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French railway run Europe’s longest freight train
@Vasyl - yes, generally the link and chain coupling system is the limiting factor in train length. They break under stress that our couplers and draft gear would absorb. Plans to replace link and chain have been around for a long, long time, but implementation is another thing.
Passenger trains with older stock still use the same system, but HSR sets generally use the Scharfenberg coupling system (or a variant), which has actually been around for a long time.
@Mr. Hays: I believe from the European reports I’ve read, that this train used a form of DP, so there was no second crew in the mid-train engine.
The Russians (and most former Soviet Union states) use the SA3, which they will admit is a copy of the Janney/AAR.
No wide-open spaces in France!
William D Hays is onto something. Unionized workers are part of the reason for inefficiencies of railroads in Europe. Why modernize and eliminate jobs if you don’t have to? There is no competition from other railroads. And why is there no competition? The socialist governments run each railroad in their respective countries, as a monopoly. There is no need to cut costs and become more efficient. The end result in freight operations, if the diesel was replaced by a steam locomotive, would be exactly the same today as in 1900.
We have locals two and three times that long. No big deal in US railroading. UPRR ran a stack train from dallas to longbeach that measured over 18000 ft. Now thats a train my friend.
When visiting Germany and France, I was suprised of their short freight trains. But I always thought that the reason was because they still use the link and chain coupling system. Is that true???
A “short line” train! Two of them would fit on our BNSF sidings. Of course, two trains = more unionized employees in socialist France.
Hunter Harrison needs to go to France and teach the good old boys at SNCF how to railroad. 4800 feet and 3700 tons…be still my beating heart! I am just swooning from the HpT ratios!
There still is one big exeption in EU: Finland. The law has allowed free competition in freight market from 2005, but no competition have ever appeared. There are couple good reasons: broad gauge, EU regulations and Finnish State Railway’s (VR) policy to scrap all old equipment without question. Luckily, VR’s monopoly in international freight with Russia is ending at 2015. - VR has monopoly on passenger service until 2024.
@Jeffrey G. - European railways were deregulated in the 90’s. What remains of the national monopolies were broken down into passenger, freight, and infrastructure components that remain in place but they must also allow for direct competition in any sector of the industry.
The national systems maintain the tracks and signaling, but if you have a loco or two, you too can run a railroad. There are dozens of firms providing rail services for hire across the continent, crossing borders with ease. They pay access fees to the infrastructure owners wherever they run so the track can be maintained at the high standards Europeans expect. They have guaranteed access to the rails, provided they meet the required technical and financial standards to safely operate trains.
As to the efficiency of their crews, most freights have only one crewmember, the engineer. No conductors, no brakemen, nada. Even the high speed passenger trains have a minimal crew, with only one engineer, one conductor, and a few stewards/ticket takers. Less staff than a comparable jumbo jet carrying the same number of passengers.
The best comparison may be this: the European railways are much the trucking industry here - free to compete (or not), and free to go under. Bad service results in bankruptcy, and it happens there too.
I think speed is more important than train lenght in Europe.The advantages of longer trains may not be as great as it first seems.
Mr. Guse obviously has almost zero knowledge of rail freight railroad operations in Europe…which is only slightly less than he knows about US rail operations.
There are a whole bunch of reasons why you’re not ever going to run 8,000 ton, 1 HP/ton trains in Europe as standard practice - and none of them are related to “socialism” or even nationalism.
The European roads do about as well with carload freight as the US roads do. They focus on asset and resource turns rather than train productivity. This difference is driven primarily by geography and markets served.
Here’s an interesting tidbit. Did you know that that there are one-man crew locals in Germany? Anyone in the US ever see a freight train depart a hump yard from the class tracks with a signalled route all the way out to the main? How about a crew change from a high level platform?
A large segment of European rail freight operations have been privatized with more and more motive power and “goods wagons” owned by companies other than owner of rails. Bit of “steel interstate” concept, not way different than USA road interstate except European freight operators might just pay a cost covering fee for access… Shorter freights: Coupler issues, Length of sidings, Accelleration/brake times combined with mix of frequent passenger train traffic on same routes also factor.
A couple of posters are commenting on a topic in which they have minimal or zero knowledge remind me of the Mark Twain quote, “It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt”
Don, Brendan, Joseph, and Paul you guys are spot on with your observations.
Well said
(This has nothing to do with unions, which are no less common in US railroading than European railroading. For the love of… do you guys even read what you’ve written before hitting the Submit button?)
Major problems with longer trains in Europe are:
- Greater passenger use of the same lines. Easier to schedule multiple smaller trains in that environment than longer trains that, for example, will spend five minutes clearing a bridge with a 25mph restriction plus slow down and speed back up time.
- Smaller sidings (as noted in article)
- Smaller yards (as noted in article)
Worth pointing out that it wasn’t until the 1970s that, for example, Britain started fitting automatic (air, vacuum, whatever) brakes to its freight wagons. Link and chain is only part of the problem.
None of these can be fixed overnight. There are a larger number of passenger-train-only lines than there once were, but very few of the remaining lines are freight only.
Again, The Guse speaks about something that he has absolutely no knowledge about!!!
It is the couplers. The Soviet railways dabbled with Super Power steam in Stalin era, with Baldwin 2-10-2, Alco 2-10-4, and Voroshilovgrad 4-14-4, all of which proved to be rough on the tracks and to pull more trains in half than they pulled uphill.
Brendan: DP on a dinky 4,800’ train? I must assume there would be a crew (of one?) on the second “dinky” stand-alone train.
Vasyl: wouldn’t that be the “Link-and-Screw” coupling? Very appropriate for the European unions. Quite labor-intensive.