight moving at passenger speeds and overcome over the road shipper.

It should be noted that in the US and Canada there is a healthy TOFC and domestic COFC trade over the long haul, but because of the North American railroads's embarrassing average velocity numbers (even for intermodal) our railroads are way behind the curve in drawing freight off the roads for the medium and short haul corridors as well as those time sensitive long hauls.

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Posted by beaulieu on Saturday, August 5, 2006 11:33 AM
 owlsroost wrote:
A couple of reports I found might be of interest - http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/ld200405/ldselect/ldeucom/52/52.pdf and http://www.cer.be/files/Rotterdam_Genova-174323A.pdf

There is also an interesting graph of transport modes versus distance in the EU here - http://www.nea.nl/neac/appl_tonkm_eu15.htm (although it's based on 1999 information)

According to the CER report on the Rotterdam - Genoa corridor, rail only has a 22% share of the over-1000km market (road 75%) in that corridor.

I agree that the long-distance freight market in Europe is growing, and that rail ought to have a competitive advantage on the longer hauls (and I hope it increases it's market share), but the NEA graph supports my comment that most freight traffic is short-haul - the big peak on the graph is around 200km.

Tony


Tony , the chart seems to ignore any shipment originating or terminating outside the EU, since the highest distance is <6000 kilometers. How many containers entered the UK in 1999 versus 2006 and what about the same comparison for the rest of Europe.Think about how many of the products you buy that used to be made in the UK and are now made elsewhere.  Now consider the bottom end, the dataset only considers interregional transportation, useful to eliminate things like the truck that delivers the washing machine from the store to your home. But it also would ignore the coal moved from Gascoigne Wood loadout in Yorkshire to Drax power station.  Note also that Gascoigne Wood has closed but Drax hasn't, and the coal moves very long distances now, perhaps from Scotland, and also from South Africa. where were the new autos sold in the UK built in 1999, where are the majority built now? Etc.
How do they handle something like Intermodal (Piggyback) It probably was statistically an insignificant mode in 1999, but is much more important now, is it rail, or truck, or would it be a new category. How do they handle maritime containers?  Questions, questions, and not many answers.
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Posted by owlsroost on Friday, August 4, 2006 2:36 PM
A couple of reports I found might be of interest - http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/ld200405/ldselect/ldeucom/52/52.pdf and http://www.cer.be/files/Rotterdam_Genova-174323A.pdf

There is also an interesting graph of transport modes versus distance in the EU here - http://www.nea.nl/neac/appl_tonkm_eu15.htm (although it's based on 1999 information)

According to the CER report on the Rotterdam - Genoa corridor, rail only has a 22% share of the over-1000km market (road 75%) in that corridor.

I agree that the long-distance freight market in Europe is growing, and that rail ought to have a competitive advantage on the longer hauls (and I hope it increases it's market share), but the NEA graph supports my comment that most freight traffic is short-haul - the big peak on the graph is around 200km.

Tony
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Posted by beaulieu on Friday, August 4, 2006 12:48 PM
 owlsroost wrote:

Why can't all rail consists move at the same speed?  More to the point, why not make all rail traffic move at the same speed, to avoid unidirectional congestion?  I know part of it is to optimize fuel economy on tonnage moves, but even with lower fuel economy by having to increase the hp to t ratio, it's still preferable to not moving the tonnage by rail at all, e.g. back on the mode of last resort aka trucks nee lorries.

In Europe, this would basically mean having freight trains with the performance of passenger trains - it's possible, but the extra equipment and energy costs would push up rail freight rates to the point where the truckers would be laughing all the way to the bank. A few shippers might be willing to pay the extra for few hours off the transit time, but most wouldn't (over the short distances - up to a few hundred miles - that most freight moves in Europe, trucking is already faster and cheaper door-to-door in many cases).

Tony



Tony, I think for the purposes of this dicussion we have to separate the UK situation from that of the Continental part of Europe. The part of the about the short distances is quite correct with regards to the UK but is not so true on the Continent. Even on the Continent you have to separate France, Spain, and Portugal of the Old EU plus many of the new members, from Scandinavia, Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Italy which are seeing the growth of rail traffic. Indeed in 2005 Railion Nederland reported a new record of 29.2 million tonnes of cargo, and this inspite of their steadily declining share of the railfreight market. Some where on the web I saw a quote that on the Continent in the countries that have accepted Open Access the average freight haul distance had increased by 200 km. That is a significant number because as distances increase the relative advantages of rail over trucks also increase. In the UK such an increase is physically impossible except via the Channel Tunnel.

