[HN Gopher] Four ways to speed up trains on the New Silk Road (2...
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Four ways to speed up trains on the New Silk Road (2020)
Author : zeristor
Score : 53 points
Date : 2021-04-03 11:35 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.railfreight.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.railfreight.com)
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| China appears to be succeeding at conquering asia and getting the
| 7 armies/turn, for only the second time in history (the Mongols
| previously).
|
| Their infrastructure buildout will enable them to economically
| benefit from/dominate Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Pacific at a
| minimum.
| redisman wrote:
| Interesting to see what this means for Russia in the next 50
| years. They'll start losing their influence in Central Asia
| very quickly and I'd imagine China will be their main trading
| partner and can set their own terms. I'm sure there are some
| maps in the CCP planning rooms for chopping the asian half of
| Russia for some more breathing room for a rising superpower.
| ArkanExplorer wrote:
| It would be nice if we could view trade, commerce and
| intermingling of Northern-Latituders as a positive prospect
| for humanity, rather than an opportunity for conflict.
| SllX wrote:
| It's not positive when an illiberal authoritarian Party-
| first ethno-nationalist dictatorship is Daddy.
| meltedcapacitor wrote:
| Actual trains! They're cool too but slightly disappointed that it
| is not a new type of escrow or delivery method for dark markets.
| zeristor wrote:
| How much would this have to scale up to reduce the container ship
| demand?
| dnautics wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_trains
|
| it seems the longest US train ever had ~700 containers
| Animats wrote:
| The limit is siding length. Eventually you have to park the
| thing somewhere. There are some super-long trains used by
| bulk carriers on dedicated track. The Union Pacific ran a 3.4
| mile long container train once, from Texas to LA. Double-
| stacked containers at reasonably high speed. There were
| locomotives spaced throughout the train, all under control
| from the head end. There's a video.[1] Worked fine, but got
| political attention due to long grade crossing blockage.
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/jdIzRFOaTCY
| elygre wrote:
| An unexpected discovery from that video was how many
| Evergreen containers there were. Suddenly I see them
| everywhere!
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Siding length isn't an issue if the line is double-tracked
| the whole way.
| Animats wrote:
| If there are any problems, lack of a siding somewhere
| nearby leaves the main line blocked. Also, at the
| destination, you need some place to put the thing, except
| for bulk mine trains which go round and round a loop.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| On a double-tracked line, lack of a siding somewhere
| nearby leaves _one of the two main lines_ blocked. That
| 's still serious, but less than what you are saying.
| guidopallemans wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_container_ship.
| ..
|
| I don't think that this comparison is the best way of looking
| at it, but FWIW, the largest container ships can haul just
| shy of 24k containers.
| briffle wrote:
| Those are '20-foot equivalent Containers' so more like half
| that. But then you have to factor in the loading time,
| unloading time, space needed, cost, etc.
|
| I see it kind of like a station wagon full of tapes, versus
| a fast internet pipe. The station wagon can possibly move
| more, but has much, much more latency. (and that analogy
| doesn't account for the time to load/unload the tapes onto
| the computer systems)
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| There is also the basic fact that many routes are
| mutually exclusive.
|
| Denver to LA will _never_ be viable by ship. Shenzhen to
| LA will _never_ be viable by train.
| throwaway-571 wrote:
| Maybe one day they will build the bering straight tunnel!
| wahern wrote:
| > Shenzhen to LA will never be viable by train
|
| Probably, but a certain breed of politician (across
| nationalities) keeps the dream alive:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bering_Strait_crossing#21st
| _ce...
| greedo wrote:
| Isn't unloading train cars also a similar time
| constraint?
| Scoundreller wrote:
| It can help that they arrive in 1d instead of 3d.
| m4rtink wrote:
| Energy cost per container for train versus container ship on
| the same route would be interesting.
|
| Also pollution wise you can (at least in theory) electrify the
| whole route and run electric trains on it, which should make
| the whole thing quite clean (as long as the energy sources are
| reasonably clean).
|
| For ships that's more involved - IIRC some can run on LNG but
| otherwise you would basically have to make them nuclear powered
| if you wanted zero emissions. At least until you have carbon
| capture & fuel synthesization running.
| cwwc wrote:
| Smart but -- highly doubt Russian electric will be "clean" in
| the foreseeable future.
| bruiseralmighty wrote:
| Shipping by boat is much cheaper per mile than train.
|
| Generally shipping cost functions like this gradient.
