[HN Gopher] The fragmented nature of modern-day railways ___________________________________________________________________ The fragmented nature of modern-day railways Author : prostoalex Score : 106 points Date : 2022-06-24 02:29 UTC (1 days ago) (HTM) web link (hackaday.com) (TXT) w3m dump (hackaday.com) | londons_explore wrote: | An automated system could be made for this. | | Imagine two tracks side by side. Now have a mechanism above that | lifts goods off one train and into another. The mechanism could | work on moving trains such that a 30 mph train could unload all | its cargo and have it all loaded into a neighbouring train also | moving at 30 mph. | | Such a mechanism would be expensive, but only needs to exist at | cargo borders, and the cost would be dwarfed by the value of the | trade it enables. | sschueller wrote: | That seems like an over complication when you have automatic | gauge adjustment system [1] (already in use) that can change | the cage while the train travels through it at 15 km/h. At the | same time you can easily build locomotives to run on | electricity of any voltage and also diesel at the same time. | Also changing locomotives at boarders is quite common in Europe | so even if you can't get the locomotive to work you can switch | them easily. | | We have a light rail here in Zurich Switzerland that is a Tram | while in the city and a Train when it is outside. It switches | from 600V to 1200V and back halfway through the journey and it | does this all day long without any issues. [2] | | [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spurweite_(Bahn) | | [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forch_railway | avianlyric wrote: | Those systems have some pretty tight weight limits on them, | which makes them unsuitable for freight usage. I believe this | approach, and why doesn't work, is covered in the article. | sschueller wrote: | According to [1] (German) DB and PKP have Gage changing | system for loaded cargo trains which work similar to | regular ones but require a much longer and slower process | in order to deal with the extra weight. | | [1] | https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umspurung_(Eisenbahnfahrzeug) | ajuc wrote: | Poland has its own system like that | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SUW_2000 | | But different standards aren't the main problem. The main | problem is lack of trains to move that much grain. | notatoad wrote: | article: with Ukraine using 1,520 mm gauge, all cargo has to be | transferred to different trains at the Ukraine-EU border | | HN: why don't they just build a system to transfer the cargo to | a different train? That would solve it | ajuc wrote: | There are many solutions, including a much simpler ones like | cars that can move on both standard and wide gauges | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SUW_2000 | | Or automatic unloading of this kind: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzG-pizgqUQ | | Imagine this but with grain instead of sand and over a Vistula | river where ships going to Gdansk are waiting. | | But the main problem is too few trains. Sea transport is so | efficient compared to rail, that combined Polish and Ukrainian | cargo trains are far too few in number to move all that grain | in time. You'd have to buy order of magnitude more trains. | Tabular-Iceberg wrote: | What's the benefit of moving during the operation? It seems | like it would add a lot of cost and complexity for no clear | benefit. | inglor_cz wrote: | There isn't any benefit, it only eats up capacity of two | tracks that could be used by other, faster trains. | | If you need to move cargo from one train to another, just do | it somewhere away from the main tracks. | andbberger wrote: | an automated system already exists | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiH4kt14yGw | wongarsu wrote: | Something like a container crane? I'd argue even that is too | complicated. | | Bulk cargo like grain is often unloaded like this [1]: doors on | the bottom of the wagon that allow dumping the cargo next to | the rail, or in some configurations below it. Loading happens | by dumping stuff in from the top. | | Now it doesn't take much to make a structure to have one train | drive below and lightly to the side of another, enabling one | train to dump their cargo into the other. | | The problem with all those solutions is that they have to be | built, and before the war Ukraine had little reason to invest. | Shipping bulk goods by ship was cheaper, thus train | infrastructure for them was neglected. It's the same story as | Europe underinvesting in port infrastructure for unloading oil | and lpg because in peace time pipelines were cheaper. | | 1: https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/unloading-crushed-stone- | rail... | AlbertCory wrote: | If you are not a train buff, this comment is not for you. (I | wouldn't claim I'm one myself, but let's say I'm a | "sympathizer.") | | I just heard about this rather _large_ model railroad [1], up | near Skyline on private land (this is in the Bay Area). When I | say "rather large" I mean "you can ride on it." It's members- | only. I'm not a member. (If you were only 60 years