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Posted by owlsroost on Friday, August 4, 2006 2:45 AM

Why can't all rail consists move at the same speed?  More to the point, why not make all rail traffic move at the same speed, to avoid unidirectional congestion?  I know part of it is to optimize fuel economy on tonnage moves, but even with lower fuel economy by having to increase the hp to t ratio, it's still preferable to not moving the tonnage by rail at all, e.g. back on the mode of last resort aka trucks nee lorries.

In Europe, this would basically mean having freight trains with the performance of passenger trains - it's possible, but the extra equipment and energy costs would push up rail freight rates to the point where the truckers would be laughing all the way to the bank. A few shippers might be willing to pay the extra for few hours off the transit time, but most wouldn't (over the short distances - up to a few hundred miles - that most freight moves in Europe, trucking is already faster and cheaper door-to-door in many cases).

Tony

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Posted by beaulieu on Thursday, August 3, 2006 7:12 PM
 futuremodal wrote:

 owlsroost wrote:
Can I assume that passenger operations occur mostly during daylight hours, e.g. no overnight passenger operations?  If so, then the extra capacity needed to be able to bid out slots for cross border freights would be available at night.  The key here is if intercontinental freights in and out of the Netherlands can achieve their objectives by utilizing Dutch tracks at night and the German, et al, tracks during daylight hours.  Otherwise, if the situation is the same thoughout Europe regarding passenger train saturation during daylight hours, freights would be parked during daylight hours until the tracks cleared after twilight.


Quite a lot of rail and road freight does move at night in Europe because of daytime congestion/capacity problems on both rail and road systems. Unfortunately because of the intensity of train services during the day (and we're talking about passenger services from 5am - midnight or beyond), track inspection and maintenance has to be done mostly at night, so some routes aren't neccesarily open for 24hrs every day.

As I mentioned before, daylight operations of freights over passenger dominated tracks is tricky, but can be done if the freights can be squeezed in as second sections of passenger trains between terminals.  Waiting time in sidings for opposing traffic would increase slightly, but not to any dramatic effect.


FM, you're still thinking with a US 'out in the sticks' view of how trains run.

Well, I gis I'll just have to shut down the still for a spell, hitch up the horse 'n buggy, an' go have a looksee fer meself.

 Most European mainlines are double track (or quadruple if really busy) with full block signalling, using short block lengths to maximise capacity (full braking distance may be spread over more than one block). Whereas a busy single-track line in the US might have 20 trains per DAY (counting both directions).....

Actually more like 80 to 100, but I digress

....., a busy double-track line here could easily have 20 trains per HOUR or more for a large part of the day.

So you're saying even a second section slot is already taken?

 Also the speed differential between fast passenger and freight trains e.g 125mph<->75mph or 100mph<->60mph means you could probably run two passenger trains in the track space/time used by a freight train (thus making the daytime freight slots even more expensive compared to passenger slots if you have a 'level playing field').

This gets into yet another critique of the rail vs all other modes debate, whether in NA or the Old Country.  On highways, all traffic moves at the same relative speed for the most part sans any significant grades, doens't matter if it's cars, buses, LTL, grain trucks, et al.  On waterways, most barges and riverboats run at the same nautical speed.  Air freight moves at the same speed as passenger jets.

Why can't all rail consists move at the same speed?  More to the point, why not make all rail traffic move at the same speed, to avoid unidirectional congestion?  I know part of it is to optimize fuel economy on tonnage moves, but even with lower fuel economy by having to increase the hp to t ratio, it's still preferable to not moving the tonnage by rail at all, e.g. back on the mode of last resort aka trucks nee lorries.

BTW - Is  there much in the way of directional running on European rails, or is most of it bi-directional?



The UK has very little bi-directional signalling, the most important mainline the West Coast Main Line (WCML for short) is 4 tracked for much of its distance. The Netherlands are a bit different, as are Germany, and Switzerland. These countries are mostly bi-directionally signalled, even with this though, the opportunity to use the other track for passing is just not there. When it is desireable for a fast passenger train to pass a slower all stop local passanger train, it is planned to happen while the local is making a station stop that the fast train does not make. Most passenger stations have extra tracks for this purpose.