|
| Ships < Trains < Trucks < Aircraft
|
| Obvious considerations other than cost:
|
| Ships can only come to port. Trains likewise can only go to
| rail stations. This makes trains slightly more expensive land
| ships from a logistics perspective.
|
| Trucks can go anywhere over land, but are quite a step up in
| expense. They are still necessary for something last 10 miles
| shipping in nearly all cases.
|
| Airplanes are special. They are probably best thought of as
| very fast very expensive trains. Their main drawback being
| that they need an airport to land and load.
|
| Other aircraft (helicopters/bush-pilots). Also a special
| case. These are quite expensive and generally only used when
| the landscape precludes the building of necessary
| infrastructure. Areas where this makes sense are remote by
| definition; generally landlocked with no nearby airport or
| roads to/from the nearest airport. Often companies that
| provide these services like to take passengers as humans who
| want to travel to remote regions are cost effective in terms
| of freight ($$$).
|
| Blimps (not currently used commercially). Renewed development
| into using blimps to transport freight is being researched by
| several governments including the USG. Blimps are quite
| efficient at moving freight around as they utilize the same
| physical properties that ships use (buoyancy). They require
| very little infrastructure to take-off and land; comparable
| to that of helicopters. Added bonus! Blimps are more
| difficult to raid by organize crime elements and move slowly
| enough to make autonomous piloting a possibility. Both
| factors are expected to be huge cost savers for logistics in
| the coming decades.
|
| For example, one of the reasons trucking is more expensive
| than trains is the number of humans required to operate the
| vehicles. Shipping lanes are expected to become more
| contested as NAFTA begins to contend with a multi-polar
| global powers dynamic (China, Russia, India (,perhaps even
| SEA will get their shit together!)).
|
| Thus a low cost, low infrastructure, piracy-resistant
| solution is being searched for. Blimps do have an obvious
| downside of limited volume and several high profile
| catastrophes, though these are now a century old. All that
| being said, we could see blimps beginning to fill in the gaps
| as early as the end of this decade.
| leetcrew wrote:
| > Blimps are more difficult to raid by organize crime
| elements and move slowly enough to make autonomous piloting
| a possibility.
|
| for now...
|
| perhaps if blimp shipping becomes common we will see the
| development of pirate blimps. one can hope anyway :)
| Scoundreller wrote:
| I think the other aspect is inventory-time-cost. There's
| probably a narrow category of things that are high-
| value/(kg OR L), but not so much so to justify air transit.
| Or can't be.
|
| Maybe loads of lithium batteries? Autos? Some foodstuffs
| good for 7 days but not 21? Trains can make lots of stops,
| but that can make a lot of sense for global goods.
| pm90 wrote:
| A lot.
|
| Not only can container ships carry a fuckton of containers, but
| investments have also been made in ports throughout the world
| to load/unload the cargo in these ships.
|
| Freight trains might perhaps cater to a niche where they're
| faster than ships but slower than airplanes. Or serve as a
| backup for essential commodities when there are snags with the
| global trade routes.
|
| But ocean shipping is absolutely bonkers at the scale at which
| it currently operates. The ships are only getting more massive.
| Animats wrote:
| The rail gauge change is tough. While there are several systems
| for making bogies that can change width, they're not used much on
| freight cars. Here's a video of the SUW 2000 gauge changing
| system for freight cars mentioned in the article.[1] If that can
| be made to work, the whole process becomes much more efficient.
| It's been done for passenger trains for decades, mostly at the
| border between France and Spain, but it's rare for freight.
| Without that, there has to be an "inland port" at the gauge
| change points, where containers are unloaded from one train and
| onto another. China and Europe use the same gauge, but Russia and
| the former USSR use a wider gauge. All new Belt and Road
| construction is to China standards, which are similar to US
| standards.
|
| Single-stack container trains with one car per 40 foot container
| (2 TEU) seem to be the standard for Belt and Road shipments. That
| covers most of what needs to be shipped.
|
| China, like the US, uses the AAR coupler on freight cars. The US
| standardized on that, by an act of Congress, in 1893. Russia uses
| the SA-3 coupler, which is incompatible but a good automatic
| coupler. Most of Europe is way behind on freight cars, still
| using small freight cars with buffers and couplers that require
| manual attachment. There was an EU plan to standardize railroad
| coupling across the EU, from 2008, but they gave up.
|
| Not sure what the train length limit is. That's set by the length
| of sidings.
