I have a question for any international railway experts. Outside of North America are there any countries that operate double stack container trains? I’ve read occasionally about the desire for railways to capture more Asian - European trade. To occur it seems like double stacks technology would provide a big competitive boost for the railways. Has double stacks been part of that discussion?
Good question. I saw a show about the Chunel under the English channel to France. There was a small shot of a freight going into the tunnel that had containers but not stacked. Plus most Euopean countries being the size of Ohio or smaller there would be no need for stack trains. Trucks could handle most of the traffic. The money making railroads in the EU haul people and not freight. When I was stationed in Germany (1981-1984) there was 1 freight to 10 passenger train.
Pete
i also think that is a good question but as locoi1sa said is they make theyre revenue (money earned) through passengers and not freight. Reason is that european countries do not use nearly a third of what we do, so they have no need to have a large rail network because what they need it would be cheaper to ship by truck if anything the trucks could handle the needs.
It seems like Australia would be a potential candidate with its long transcontinental line to Perth. Russia has a very busy transcontinental freight line but I am not sure if it carries much intermodal traffic or just natural resources. Also, I suppose in the future as western China develops it could be agood candidate as well.
Another restriction in most of Europe and the UK is clearances. Most European clearance diagrams are incredibly tight and double-stacks would never fit.
The Saudi Railways Organization has the capability to move double-stack at this time, but I’m not sure if it has exercised it on a regular basis yet. It plans to construct a rail corridor across the Arabian Peninsula and then initiate significant double-stack service between Dammam and Jiddah. The SRO has this capability because it’s one of the few railways in the Middle East built by U.S. railroaders (ARAMCO-Bechtel) instead of British railroaders, which brought a significantly different philosophy of operations and engineering. The rest of the Middle East is essentially British practice with smaller loading gauge, lighter maximum axle loadings, and greater emphasis on passenger than freight.
RWM
So, if Europe had followed a more American-like design, would they carry mores freight than they do?
George
i guess it would also depend on how long the train is that pulls them because their trains arent nearly as long or as heavy as the american railroads pull i dont think that they could handle it easily or the rails have the capacity?
Europe is all over the map as far as railfreight transport goes; the former Warsaw Pact countries move similar percentage of freight by rail to the US around 40 percent, Finland and Sweden are in the low 30 percent range, most of the rest of Europe is in the low to mid teens in market percentage.
And then there is Switzerland with 66 percent of the freight tonne-kilometers hauled by rail. The core transalpine Gotthard Pass route handles a respectable 25 mgt per year on a route with 2.8 percent grades, and the traffic is growing.
United Sates is all over the map too, if you considered each state similar to a country. North Eastern States have limited freight operations, New York City has almost no freight, lots of passenger trains tho, Manhatten probably has no freight at all what so ever. Northern Michigan and ereas around Duluth run those unique old ore trains, short haul and dense traffiic. Florida is unique too.
Double stack is realy only logical in wide open country, like western USA or Australia, but in dense European countrys the cost of clearing the loading gauge would be so huge that they’d never recover. For Britan it would probably cost more then electrifying in relation to the benefits in return. For Europe money is better spent on speed, efficeince and perhaps even tonnage, but not height. Even if you removed the catenary there would still not be clearance. l think the only reason bouble stack has success in the US is because of the open western line with few bridges and cities to clear. Even in the eastern US double stack clearince is more expensive but at least then you can run through trains from the west.
Plus double stack has more wind resistance then close coupled single stack at high speeds.
TH&B, You make great points regarding the viability of double stacks in Europe. However, what about China/Europe long hauls. I understand a test run was recently performed. But to be viable wouldn’t a route capable of handling double stacks need to be developed? Even if the route ended in western Russia or Poland (I am not sure exactly where the test train ran to in Europe from China). It seems this operation would focus less on speed than other European freight services.
l guess it might make sense to run double stacks threw Russia to China. But l guess there are several things to rake into account besides the politics of such a route. Double stacks are only efficeint if it is relatively cheap to upgrade clearances. l know the Russian railways traditionaly have large clearances, but l’m not sure that they are large enough for double stacks without alot of work. One thing to consider is that much of this route is with overhead catenary.
l beleive one of these test runs from China to Europe arrived in Finland, wich uses the same gauge as Russia.