Let me explain how it works on an important freight route. The Gotthard Pass  is the most important route across the Alps in Europe. The line is double tracked over the central core from Erstfeld on the north to Biasca on the south. This section of track handled about 41 million US tons in 2004. The ruling grade both northbound and southbound is 2.8 percent, and the grade except in the summit tunnel is never less than 2.6 percent. Because of track curvature both passenger and freight trains, except for the Cisalpino, are limited to 80 kph.(52 mph). During the 6 late night hours slower moving trains like rail trains, and ballast trains can run. Trains are limited to about 1500 tons without a helper and 2100 tons with a helper. For southbound trains the hard climb is 18 miles from Erstfeld to Goschenen, while northbounds face 28.5 miles from Biasca to Airolo, the 9.3 mile long summit tunnel is between Goschenen and Airolo. The required power to weight ratio for freight trains is 10hp per trailing ton.
(For comparison BNSF runs Z trains at 3 to 4.5 hp per ton, regular Intermodal 2 to 3 hp per ton, and manifests and unit trains at lower figures.) Freights stop to cut off helpers and make brake tests at Goschenen and are usually passed by passenger trains while doing this. Overtakes can also be done at Airolo and a couple of other locations on the south side in the event of problems. Capacity is figured as 240 trains per day, actual trains were running about 200 to 210 per day late in the week, in summer 2005. Of course some of the spare capacity is lost to tracks being out of service for maintenance. The line is fully bi-directionally signalled with frequent crossovers. There is a nice double horseshoe curve section and one spiral tunnel on the north ramp, and two pairs of spiral tunnels on the south ramp. Figure 2 passenger trains per hour in each direction during prime time, and 1 to 2 outside of then, with about a 6 hour break overnight. The passenger trains run as a pair, southbound the Intercity starts out running about 10 minutes ahead of the InterRegio which makes 3 extra stops and arrives 20 minutes after the Express. Northbound the InterRegio departs about 24 minutes ahead of the Intercity and arrives a few minutes before the Intercity.
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Posted by TomDiehl on Thursday, August 3, 2006 2:27 PM
 futuremodal wrote:

This gets into yet another critique of the rail vs all other modes debate, whether in NA or the Old Country.  On highways, all traffic moves at the same relative speed for the most part sans any significant grades, doens't matter if it's cars, buses, LTL, grain trucks, et al.  On waterways, most barges and riverboats run at the same nautical speed.  Air freight moves at the same speed as passenger jets.

Why can't all rail consists move at the same speed?  More to the point, why not make all rail traffic move at the same speed, to avoid unidirectional congestion?  I know part of it is to optimize fuel economy on tonnage moves, but even with lower fuel economy by having to increase the hp to t ratio, it's still preferable to not moving the tonnage by rail at all, e.g. back on the mode of last resort aka trucks nee lorries.

BTW - Is  there much in the way of directional running on European rails, or is most of it bi-directional?

On railroads, they do move at the same relative speed in a given section. All highway traffic does not move at the same speed all over the country. The speed varies depending on road and traffic conditions (sounds suspiciously like the situation of the railroads). The only place there's a significant difference in speed of freight vs. passenger trains is in passenger corridors like the NEC, but freight is only a small percentage of that traffic. I can almost guarantee that loading freight on the Acela will push the costs to consumer up to a point that trucks will be cheaper.

Again, living in your own little world, you've overlooked the problem itself, and think you can give Gestapo like orders to the railroads to run the trains at higher speeds. The resulting pile-ups will make the latest UP takeover standstill look like a picnic. Until the real problem is addressed and corrected, the congestion will continue to causing lower average railroad speeds, just like on the highways. Try driving around a major city at rush hour is you doubt this exists.

Smile, it makes people wonder what you're up to. Chief of Sanitation; Clowntown
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Posted by owlsroost on Thursday, August 3, 2006 12:48 PM

BTW - Is  there much in the way of directional running on European rails, or is most of it bi-directional?