|
| Those are the physical limits. Paperwork at borders remains a
| problem.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjiJoAjqVHs
| iggldiggl wrote:
| Even where the track gauge itself is the same, differing
| standards for wheel and flange dimensions (which in turn
| influence certain crucial dimensions of switches and crossings)
| still have the potential to throw a spanner in the works and
| prevent full cross-compatibility.
|
| If the differences aren't too large, some sort of compromise
| wheel set might be possible - if that's not the case, then
| you'd still need to swap the wheels.
| jcranmer wrote:
| > Single-stack container trains with one car per 40 foot
| container (2 TEU) seem to be the standard for Belt and Road
| shipments. That covers most of what needs to be shipped.
|
| For someone who lives in the US, this seems not-state-of-the-
| art. Most long-distance train traffic in the US has shifted to
| double-stack container trains.
|
| > Not sure what the train length limit is. That's set by the
| length of sidings.
|
| From what I can tell, Europe tends to prefer far smaller trains
| than the US does. The typical train length in the US is >100
| cars (I want to say 120-ish is the current average, but I don't
| have firm statistics), but in Europe, it seems to be more like
| 40 cars.
| Animats wrote:
| _From what I can tell, Europe tends to prefer far smaller
| trains than the US does._
|
| The old-style couplers used in Europe are too weak for longer
| trains. "The buffers and chain coupling system has a maximum
| load much less than that of the Janney coupler. They allow
| around 3,000-4,000 (metric) tonnes total train weight
| depending on the how they are constructed. The Janney coupler
| sometimes is built for 32,000 tonnes (31,000 long tons;
| 35,000 short tons)."
|
| The EU attempt to standardize on an automatic freight coupler
| across the entire EU was a flop. There's a new project under
| way to test a new generation of freight coupler, one that
| connects the mechanical, air, and electrical connections.[1]
| But it's just getting started.
|
| [1] https://uic.org/com/enews/article/germany-rail-freight-
| trans...
| iggldiggl wrote:
| While the couplings certainly are a factor for heavy (bulk)
| freight (steel, coal, ore, aggregates, etc.), I'd guess
| that container trains are often rather length-limited by
| all the rest of the infrastructure (yard/siding/loop
| length, signalling) before hitting the actual limits of the
| old-style screw couplings. Whereas e.g. most of Europe
| currently has evolved towards a maximum length of around
| 750 m (which doesn't mean that the infrastructure in terms
| of loop/sidings length actually allows trains that long
| everywhere, though!), Denmark allows up to 835 m while
| still using screw couplings.
|
| So for container trains at least, a programme of loops and
| sidings lengthening would be the more pressing requirement,
| before actually and absolutely _having_ to upgrade the
| couplers, but that kind of infrastructure modification
| doesn 't come cheap or necessarily easy, either.
|
| Another difference to consider is that in Europe, passenger
| traffic is much more widespread and common than on North
| American railways, and also commonly has priority over
| freight trains.
|
| While in principle, longer trains are indeed more efficient
| than an equivalent larger number of shorter trains, past a
| certain point they'll eventually become too unwieldy to fit
| inside the schedule demands of passenger traffic. There's
| certainly scope for moving beyond the current 750 m
| maximum, but the multi-kilometre range would probably be
| pushing things a little too far without completely
| dedicated infrastructure.
| iggldiggl wrote:
| Re double stacking,
|
| a) even ignoring electrification and only at a guess, there
| are probably on average more overbridges and tunnels per
| route mile than on the major North American freight
| corridors, therefore making any attempt to implement the
| loading gauge necessary for double-stacking much more
| expensive
|
| b) this I know for certain - electrification is _much_ more
| widespread than in the US (especially if you 're only looking
| at trunk lines), and that poses a _continuous_ obstacle to
| implementing double-stacking without expensive modifications.
| hef19898 wrote:
| The gauge also changes between Spain and Italy. Changing
| containers between trains can be done at the border in roughly
| one hour for the whole train max, if memory serves well. The
| actual bottle neck is the number of rail lines crossing the
| border and not the gauge change. It does add cost and
| coordination effort, so it would be better without that.
|
| Paperwork, for transit at least, doesn't seem to be a big
| headache along the new silk road. If you use specialist
| services to handle customs. And that should be the norm
| nowadays for international shippers and consignees anyway.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| > If you use specialist services to handle customs.
|
| Sounds like the "better use the guy that knows a guy" system.