old, you'd be | the youngest.) | | They have giant workshops where you build things to maintain the | railroad. | | [1] https://www.pvarr.org/ | Stevvo wrote: | You would love the UK. Many cities have steam railroads of | similar gauge in public parks. They are also run by clubs of | old men, but offer rides to kids all day on the weekend instead | of hiding out in the hills! | AlbertCory wrote: | I hasten to add I'm not a train spotter (that's what you call | them over there, right?) I don't have a model train of _any_ | gauge. | kzrdude wrote: | There is a lot more wheat to ship than could ever fit on rail | cars. | | https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61583492 | | "Ukrainian farmers have 20 million tonnes of grain they cannot | get to international markets" | | Let's say you could ship 10 ton (10,000 kg) per train car; that's | still 2 million rail cars. The longest possible freight train | would be 100 cars or so - so now we're down to 20,000 grain train | runs needed for the export. | | It's not possible, not enough rail capacity, not enough rail cars | and engines or days in a year to do it. | maxerickson wrote: | Apparently hopper cars can hold ~100 tons. | | Still some tough arithmetic. | kzrdude wrote: | Now I learned thought that "In 2020, U.S. Class I railroads | moved nearly 1.5 million carloads of grain." | | Apparently it's almost possible in that sense. | coredog64 wrote: | It's almost as if the US actually does have a good rail | system, except it's been optimized for freight. /sarc. | dragonwriter wrote: | > 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" | avianlyric wrote: | 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. Which I | suspect might be beyond what's possible. | | [1] https://railrent.com/en/wagon-overview/bulk-freight- | wagon/ | | [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_Europe | | [3] 750/13 = 57.6 wagons per train. Subtract one for an | engine (but I suspect you need more than one engine) give you | 56 wagons. 56 wagons at 56 tons each gives you a total of | 3,135tons are cargo. | kzrdude wrote: | I don't know. | | There's apparently some rail export already running, but the | scale is really much smaller. | | https://www.railfreight.com/railfreight/2022/05/09/first- | exp... | | "Each train consists of 25 bulk goods wagons, and each | transports 1,400 tons of grain. " | [deleted] | bobthepanda wrote: | The European network is not generally set up to handle these | long freight trains, because passenger trains are prioritized | and the long freights screw that up (see: Amtrak) | cenriqueortiz wrote: | One clear benefit of ensuring disparity of rail systems across | adjacent countries is protection from an impromptu invasion. IIRC | for some countries during the WWs, that was a main reason for the | differences and was in fact effective. I wonder if the rail | systems difference helped avoid Russia using the rail system for | the invasion of Ukraine. | ajuc wrote: | Poland actually has some wide-gauge railways connecting Ukraine | to Silesia region in Poland (originally for moving coal, steel | and sulphur between Ukraine and industrial part of Poland, now | used for various things including moving refuges out of Ukraine). | See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linia_Hutnicza_Szerokotorowa | | So it's not true that all the reloading has to happen on EU | border. | | We also have trains that can move from standard to wide gauge and | back with minimal delays. For example | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SUW_2000 but there are also more | modern versions. | | The main problem is simply too small capacity of railway | transport compared to sea transport. We'd have to increase the | number of cargo trains Poland and Ukraine owns by orders of | magnitude to move all that grain in a reasonable time. | bell-cot wrote: | Zzz. At scale, railroads (at least in the US) mostly move grain | in covered hopper cars - https://www.up.com/customers/track- | record/tr071321-what-is-a... | | If you've got enough single-gauge RR infrastructure and | equipment, but a problem with a gauge change along the route, | then building a one-way grain transfer facility is d*mn easy. | Full hopper cars, gauge "U", get pushed onto an elevated railroad | track. Empty hopper cars, gauge "P", sit ready on another track, | below the full cars. In between are a bunch of crude welded- | sheet-metal chutes. You open the loading hatches on the lower | rail cars, then open the dump gates on the upper rail cars, and | gravity moves the grain. | | (Yes, this requires _some_ equipment and intelligence to do, and | _some_ time to build. It 's late-1800's technology.) | [deleted] | california2077 wrote: | This would be a perfect place to try Hyperloop-like solution at | scale. | warning26 wrote: | Regauging the railways too expensive? Not a problem, we'll just | build a series of _vacuum sealed maglev railways_ instead. Much | cheaper. | | Wait a minute... | photochemsyn wrote: | It's a bit surprising to see an article on modern-day rail that | doesn't at least mention China's remarkable advances in rail. You | can love or hate their state-sponsored, approach, but it seems | undeniable that Chinese rail is the most advanced in the world at | present. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_China | mlindner wrote: | Because the conversation is about rail transport between Europe | and post-soviet Europe. It would in fact be surprising to see | China being mentioned at all, given it's complete irrelevance | to the conversation at hand. | | And no I'd pretty easily say that Chinese rail is not the most | advanced in the world. That award would go to Japan. (China | buys (or steals) their technology from Japan and also Europe.) | Animats wrote: | China's Belt and Road initiative is forcing more railways in Asia | to support "standard gauge" (1435 mm) width, which China and | Europe, while the Soviet-era countries use 1520mm. The goal is to | be able to run freight from China to Europe.[1] Some track is | dual-gauge. There's enough difference between 1435mm and 1520mm | to use a 3-rail system. Plain track isn't too hard, but switches | are complicated. | | [1] https://asiatimes.com/2021/11/chinas-belt-and-road- | chugging-... | divbzero wrote: | This map [2] shows a proposed railway running through | Kyrgyzstan to Uzbekistan. Presumably it would continue through | Turkmenistan and Iran to Turkey? | | [2]: https://www.silkroadbriefing.com/news/2020/12/10/awaiting- | on... | Gare wrote: | > There's enough difference between 1435mm and 1520mm to use a | 3-rail system. | | Can you provide an example? I've only seen 4-rail dual-gauge | systems for those gauges. | floehopper wrote: | Jon Worth's [1] CrossBorderRail project [2] aims to highlight | missing cross-border rail links in Europe. He's recently embarked | on a huge rail and bike journey that crosses every internal | border inside the European Union (and EFTA countries) that you | can cross by train. En route he's stopping off to organise a | meeting in the political capital of each country to discuss the | missing rail links with local activists. | | [1]: https://twitter.com/jonworth [2]: | https://crossborderrail.trainsforeurope.eu/ | kkfx wrote: | The real *ways (not just rails, also roads) issue is one: | evolution. | | We start a project a day, with a certain set of needs and | desires. The project takes time to be complete, let's say | 10-15-20 years, at the end some parts of the network are still | useful and valuable many others are not. Change them is hard, | demand again more time, once done (IF done) we end up in the | similar departure scenario. | | Society does not change that fast in general, but still do. In | the past we have followed nature and people have started to | follow transport networks, now with climate change, transport | tech changes etc we experience issues. | | The sole solution is IMO: | | - do their best to create free networks, like privileging air and | water transports who demand infra but only at their endpoints | letting paths evolve much faster and simpler; | | - do their best to avoid LARGE infra, preferring capillar ones | were surely there would be useless parts but being a small local | size and much connected network any segment cost far less so both | profitable ones and unprofitable ones can be operated. | | In the past we have seen something like this, for rails for | instance: http://carfree.fr/img/2015/06/sncf.jpg overall the old | network worked LESS well and cost A BIT more, but the old one | allow many paths from A to B so allow flexibility, the new one is | far more efficient AS LONG AS transportation needs do not change. | | We have seen the very same issue in modern just-in-time | manufacturing and we see that solutions found so far are the | same: less efficiency traded for more flexibility. | dieortin wrote: | Why would we privilege air and water transports when they're | the hardest ones to electrify by far? We're in a climate | emergency, and should be doing the opposite. | Linda703 wrote: | gambler wrote: | Hm, after reading the title I monetarily thought the article | would talk about the implosion of Union Pacific and complications | of switching to a different provider. FYI: | | https://www.manufacturing.net/labor/news/13118134/union-paci... | | https://www.wsj.com/articles/union-pacific-to-cut-nearly-3-0... | | https://www.thepacker.com/news/transportation/union-pacific-... | | https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/sd9kqw/union_paci... | | https://www.reddit.com/r/CatastrophicFailure/comments/s6c04a... | | https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/14/los-angeles-... | | https://www.cfindustries.com/newsroom/2022/union-pacific-shi... | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDxp8lUXDz0 | | Meanwhile at the top: | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qF_5jng3RYM | | TLDR version. UP switched to some fancy "efficient" system | several years ago, laid off thousands of employees. At the time | many people predicted collapse of the company in a couple of | years. Three years later it is plagued by rampant theft and trash | on the tracks. This year it refused to ship fertilizer during | planting season. It also refused to ship additives to diesel fuel | earlier this year (amidst general truck shipping issues and | skyrocketing fuel costs). Meanwhile the CEO is smiling like a | Cheshire Cat and giving out Bloomberg interviews about efficient | management. | inglor_cz wrote: | 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 even slowing | down, full speed. | | A break of gauge is a different beast: a real tough problem. Even | the railcars are wider on wide-gauge railways, which means that | they cannot pass through some European tunnels etc. | | Frankly, the only solution is to re-gauge the entire Ukraine to | 1435 mm and introduce a new fleet of railway vehicles there. 