It's mostly uni-directional. When traffic in both directions is heavy, opportunities for switching trains to the 'other' track for overtaking are very limited in practice, so spending money on full-blown bi-directional signalling is often not considered worthwhile (certainly that's the case in the UK - we have simplified, lower capacity, bi-directional signalling on some mainlines for use when one line is blocked by engineering works etc, but it's not used for normal running). It's fairly common to have bi-directional running on the approaches to major stations and junctions, but otherwise the normal layout is to have holding loops at intervals along a double-track route to allow faster trains to overtake slower ones, so when it's busy freight trains tend to hop from one loop to the next whenever there's a long enough gap between passenger trains.

So you're saying even a second section slot is already taken?

There isn't really a concept of train sections - it's just trains controlled by a block signal system (remember we're mainly talking about directional double-track lines, with trains running a few minutes apart on both lines when it's busy). Of the places I've linesided in the US, the nearest comparison I can think of as a mixed-traffic line is the BNSF 'racetrack' westwards from Chicago at peak commuter time.

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Posted by Anonymous on Thursday, August 3, 2006 11:32 AM

 owlsroost wrote:
Can I assume that passenger operations occur mostly during daylight hours, e.g. no overnight passenger operations?  If so, then the extra capacity needed to be able to bid out slots for cross border freights would be available at night.  The key here is if intercontinental freights in and out of the Netherlands can achieve their objectives by utilizing Dutch tracks at night and the German, et al, tracks during daylight hours.  Otherwise, if the situation is the same thoughout Europe regarding passenger train saturation during daylight hours, freights would be parked during daylight hours until the tracks cleared after twilight.


Quite a lot of rail and road freight does move at night in Europe because of daytime congestion/capacity problems on both rail and road systems. Unfortunately because of the intensity of train services during the day (and we're talking about passenger services from 5am - midnight or beyond), track inspection and maintenance has to be done mostly at night, so some routes aren't neccesarily open for 24hrs every day.

As I mentioned before, daylight operations of freights over passenger dominated tracks is tricky, but can be done if the freights can be squeezed in as second sections of passenger trains between terminals.  Waiting time in sidings for opposing traffic would increase slightly, but not to any dramatic effect.


FM, you're still thinking with a US 'out in the sticks' view of how trains run.

Well, I gis I'll just have to shut down the still for a spell, hitch up the horse 'n buggy, an' go have a looksee fer meself.

 Most European mainlines are double track (or quadruple if really busy) with full block signalling, using short block lengths to maximise capacity (full braking distance may be spread over more than one block). Whereas a busy single-track line in the US might have 20 trains per DAY (counting both directions).....

Actually more like 80 to 100, but I digress

....., a busy double-track line here could easily have 20 trains per HOUR or more for a large part of the day.

So you're saying even a second section slot is already taken?

 Also the speed differential between fast passenger and freight trains e.g 125mph<->75mph or 100mph<->60mph means you could probably run two passenger trains in the track space/time used by a freight train (thus making the daytime freight slots even more expensive compared to passenger slots if you have a 'level playing field').

This gets into yet another critique of the rail vs all other modes debate, whether in NA or the Old Country.  On highways, all traffic moves at the same relative speed for the most part sans any significant grades, doens't matter if it's cars, buses, LTL, grain trucks, et al.  On waterways, most barges and riverboats run at the same nautical speed.  Air freight moves at the same speed as passenger jets.

Why can't all rail consists move at the same speed?  More to the point, why not make all rail traffic move at the same speed, to avoid unidirectional congestion?  I know part of it is to optimize fuel economy on tonnage moves, but even with lower fuel economy by having to increase the hp to t ratio, it's still preferable to not moving the tonnage by rail at all, e.g. back on the mode of last resort aka trucks nee lorries.

BTW - Is  there much in the way of directional running on European rails, or is most of it bi-directional?

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Posted by beaulieu on Thursday, August 3, 2006 8:18 AM
 futuremodal wrote:
 beaulieu wrote:
 futuremodal wrote:

Marc,

First question:  Do these trains make an actual profit or not, e.g. do they take in more revenue than what they get in subsidy and road tax manipulation?

Dave, they cover operating costs, and they maintain the infrastructure. But, if you consider the new High Speed Line to Belgium, they will not be able to repay the principal and interest that the line will cost. The situation is the same with the new freight line, the Betuweroute. It will never repay the building cost. For one thing costs are very high in the Netherlands

What is your bet that the new freight line will eventually host passenger operations?