|
| If you try to do it yourself, suddenly every rule starts to
| apply.
| burnte wrote:
| > The gauge also changes between Spain and Italy.
|
| So it changes in France? Or it changes where Italy and France
| meet? Or wher eFrance and Spain meet? Because Italy doesn't
| touch Spain.
| jcranmer wrote:
| The gauge change is on the France/Spain border. Spain and
| Portugal use a different gauge from the rest of Europe.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Had to look this up, but the high-speed rail network in
| Portugal/Spain runs on standard gauge, so trips to France
| weren't a problem.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Track_gauge_in_Spain
| jcranmer wrote:
| As far as I'm aware, HSR everywhere in the world is
| 4'81/2", even where the local rail gauge isn't (i.e.,
| Spain and Japan). Rail Baltica is similarly planning a
| 4'81/2" line despite local rail being 5'.
| OldHand2018 wrote:
| This is a nice article. Two observations:
|
| 1. The article mentions that the average freight train speed is
| ~28 miles per hour. From what I can find, the average freight
| train speed in the US is ~26 miles per hour. I'm not sure that
| these numbers are actually apples-vs-apples though.
|
| 2. From what I can see on that map, it looks like Moscow is the
| central hub for freight rail regardless of which China-Europe
| route you take. Smart move by Russia. Chicago is kind of the
| North American equivalent and it has really benefited Chicago
| quite a lot.
| mc32 wrote:
| Isn't Bailey Yard in North Platte, NE the biggest rail yard in
| the US with about 14,000 rail cars going through it daily.
| jcranmer wrote:
| Chicago is where all the Class I (i.e., big railroads) meet:
| UP, BNSF, CN, CP, KCS, CSX, NS. There are several railroad
| yards in the city and surrounding environments, so much so
| that the rail lines are really visible on Google Maps who
| otherwise loves to deemphasize rail routes.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Yes. But there's _one_ railroad line that goes through North
| Platte. There once were ~38 railroad lines into Chicago. Some
| are no longer in service (at least as through lines), but
| Chicago is still far more widely served than North Platte.
| OldHand2018 wrote:
| The Chicago region has dozens of very large rail yards,
| with construction of new yards and expansion of existing
| yards ongoing. It would take a lot of investment elsewhere
| to eclipse: Russia/Moscow is making a strategic investment
| that will pay large dividends for them for decades to come.
| hinkley wrote:
| If Chicago didn't exist, someone else would have put a city
| within a handful of miles of the same location.
|
| It's about as centrally located to the US as you can get from
| the Great Lakes, and once a canal opened (in this case, the
| Eerie, but shorter canals could have existed, it was just in
| NYC's interests to have that particular canal), then that's
| about as far as a boat can go, and water traffic is more
| efficient than rail.
|
| So you would have trains leaving 'Chicago' to go everywhere,
| and someone would have thought to build a canal to get to the
| Illinois river and hence the Mississippi.
|
| I'm not so sure that "St Louis" had to be exactly where it is,
| but Chicago is virtually a foregone geographical conclusion.
| OldHand2018 wrote:
| French explorers recognized the strategic importance of the
| area in the 1600s. For sure, a large city would eventually
| sprout in the area where Chicago is.
|
| When France ceded the lands of the Illinois Country (east of
| the Mississippi) to Great Britain in the 1700s, all the
| French had to GTFO. St Louis was the highest land along the
| Mississippi anywhere close to the confluences of the
| Missouri, Ohio and Illinois rivers. Since the Mississippi
| flooded almost every spring, this was the best place to put a
| city and it allowed the French to maintain more control over
| the area than they were supposed to have.
|
| The railroads were built by men, however, and could have gone
| anywhere. The negotiations and influencing that got them all
| built through Chicago has had a huge ROI for the last 150+
| years.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Reminds me of US Steel selling off a rail that bypassed the
| Chicago railtraffic jam for big money:
|
| https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-
| xpm-2007-09-27-070926...
| Wohlf wrote:
| St. Louis would have likely been in the same general area too
| because of the Missouri river.
| intrepidhero wrote:
| I skimmed the four suggestions: digital tracking, avoid
| bottlenecks, invest in infrastructure, and overcome break of
| gauge, until I got to that last one. Break of gauge? Turns out
| Russia and Europe operate rails at different rail widths (gauge)
| and there are rail cars with variable width axles to accommodate
| running the same trains on both. Too bad it doesn't work for
| freight. TIL: fascinating.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_gauge
| namibj wrote:
| It works for freight, but the cars are comparatively expensive.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| And means you can only carry reduced loads or deadweight.