Poland and Slovakia both have one line of Russian gauge trackage running a decent distance into the country, in both cases they were built to bring Iron Ore into steel mills. There is talk of extending the Slovakian broad gauge to Vienna. But so far it is just talk. One thing to consider is that China is standard gauge so the containers have to be transferred at least once. European Rail Shuttle BV, a subsidiary of A.P. Moeller (who also owns the largest Containership company, Maersk Lines) has started to operate a weekly container train from Shenzehn, China to Melnik (Prague) in the Czech Republic. They won’t physically operate the trains in China, Russia or Ukraine, but will be responible for them.
Someone told me once that the European systems are passenger systems that handle freight, and the N. American systems are freight systems that handle passenger.
Horrible oversimplification, I know, yet there’s an element of truth in it. [:D] - a.s.
Germany does have some pretty heavy duty freight only main lines.
Maschen yard in Hamburg Germany is huge second to only North Platte. Apparently only by a tiny bit. How they measure these things, l don’t know? Anyways hamburg and the Ruhr has spralling freight activity.
Maschen Yard sorts more cars per day than North Platte, but North Platte is physically bigger and if you considered how much cargo the larger American freight cars carry, then North Platte handles more freight. Modern European humpyards all use three sets of retarders, and use cable powered mules for bunching and trimming. Most US humpyards only have two sets of retarders which limits the speed of cars over the hump crest, and they rely on switch engines to bunch and trim the bowl tracks. The building of the new high-speed passenger lines have created capacity for freight on the parallel older lines, that plus the rising congestion on the highways together with improved Intermodal operations and the ubiquitous container, have lead to a rebirth of railfreight in Europe.
If you want to see a lot of freight activity in Europe checkout the Rhine River valley from the Ruhr to Switzerland or the Nord-Sued Bahn (North-South Railway) from Hannover to Wurzburg. The Gotthard Pass line in Switzerland is also excellent with 200+ freights per day Tuesday through dinnertime Saturday. The Gotthard Pass doesn’t see as bad a Sunday drop in traffic as most other routes.
Yes the Eropean cars carry less per axle and many cars have two axles (quite alot have 6 and a few have 3). But l still wonder how they compare these yards accurately. Hump yards handle a high proportion of emplties to be cleaned or repaired or stored, some loads bypass the hump until empty. When switching empties axle loads mean nothing realy, just car counts matter. Also Bailey at N Platte runs alot of unit trains through the yard for inspection but not humped. ls this taken into car counts?
Some of European hump yards are more sophitacated then US, but others are very similar and several counrtys including Briton have no more.
The rating of humpyards is usually by how many cars can be processed over the hump(s) per 24 hour period.
Like in North America there are fewer humpyards in Europe now than in the past. Some of the remaining humpyards are very modern and some very obsolete. All the humpyards in Great Britain have closed. The French are down to 5 humpyards active and plan to close two more soon, SNCF is losing carload traffic and frequent strikes aren’t helping. Belgium still has 5, the Netherlands and Luxembourg each have one. Germany has many full humpyards (though surprisingly only one left in the Ruhr), Austria has five, Switzerland has three. There is only one humpyard in Scandanavia at Hallsberg, Sweden. I am not that familiar with Italy. Many European freight yards like our flat switched yards will have a mini-hump at one end. Because the European coupler systems are not aminable to being cut on the fly, kicking cars can only be done one at a time, so the mini-hump is a simple method of propelling without having to kick the cars, but the yards lack automated switches and retarders.
Australia does run some double stack container train. If you wish to see pictures of them check out the Australian Railway Historical Societies magazine. There is a picture of one in their latest issue.
Matt