Not too likely. Where the route follows the Right of Way of the existing line and the high-speed line there are nine tracks wide, 3 for freight, 4 for local passenger, and 2 for high-speed passenger. When the line turns east for the German border it follows the old passenger line reasonably well, but it avoids all the towns, and is right alongside a freeway. In the Netherlands the Port of Rotterdam is judged to provide 10 percent of the whole country's GDP. Because of this the Dutch don't tend to fool around with things that might affect the competitiveness of Rotterdam vis a vie other Ports like Antwerp and Hamburg. The bottleneck for this route is in Germany, It begins right in the border town of Emmerich, and continues to the beginning of the Ruhr at Krefeld. The Germans have agreed to add a third track with sidings (four tracks would be much better), but I haven't heard of any actual construction yet.
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Posted by owlsroost on Thursday, August 3, 2006 8:12 AM
Can I assume that passenger operations occur mostly during daylight hours, e.g. no overnight passenger operations?  If so, then the extra capacity needed to be able to bid out slots for cross border freights would be available at night.  The key here is if intercontinental freights in and out of the Netherlands can achieve their objectives by utilizing Dutch tracks at night and the German, et al, tracks during daylight hours.  Otherwise, if the situation is the same thoughout Europe regarding passenger train saturation during daylight hours, freights would be parked during daylight hours until the tracks cleared after twilight.


Quite a lot of rail and road freight does move at night in Europe because of daytime congestion/capacity problems on both rail and road systems. Unfortunately because of the intensity of train services during the day (and we're talking about passenger services from 5am - midnight or beyond), track inspection and maintenance has to be done mostly at night, so some routes aren't neccesarily open for 24hrs every day.

As I mentioned before, daylight operations of freights over passenger dominated tracks is tricky, but can be done if the freights can be squeezed in as second sections of passenger trains between terminals.  Waiting time in sidings for opposing traffic would increase slightly, but not to any dramatic effect.


FM, you're still thinking with a US 'out in the sticks' view of how trains run. Most European mainlines are double track (or quadruple if really busy) with full block signalling, using short block lengths to maximise capacity (full braking distance may be spread over more than one block). Whereas a busy single-track line in the US might have 20 trains per DAY (counting both directions), a busy double-track line here could easily have 20 trains per HOUR or more for a large part of the day. Also the speed differential between fast passenger and freight trains e.g 125mph<->75mph or 100mph<->60mph means you could probably run two passenger trains in the track space/time used by a freight train (thus making the daytime freight slots even more expensive compared to passenger slots if you have a 'level playing field').

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Posted by Hugh Jampton on Wednesday, August 2, 2006 9:13 PM
 futuremodal wrote:
 beaulieu wrote:
 futuremodal wrote:

Marc,

First question:  Do these trains make an actual profit or not, e.g. do they take in more revenue than what they get in subsidy and road tax manipulation?

Dave, they cover operating costs, and they maintain the infrastructure. But, if you consider the new High Speed Line to Belgium, they will not be able to repay the principal and interest that the line will cost. The situation is the same with the new freight line, the Betuweroute. It will never repay the building cost. For one thing costs are very high in the Netherlands

What is your bet that the new freight line will eventually host passenger operations?



I suspect it won't. If you look at this map
http://en.betuweroute.nl/files/tracekaart_Betuweroute.pdf
 you can see it pretty well follows passenger routes (the dashed lines) all the way.
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Posted by Anonymous on Wednesday, August 2, 2006 9:08 PM
 beaulieu wrote:
 futuremodal wrote:

Marc,

First question:  Do these trains make an actual profit or not, e.g. do they take in more revenue than what they get in subsidy and road tax manipulation?

Dave, they cover operating costs, and they maintain the infrastructure. But, if you consider the new High Speed Line to Belgium, they will not be able to repay the principal and interest that the line will cost. The situation is the same with the new freight line, the Betuweroute. It will never repay the building cost. For one thing costs are very high in the Netherlands

What is your bet that the new freight line will eventually host passenger operations?

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Posted by Anonymous on Wednesday, August 2, 2006 9:03 PM

Marc,

Based on the information you provided, several thoughts come to mind.

The longest train ride in the Netherlands is 4 hours I think, 5 max.