|
| Doesn't sound technically complicated though, so I wonder if
| the extra expense is lack of volume.
| barbazoo wrote:
| When I took the trans siberian railway in 2008, they actually
| took a break at the border of Mongolia and China I believe to
| change the axles for different size ones which took a couple of
| hours.
| brudgers wrote:
| Having a unique gauge stymied Nazi invasion logistics in the
| Great Patriotic War.
| layoutIfNeeded wrote:
| No.
|
| >It is widely and incorrectly believed that Imperial Russia
| chose a gauge broader than standard gauge for military
| reasons, namely to prevent potential invaders from using the
| rail system. In 1841 a Russian army engineer wrote a paper
| stating that such a danger did not exist since railways could
| be made dysfunctional by retreating or diverting forces.
|
| >[...]
|
| >When a railway has wooden sleepers, it is fairly easy to
| make the gauge narrower by removing the nails and placing
| them back at a narrower position, something Germany did
| during WWII. Destroying river bridges had a larger effect.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_ft_and_1520_mm_gauge_railway.
| ..
| brudgers wrote:
| I said nothing about the reasons for the different gauge.
| Only its effect.
| layoutIfNeeded wrote:
| >it is fairly easy to make the gauge narrower by removing
| the nails and placing them back at a narrower position,
| something Germany did during WWII
|
| This doesn't sound like it stymied the Germans much. Also
| look at the answer here:
| https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/23616/what-
| did-g...
|
| Do you need anyhing else to get convinced?
| brudgers wrote:
| The sources describe how Nazis dealt with the problem.
| Ergo it was a problem.
| db48x wrote:
| The German plan was actually to capture Russian rolling stock
| rather than to convert all of the rail lines. In practice
| they very rarely captured any trains that could be used;
| soldiers just love blowing things up. Both armies blew up
| tracks, signaling infrastructure, telephone and telegraph
| lines, etc. The Germans didn't capture very many bridges
| either.
|
| I have a reference for that around here somewhere...
| brudgers wrote:
| Neither did the western allied forces following D-day. One
| exception is in the recent documentary, _Seize & Secure:
| The Battle for La Fiere_.
|
| I am starting to feel like a baby boomer studying for some
| WWII test.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Weren't the baby boomers the ones living in WWII? Not
| sure they'd be the ones doing the studying for a WWII
| test.
| CapitalistCartr wrote:
| Baby Boomer were born ~1945-1965. Defined by being post-
| War.
| layoutIfNeeded wrote:
| Lol, no! The baby boom was after WWII...
|
| You are confusing the boomers with thw Greatest
| Generation.
| ajuc wrote:
| Railway was a big thing for army. Poland uses European gauge
| because Germans modified most tracks in Poland to their
| standard during WW1 (Poland was partitioned between Russia,
| Germany and Austria before WW1 and Russian partition was by
| far the largest and used Russian gauge).
| capableweb wrote:
| > TIL: fascinating
|
| You might wanted to have those turned around: "Fascinating,
| Today I learned" instead of "Today I learned: Fascinating" as
| otherwise you're giving the impression that you learned the
| word "fascinating" today while the rest of the facts were
| already learned knowledge to you.
| intrepidhero wrote:
| Despite being an internet citizen since AOL in the early 90s
| TIL was only a TIL for me in the last year. If I'm misusing
| it using maybe you could pretend I'm being ironically cool
| instead of socially awkward. KTHXB. LOL.
| capableweb wrote:
| I don't think you're being socially awkward, misuse happens
| to everyone. I meant no harm with it, only aim to correct
| and enlighten, something that HN obviously doesn't welcome
| since my correction is being downvoted.
| billfruit wrote:
| May be bridge Lake Van in Turkey, which as on today nececitates
| being traversed on train ferry. This might make a more southerly
| route feasible.
| jcranmer wrote:
| Southern rail route has to contend with mountains in
| Turkey/Iran, and either Pakistan or
| Afghanistan/Tajikistan/Kyrgyzstan (getting out of the Tarim
| Basin somehow). And likely the Carpathians when you get into
| Europe itself.
|
| The terrain is much nicer going to the north of the Caspian and
| Black Seas, because its mostly steppe or forest, not a lot of
| mountainous terrain.
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