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The fragmented nature of modern-day railways

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Re: The fragmented nature of modern-day railways

#81

Post by petre »

inglor_cz wrote: post #8

So my grandpa was an engineer and I love railways... "different signaling systems, different voltages for electrical trains" isn't that much of a problem nowadays. There are almost always enough multi-system engines available that can cross borders and cope with those changes. We have a jumble of voltages in Czechia and yet another voltage on our German/Austrian borders, and trains go through without a hitch, not eve…

> As an added bonus, that would complicate further Russian invasions in the future, as the Russian army still heavily relies on rail for its logistics.

To deter further invasions, they could bomb/destroy entry points from Russia, Belarus and Crimea/Donbass as well. It would be quite effective, but deter commerce with the separatist regions. The Poroshenko government bought coal from Donbass after 2014, practically sponsoring the separatists.

Re: The fragmented nature of modern-day railways

#82

Post by petre »

kposehn wrote: post #39
larusso wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It would not solve the issues already mentioned, which is that infrastructure is built for a set gauge, and wide-gauge carriages cannot physically fit in some places in a narrow-gauge network. My solution to this problem: Build it the other way. Use dual carriages from the EU side and add the gauge changeover at the border. I really don‘t see the reason why the wide-gauge trains have to travel over the border. Yes…

Exactly. Allowing European unit trains to run into Ukraine for grain would be a significant improvement at vastly lower cost.

Russia would then bomb the Ukrainian part of this would be rail infrastructure, claiming it's used to transport weapons. But here is a discussion about this:

https://en.thepage.ua/economy/ukraines-switch-to-european-ra...

Romania still has an old Soviet gauge railway from Reni, Ukraine into the Galati Danube port via Giurgiulesti, Moldova. Poland also has Railway Line no. 65. Slovakia has two such lines, Uzhhorod to Kosice and one from Chop to Dobra. All of these should be repaired and used to get the grain out of Ukraine. There are also some older standard gauge lines from Poland and into Ukraine.

Re: The fragmented nature of modern-day railways

#83

Post by kergonath »

ThePowerOfFuet wrote: post #77
kergonath wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The high speed lines are all standard gauge in both countries. This is not what I was referring to. Variable gauge (Talgo) trains go through gauge changers at the border without going to the high speed Spanish lines. This has been done since 1969, and that’s how you can have a single train going from Barcelona to Montpellier (and then Geneva, back in the day). It really is not rocket science and has been done for 6…

Can you please provide a train number that goes from BCN to Montpellier that isn't an SNCF TGV Euroduplex? I have been on an Intercités de Nuit from Paris to BCN (Estació de França), going through the gauge changing building at Portbou. Alas, that service was deleted when the TGV became homologated for cross-border service around 2013, and AFAIK there is no further passenger traffic which uses it.

> Can you please provide a train number that goes from BCN to Montpellier that isn't an SNCF TGV Euroduplex?

Damn you’re right, the track to Barcelona is now high speed standard gauge. I used to go from Montpellier to Spain very regularly in the late 2000s, the choice was then between a variable-gauge Talgo, or a change at Figueres.

Re: The fragmented nature of modern-day railways

#84

Post by ThePowerOfFuet »

kergonath wrote: post #83
ThePowerOfFuet wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you please provide a train number that goes from BCN to Montpellier that isn't an SNCF TGV Euroduplex? I have been on an Intercités de Nuit from Paris to BCN (Estació de França), going through the gauge changing building at Portbou. Alas, that service was deleted when the TGV became homologated for cross-border service around 2013, and AFAIK there is no further passenger traffic which uses it.

> Can you please provide a train number that goes from BCN to Montpellier that isn't an SNCF TGV Euroduplex? Damn you’re right, the track to Barcelona is now high speed standard gauge. I used to go from Montpellier to Spain very regularly in the late 2000s, the choice was then between a variable-gauge Talgo, or a change at Figueres.

Yep, there just isn't the demand for slow service when the TGV is just that much better. I look forward to the continuing return of night trains in Europe, though!