Can I assume that passenger operations occur mostly during daylight hours, e.g. no overnight passenger operations?  If so, then the extra capacity needed to be able to bid out slots for cross border freights would be available at night.  The key here is if intercontinental freights in and out of the Netherlands can achieve their objectives by utilizing Dutch tracks at night and the German, et al, tracks during daylight hours.  Otherwise, if the situation is the same thoughout Europe regarding passenger train saturation during daylight hours, freights would be parked during daylight hours until the tracks cleared after twilight.

As I mentioned before, daylight operations of freights over passenger dominated tracks is tricky, but can be done if the freights can be squeezed in as second sections of passenger trains between terminals.  Waiting time in sidings for opposing traffic would increase slightly, but not to any dramatic effect.

The other factor is in the cultural expectations most European citizens expect of their passenger rail system.  You could take all the passenger trains currently operating in Europe and bid them all out for privatization/tax revenue.  The problem is that the spector of massive disruption of people's daily routines may be too much, in that the gain in tax revenue from taxing the highest privatized bidder would be offset by the social disruption that might ensue.  Freight can handle such disruptions, passengers cannot.

To sum up, I envision slot bidding for freights as workable, but for current passenger operations potentially disruptive.

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Posted by MichaelSol on Wednesday, August 2, 2006 4:37 PM

"Parking Lot" at the Train Station in Eindhoven, Netherlands when I went home for a visit in 2002:
.

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Posted by beaulieu on Wednesday, August 2, 2006 4:20 PM
 futuremodal wrote:

Marc,

First question:  Do these trains make an actual profit or not, e.g. do they take in more revenue than what they get in subsidy and road tax manipulation?


Dave, they cover operating costs, and they maintain the infrastructure. But, if you consider the new High Speed Line to Belgium, they will not be able to repay the principal and interest that the line will cost. The situation is the same with the new freight line, the Betuweroute. It will never repay the building cost. For one thing costs are very high in the Netherlands


Second question:  Is it possible for current changeover areas to be converted to run through trains, e.g. keep the patrons on one train from origin to destination?

For most of the day it is not possible, there are not enough spare paths (spare capacity)

Third question:  How much cross border train traffic is there, both passenger and freight?

I am not sure of the exact numbers for passenger, but connecting services are at least hourly on the main routes through Emmerich and Venlo, a bit less through Bad Bentheim to Germany. I am not really sure at all about the services to Belgium. I would guess at least twice per hour through the main crossing at Roosendaal, plus the Thalys.

For freight however I do have the figures. The average number of freight trains crossing Dutch borders in late 2006 was 866 per week. About 700 per week crossed the border into Germany, the rest into Belgium. The figures for 1999 were 640 total per week, of which 276 went to Germany.


Fourth question:  If something happened to change the current status quo, in that patrons shifted to other modes for their travel needs, how hard would it be for such patrons to make that adjustment?



Dave, in the Netherlands, if the Railway goes on strike, unless you are police, fire, or hospital you take the day off or take your bicycle. They do not have enough cars, highways, or parking for the people to drive.
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Posted by beaulieu on Wednesday, August 2, 2006 1:48 PM
 jeaton wrote:

The following appeared in The National Corridors Initiative E-zine for July 31.

http://www.nationalcorridors.org/df/df07312006.shtml#German

German TV:

British privatization model costs English
taxpayers $780 million/year for just one
route in national system

By David Beale
NCI European Correspondent

According to Bahn TV [Germany], the British Rail system privatization undertaken by the

<snipped>



Jay, you have to treat this like the propaganda that it is. Bahn TV is a branch of the Deutsche Bundesbahn, the German National Railway. They have a particular viewpoint and uses Bahn TV as another way of putting it out to the public. They do not want their Infrastructure separated from the operations. The private freight operators very much want the separation as they have caught the DB cheating by charging different rates for Railion (DB Cargo) for electricity than they were charged, they have been told that paths are not available when they were, and when they applied for paths to operate trains for a particular customer, the customer suddenly gets a call from the DB freight operator. DB has lost in court over this, but they seem to be trying to wear down the opposition by delaying tactics.

     There is quite a bit of truth to the story, but like everything else you can portray things like you want (Spin).

