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The "fixed with bureaucracy" thing is entertaining, but it's probably a delusion that the fix is effective. For one thing, this rule is not intuitive and peopl
by adrianmonk 7y ago
The "fixed with bureaucracy" thing is entertaining, but it's probably a delusion that the fix is effective.
For one thing, this rule is not intuitive and people aren't likely to remember it. People have an easier time remembering and following rules whose reasoning clicks with them. It's not a recipe for success to say, "Oh, there's this one weird thing that you can't do, and it isn't going to make sense to you why, but remember not to do it."
I also wonder whether, even if someone in the industry does know the rule and really wants to follow it, there's an easy method to know whether their train has 256 axles. Is there a procedure in which axles are counted or an automated system that does it? If it's a manual procedure, is it time-consuming and is there pressure to skip that step when you're in a rush?
And, if a fallible human being should make a mistake and run a train with 256 axles, is there any protection against the phantom, undetected train scenario, or is it a silent failure?
- hkai 7y agoWhat if Swiss trains consist of 30-40 cars at most? Then the rule is purely technical and doesn't even have to be remembered.
- adrianmonk 7y agoVery fair point. As long as that condition holds, then I guess it's a non-issue. There are apparently trains bigger than that in some parts of the world (such as the US and Australia) but maybe conditions in Switzerland prevent that from happening? This is way beyond my level of knowledge though.
- kposehn 7y agoActually, the longest regular Swiss trains seem to top out at 44 cars. This is because of passing siding lengths being much smaller than other countries such as the US. There are longer trains that are scheduled on routes with longer sidings however such as a the main north/south routes. Most European trains rarely exceed 22 cars for the same reasons as they have to be able to be passed by express trains in stations.
- Freak_NL 7y agoYeah, a bit of light browsing yields a 25 to 30 unit average for European freight trains¹. https://www.allianz-pro-schiene.de/themen/aktuell/740-meter-gueterzug/ https://www.allianz-pro-schiene.de/themen/aktuell/740-meter-...
- kposehn 7y agoAh, it’s up from last I checked. Thanks!
- RugnirViking 7y agobut if most of the cars have 8 axles per wagon, they'll hit 256 pretty easily. I don't know how many freight wagons have that many axles, but a lot of passenger carriges do.
- usr1106 7y agoI am somewhat interested in railways, but I have never seen an 8 axle passenger wagon. Even 6 axle passenger wagons are not in use in Europe today. Can you give a reference of any 8 axle wagon? The longest passenger trains in Central Europe are around 400 meters. To get 256 axles there would be an axle every 1.6 meters on the whole train. Freight trains of 1000 meters are exceptional in Europe. You would need an axle every 4 meters to come up to 256. The axle limit is completely theoretical. The are plenty of other limits a train would exceed before.