Excellent Swiss video on YouTube by Overhaulin27 a skilled videographer with excellent composition. The video covers some of the popular locations on the Gotthard North Ramp. Erstfeld is the helper base and crew change point at the beginning of the 2.8% climb to Göschenen and the Gotthard Tunnel. In the video you will see the many freights that operate, including a large number of Intermodals. Note the large number of different Trucking and Logistics companies, including DHL, the European counterpart to UPS. Note also that the freights must climb the hill nearly as fast as the passenger trains.
Notice that most of the freights are less than 30 cars.
Yes, the trains are all short because the European screw-type couplers have a limited stress tolerance.
Very true, but the shorter trains very rarely break in two, which means one man operation except for those trains with a manned helper. And second with smaller trains they can serve far more terminals which allows them to compete with trucking by keeping drayage distances very short. Also there are far more unit train or trainload services as many more shippers can generate the smaller volumes. Make no mistake European railfreight operators want to see longer trains, but their aspirations are nowhere near as long as in the US.
With the recession over in Germany there are 30 Intermodal trains per day running from Rotterdam to the Rhine conurbation, Monday through Friday. That’s over a distance of about one hundred and five miles as the crow flies, a bit more by road or rail. If you went to a CSX sales rep for a movement between Newark and Philadelphia, which is more likely, he quotes you a competitive rate for Intermodal, or he breaks out in hysterical laughter.
Hupac, the 2nd largest Intermodal operator in Europe, 1st half figures for 2011;
Intermodal traffic is up 11.7% over 2010, and up about 7.0% over the previous peak in 2008
Difference between US railroads and Western European railways
Over suitable distances US railroads are the lowest priced provider of land transportation from the railroad’s perspective.
Over suitable distances Western European railways are becoming the lowest priced provider of land transportation from the shipper’s perspective.
If you can’t understand the difference consider that the per mile tariff for rail transportation of grain from Eastern North Dakota to the West Coast, is significantly less than from Montana to the same destination.
Looks like graffiti is a problem over there as well.
Surprised to see DP on such short trains.
Graffiti is a problem, its not too bad in Switzerland, Italy is very bad. They don’t seem to provide security for locations where they stable equipment, so even locomotives can get heavily covered.
Those are manned helpers, not Distributed power. The SBB trains with the older style power have 16,750 hp on the headend. That’s more than enough to break the couplings if the speed drops, so any freight greater than 1450 metric tonnes gets a rear helper to ease the strain on the couplings.
Referencing the rear Unit DPU, I did notice only one of them seems to be manned, but on several occasions there were single unit locomotives returning down grade.
I had never before seen videos of electric locomotives as DPUs. (?)
Are they just helper power or do they stay with the trains after they have cleared the mountains?
The passenger trains were of interest, as they seemed not to use the pantographs (?) on the locomotives to draw power but from the cars (or a car) in the middle area of the train.
Also, on the merchandise trains there were cars which seemed to have no side doors, but smooth sides. Some of these cars appeared to have canvas side panels. How are those cars loaded ( or unloaded (?) . also most of the cars appeared to be fairly long, and some only had two axles per car. Do the sides slid along the carside?
Interesteing that one of the early movements appeared to be a Speno Rail Grinder being transported to a new destination.
As I answered Zardoz all the rearend locomotives are manned helpers like NS uses at Altoona, PA.
The helpers are removed at Göschenen where the last scenes were filmed. The south ramp is just as steep, but northbound trains are normally light with many more empties, so helpers on that side are rare, maybe one or two per week.
The third passenger train is a “ICN” which stands for “Inter City Neigezug” which translates as Inter City New Technology train, It is a tilting train like the Acela, but unlike the Acela there are traction motors under the four outer “cars” (two each end). Because of their weight the three center cars do not have motors, the center cars are the restaurant, the car carrying the transformer, and the car carrying the pantograph. All seven cars carry passengers, there are no locomotives like the Acela or TGV.
These are the new European standard boxcar the “Habbillns”. The funny name comes from the letters which describe the car type. All the boxcar designation now start with “H” but the
It would be “very normal” for the per mile rate to be higher on a shorter haul, i.e. Montana to the coast vs Eastern ND to the coast.
You can look at the costs as:
Origin Terminal Cost + Destination Terminal Cost + (cost per line haul mile x line haul miles) = Total
Since the terminal costs don’t vary with the miles, and in the shorter hauls there fewer miles, the total cost/ per mile is going to be greater for the shorter haul.
I see in rereading my previous posting I am as clear as Mud in what I wrote concerning tariff differences between Grain shippers in Montana and Eastern North Dakota. What I meant to say is that BNSF’s tariffs for moving grain from Montana to the West Coast are proportionally higher than those from Eastern North Dakota than could be justified on a cost basis. This of course is no surprise as BNSF has a monopoly of movements from most of Montana and they practicing Differential pricing.