BTW - If you have a fast Internet connection you can watch Bahn-TV over the Internet here;
Bahn-TV

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Posted by MStLfan on Wednesday, August 2, 2006 8:33 AM

FM,

First answer: I don't have details for every train. Not even for the various businessgroups. This link shows the 2005 annual figures for NS groep as a whole. Remember, there are now several operations bij NS outside the Netherlands, the international trains are run together with partners, food stands etc are almost all run by NS (high prices too) and the granddaddy: NS managed to retain most land not directly needed for railoperations. Much profit in recent years has come from real estate development, or so it is reported.

http://www.ns.nl/servlet/Satellite?cid=1115717620663&pagename=www.ns.nl%2FPage%2FArtikelPage_www.ns.nl&lang=en&c=Page

The main network is not subsidized. Some secondary routes are subsidized, if the relevant authorities decide to put those lines out to tender NS doesn't get those lines. Witness recent tenders for local services in Limburg (including bus) and Amersfoort - Ede-Wageningen.

However, then a whole line or group of lines are on offer. No slot bidding on individual slots.

Taxes on fuel, cars etc. all go to the coffers of the finance minister from which he does his level best not to give anything to anybody, unless it is election time or favors are bought and sold.

second answer: not sure what you mean exactly. Amersfoort is a typical example. If you travel from Rotterdam to say, Enschede, you have the option to take the direct train or half an hour later a train to Groningen/Leeuwarden and then change in Amersfoort, as I described.

There are alternative routes but then you have to change trains frequently. E.G. Rotterdam - Enschede: take the train to Arnhem (leaves 15 minutes after the trains to Amersfoort), change there to Zutphen, there to Hengelo and there to Enschede. Or Arnhem to Deventer (past Zutphen and then in the same service as directly to Amersfoort) and then via Hengelo (no change) to Enschede. Or go from Rotterdam on the train to Amsterdam and change at Schiphol airport for the direct train to Enschede via Amersfoort (and Deventer, Hengelo). These alternatives are however slower.

The longest train ride in the Netherlands is 4 hours I think, 5 max. Of course if you go from one extreme to another that can double because you have several connections to catch.

Basically, the intercity service follows the major travelroutes with direct trains, in staggered patterns if necessary. The vast majority during weekday rushhour however make shorter trips. Non work related travel tends to be longer as do students. So local services are shorter in length, Rotterdam - Gouda- Utrecht, The Hague - Gouda, Utrecht - Amersfoort- Zwolle and Zwolle - Groningen or Zwolle - Leeuwarden on the route I used as an example Rotterdam/ the Hague - (Gouda) - Utrecht - Amersfoort - Zwolle - Groningen/Leeuwarden.

third answer: if we take Amersfoort only: there are several trains Schiphol airport - Amsterdam - Amersfoort - Hengelo - Germany (mostly Hannover or Berlin). Currently they run outside the formal pattern, this may change come december with the new timetable.

As for freight: trains from Rotterdam via Gouda - then to the Utrecht-Amsterdam line then just along the southeast of that city and on to Amersfoort - Hengelo - Germany/Scandinavia/Poland and Russia.

Other freight goes via Venlo in the southeast (on to Cologne and the Rhine valley - Alps - Italy) or Emmerich (border station just past Arnhem as mentioned above). With the new Betuwe route (freight only, supposed to open next year) most freight trains are supposed to take that route to Emmerich and no longer via Venlo.

fourth answer: depends on what you want to take on. 1 million people, even carpooling, cannot be accomodated on our motorways. There is no room for more lanes around the cities. No parking space in the cities (Amsterdam particularly). Nor do we want to suffer from vastly more pollution. Due to the EU tightening its anti-pollution policy it is now almost inpossible to build close to a motorway because of pollution by small particles. Anytime the tech gurus come up with new tech to battle with pollution we travel more and more, negating the results of the new tech.

Hope this answers your questions. If necessary, drop me an email and I will try to get you an map or a timetable of the railways.

greetings,

Marc Immeker

For whom the Bell Tolls John Donne From Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1623), XVII: Nunc Lento Sonitu Dicunt, Morieris - PERCHANCE he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that.
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Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Wednesday, August 2, 2006 6:52 AM
Somebody avoided answering the questions he was asked since the questions challenge his world-saving doctrine.
The daily commute is part of everyday life but I get two rides a day out of it. Paul
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Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, August 1, 2006 7:56 PM
 marcimmeker wrote:

How I missed these discussions during my weeklong stay on Helgoland!