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. | | This will be expensive, but the EU could pay for that, plus a lot | of that work could be done by European contractors. | kposehn wrote: | 1. Agreed for the most part, though I think a startup could | overcome the break-of-gauge limitations pretty fast with | moderate investment (and less red tape). | | 2. There are multiple different ways of handling BofG; the | holdup is just deploying it effectively. | | 3. For loading gauge, using EU grain hauling stock with | variable gauge (or swapped) bogies would be ideal - this avoids | issues with larger cars and heavier axle loads. | | (Edit) | | 4. The unit nature of grain trains makes the problem easier to | solve since outside of gauge changes you deal with large cuts | of cars. No need to swap couplers on every car as you only hook | on the ends (Europe uses hook & buffer, while the former USSR | uses SA3) | | 5. Brazil has the largest network of dual gauge track in the | world and has optimized it quite well; 1600mm gauge engines | frequently handle 1000mm with the help of idler cars that allow | them to couple up. Some lessons to be learned here. | labster wrote: | Just make a startup to fix it is classic HN. _Six | generations_ of hackers have been working on the problem of | track gauge, but it's obviously going to be solved with a few | million in VC funding. | | On the last point, some gauges are too close to run dual | gauge tracks well. It's great when you can just add a third | rail, but European and Soviet standards are too close and | need four rails to run on the same track. | kergonath wrote: | > I think a startup could overcome the break-of-gauge | limitations pretty fast with moderate investment (and less | red tape) | | I am not sure what the angle is, here. Variable-gauge trains | are things we can build, and as a matter of fact there are a | bunch of them crossing the French-Spanish border every day. | It's not some magical disruptive technology that boring old | engineering firms could not crack. | | 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. | | And the red tape is not at this level anyway, it has to do | with certification, with which the startup-ness of the | designer won't help. | | Not everything is best solved by just setting up a startup. | larusso wrote: | > 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 | they can carry more load but that is simply something we | have to live with. But they will try to unblock the ports | before they even attempt to solve this issue. | kposehn wrote: | Exactly. Allowing European unit trains to run into | Ukraine for grain would be a significant improvement at | vastly lower cost. | midasuni wrote: | Track Gauge can be solved, various methods with various | pros and cons, from adjusting bogies to just relaying the | tracks (like GWR did in ye olden days) | | Loading gauge though is another matter - you can't fit a | square peg in a round hole. | kposehn wrote: | The angle is that systems to overcome this limitation have | lacked for (a) economic reasons and (b) political will. | Both clearly now are less of an issue due to the shortage | of grain on the global market due to the war. | avianlyric wrote: | But what do either of those factors have to do with | startups? | | If economics and politics are the primary blockers, what | exactly are startups bringing to the table? | kposehn wrote: | Someone has to start it. Incumbents so far have not. | ThePowerOfFuet wrote: | > Variable-gauge trains are things we can build, and as a | matter of fact there are a bunch of them crossing the | French-Spanish border every day. | | The high speed lines are all standard gauge in both | countries. | | At the crossing between Puigcerda and La Tour de Carol the | Catalan regional train goes one stop into France on an | Iberian gauge line which ends there (English Wikipedia | needs to be updated to reflect this). At the crossing | between Cerbere and Portbou it's the opposite, with a | French train going one stop into Catalonia on a standard | gauge line which ends there. | kposehn wrote: | Renfe also operates some variable gauge trains on the | high speed network that radiate out into the Iberian | gauge lines to serve smaller cities. That said I don't | believe any cross the border to France. | Tabular-Iceberg wrote: | My suggestion is that we build a dedicated freight network of | Soviet gauge and SA3 couplers and leave the existing network for | passengers. | | We're only going to need more capacity for climate-friendly | transportation of both passengers and freight, and stronger | tracks and couplers for heavier trains is going to help with | efficiency of the latter. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-06-25 23:00 UTC)