3 ms·

Assume a train is going 100km/h, that's 28 metres per second 6m shipping container, let's say 7m, so 4 every second. Largest container ports do 40 million con

by mavhc 6y ago

Assume a train is going 100km/h, that's 28 metres per second 6m shipping container, let's say 7m, so 4 every second. Largest container ports do 40 million containers per year, that's about 1 per second.

dmurray 6y ago
That's supposing the railway is filled bumper-to-bumper with 100 km/h freight trains. More like a conveyor belt than a railway.
- mavhc 6y ago
  Given automation it's not far off what's possible. Obviously you'd have multiple tracks for slower parts and loading/unloading. Main problems would be politics and mountains.
- fulafel 6y ago
  But if the rail is a shipping channel replacement, no need to limit to one track. Or if we are comparing to a busy port like eg Rotterdam, that also corresponds to a nexus of many shipping routes which would be equivalent to several tracks.
  - yellowapple 6y ago
    > But if the rail is a shipping channel replacement, no need to limit to one track. By this analogy, no need to limit to one port, either. But even this analogy doesn't quite hold true, because tracks v. ports are apples v. oranges. The proper comparisons here would be tracks v. navigation routes and ports v. rail depots.
    - fulafel 6y ago
      Sure. Upthread the concern was about rail bottlenecks being one track.
yellowapple 6y ago
> Assume a train is going 100km/h That's quite an assumption. Yeah, that might be a reasonable (if brisk) cruising speed, but the average is probably gonna be a fair bit slower than that, especially when passing through cities or mountains. > 6m shipping container, let's say 7m, so 4 every second. Technically 8 (under the above assumption), since containers can double-stack (though not all tunnels offer enough clearance for it). Still, real-life throughput's usually gonna be a lot lower than this theoretical maximum (by at least an order of magnitude, if not more), namely because trains can't really be packed end-to-end on a track when moving at any useful speed; they ain't exactly able to stop on a dime, so for safety reasons there's gonna be a fair bit of distance between trains. Further, if you're going to count the time it takes for ports to load/unload containers, then it's only fair to do the same for train depots.

by mavhc 6y ago

dmurray 6y ago

That's supposing the railway is filled bumper-to-bumper with 100 km/h freight trains. More like a conveyor belt than a railway.

mavhc 6y ago
Given automation it's not far off what's possible. Obviously you'd have multiple tracks for slower parts and loading/unloading. Main problems would be politics and mountains.
fulafel 6y ago
But if the rail is a shipping channel replacement, no need to limit to one track. Or if we are comparing to a busy port like eg Rotterdam, that also corresponds to a nexus of many shipping routes which would be equivalent to several tracks.
- yellowapple 6y ago
  > But if the rail is a shipping channel replacement, no need to limit to one track. By this analogy, no need to limit to one port, either. But even this analogy doesn't quite hold true, because tracks v. ports are apples v. oranges. The proper comparisons here would be tracks v. navigation routes and ports v. rail depots.
  - fulafel 6y ago
    Sure. Upthread the concern was about rail bottlenecks being one track.

yellowapple 6y ago

> Assume a train is going 100km/h That's quite an assumption. Yeah, that might be a reasonable (if brisk) cruising speed, but the average is probably gonna be a fair bit slower than that, especially when passing through cities or mountains. > 6m shipping container, let's say 7m, so 4 every second. Technically 8 (under the above assumption), since containers can double-stack (though not all tunnels offer enough clearance for it). Still, real-life throughput's usually gonna be a lot lower than this theoretical maximum (by at least an order of magnitude, if not more), namely because trains can't really be packed end-to-end on a track when moving at any useful speed; they ain't exactly able to stop on a dime, so for safety reasons there's gonna be a fair bit of distance between trains. Further, if you're going to count the time it takes for ports to load/unload containers, then it's only fair to do the same for train depots.