Well, back to the subject.

If I remember correctly Britain (and Sweden) were in the forefront of privatisation / open access.

They had to figure out a lot of things and the other EU countries are all learning and doing things slightly different (or not for as long as possible). We all love these EU directives that tell us to go there and then let each of us to figure out how to get there from here.

Now, about slot bidding. Let me see if I understand this thing that is supposed to be wonderfull.

Take the Netherlands, I know somthing about its railway system of about 3000 km's as I travel a lot on it because I don't have a drivers license (deliberately too). There are 5000 trains a day and 1 million passengers per (work)day. The country has 16.3 million inhabitants.

Let us focus on the city of Amersfoort, located to the east of Amsterdam. It is the northeast corner of an area we call Randstad Holland (were half the population lives on 20 % of the land, with a big empty hole in the middle too). It is a major junction for railtraffic from the (south)west to the east and north of the country. The intercity services that cross here are a major part of the railsystem and can reasonably isolated from other services.

Basic intercity service is on the hour a train from Amsterdam to Enschede to the east ans across the platform a train from Rotterdam and The Hague by way of Utrecht to the north (Zwolle and then on to Groningen and Leewarden). About half the people onboard the trains change trains across the platform or get off. A half hour later the pattern is Amsterdam to the north and Rotterdam / The Hague / Utrecht to Enschede.

So FM, how can we use the system of slot bidding on these trains?

Do we put out for bidding only the trains from Amsterdam to Enschede? And then Rotterdam/The Hague/ Utrecht to Zwolle/Groningen/Leeuwarden on another bid?

Or do we put out for bidding the service on the hour on one contract and the service on the half hour on another?

Or do you have better solutions?

Sincerely waiting for your reply,

Marc Immeker

Marc,

First question:  Do these trains make an actual profit or not, e.g. do they take in more revenue than what they get in subsidy and road tax manipulation?

Second question:  Is it possible for current changeover areas to be converted to run through trains, e.g. keep the patrons on one train from origin to destination?

Third question:  How much cross border train traffic is there, both passenger and freight?

Fourth question:  If something happened to change the current status quo, in that patrons shifted to other modes for their travel needs, how hard would it be for such patrons to make that adjustment?

  • Member since
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Posted by MStLfan on Tuesday, August 1, 2006 5:51 PM

How I missed these discussions during my weeklong stay on Helgoland!

Well, back to the subject.

If I remember correctly Britain (and Sweden) were in the forefront of privatisation / open access.

They had to figure out a lot of things and the other EU countries are all learning and doing things slightly different (or not for as long as possible). We all love these EU directives that tell us to go there and then let each of us to figure out how to get there from here.

Now, about slot bidding. Let me see if I understand this thing that is supposed to be wonderfull.

Take the Netherlands, I know somthing about its railway system of about 3000 km's as I travel a lot on it because I don't have a drivers license (deliberately too). There are 5000 trains a day and 1 million passengers per (work)day. The country has 16.3 million inhabitants.

Let us focus on the city of Amersfoort, located to the east of Amsterdam. It is the northeast corner of an area we call Randstad Holland (were half the population lives on 20 % of the land, with a big empty hole in the middle too). It is a major junction for railtraffic from the (south)west to the east and north of the country. The intercity services that cross here are a major part of the railsystem and can reasonably isolated from other services.

Basic intercity service is on the hour a train from Amsterdam to Enschede to the east ans across the platform a train from Rotterdam and The Hague by way of Utrecht to the north (Zwolle and then on to Groningen and Leewarden). About half the people onboard the trains change trains across the platform or get off. A half hour later the pattern is Amsterdam to the north and Rotterdam / The Hague / Utrecht to Enschede.

So FM, how can we use the system of slot bidding on these trains?

Do we put out for bidding only the trains from Amsterdam to Enschede? And then Rotterdam/The Hague/ Utrecht to Zwolle/Groningen/Leeuwarden on another bid?

Or do we put out for bidding the service on the hour on one contract and the service on the half hour on another?

Or do you have better solutions?

Sincerely waiting for your reply,

Marc Immeker

 

 

For whom the Bell Tolls John Donne From Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1623), XVII: Nunc Lento Sonitu Dicunt, Morieris - PERCHANCE he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that.

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