Re: The fragmented nature of modern-day railways

#85

Post by iggldiggl »

avianlyric wrote: post #34
dragonwriter wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let's say you could ship 10 ton (10,000 kg) per train car; What if we don't underestimate by a full order of magnitude? [0] > The longest possible freight train would be 100 cars or so Why? Freight trains over 100 cars are fairly routine. [0] https://www.freightwaves.com/news/commentary-moving-grain-is... : “Rail’s economic advantage comes in large part from each railroad car’s capacity of up to 100 tons”

Reading around it seems the bulk goods wagons in the EU can move about 56tons each max, are about 13m long[1], and freight trains have a max length of 750m[2] but normally need to be shorter. In total that means the maximum an EU freight train could theoretically move is only 3,100 tons[3]. So to move 20mil tons of wheat in 3 months (I don’t know the shelf life of wheat) would require about 70 full trains a day. Whic…

There are special wagons for transporting grain , e.g. [1] or [2], the main difference being that those are covered, whereas the standard bulk freight wagons are open and therefore not weatherproof.

Before running into any length limits, the limiting factor at the moment will actually be the screwlink coupling, though. Using the wagon from [2], 720 m [3] would fit 48 wagons, which fully laden would weigh a total of 48 * (70.1 + 19.9 t) = 4320 t. A standard buffer and chain screwlink coupling is only good for around 4000 t on a level gradient, 2500 t at 12.5 ‰ (1:80), or in really mountainous terrain only 1400 t at 26 ‰ (1:38.4)

[1] https://gueterwagenkatalog.dbcargo.com/katalog/nach-gattung/...

[2] https://www.wascosa.ch/wagenpark/pdf/de/schuettgutwagen/getr...

[3] In Germany the maximum length is 740 m, minus 20 m for the locomotive.

Re: The fragmented nature of modern-day railways

#87

Post by dredmorbius »

petre wrote: post #82
kposehn wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Allowing European unit trains to run into Ukraine for grain would be a significant improvement at vastly lower cost.

Russia would then bomb the Ukrainian part of this would be rail infrastructure, claiming it's used to transport weapons. But here is a discussion about this: https://en.thepage.ua/economy/ukraines-switch-to-european-ra... Romania still has an old Soviet gauge railway from Reni, Ukraine into the Galati Danube port via Giurgiulesti, Moldova. Poland also has Railway Line no. 65. Slovakia has two such lines, Uzhhorod to…

Russia are already a demonstrably bad-faith and unreliable actor.

I'd not let that stand as an obstruction to re-guaging UA rail.

Re: The fragmented nature of modern-day railways

#88

Post by justsomehnguy »

Animats wrote: post #69
justsomehnguy wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These gauges cannot make 3-rail dual gauge with Russian gauge. 1,676 mm (5 ft 6 in) Indian gauge 1,668 mm (5 ft 5+21⁄32 in) Iberian gauge 1,600 mm (5 ft 3 in) Irish gauge 1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in) standard gauge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_ft_and_1520_mm_gauge_railway...

I got that info reading about a dual-gauge solution for China's Belt and Road. But it was a political piece on the "Akhaura-Sylhet dual gauge project" in Bangladesh. Turns out that India, Pakistan, western Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka (also, SF's BART) use 1,676 mm gauge. There's enough space between that and 1,435 mm standard gauge for 3-rail. Not sure about 4-rail.

See my other comment[0] on this.

4-rail is a viable solution, but, unsurprisingly, it costs more than a 3-rail or sometimes a two separate 2-rail lines.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31880979

Re: The fragmented nature of modern-day railways

#89

Post by SoftTalker »

justsomehnguy wrote: post #67
innocenat wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because rails are 3 dimensional and has width. Between 1435mm and 1520mm there's only 85mm space. I am not even sure if you could mount two rail that close.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/NYCS_DUD... 3" equals to 76.2mm, which leaves only 8.8mm . No way.

True, I didn't think about how close these gauges were, and was assuming adequate space for the inner and outer rail.

Re: The fragmented nature of modern-day railways

#90

Post by 5etho »

FYI during world war I, armys could laid a track in 2 days during world war II german wehrmacht also build the railways and change gouge in real time

time to real hot war solutions, send nato ships to odessa to unblock the port

is it just impossible to ship grain by train, the same as it is impossible to install android on iphone 13

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