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Four ways to speed up trains on the New Silk Road (2020)
- zeristor 6y agoHow much would this have to scale up to reduce the container ship demand?
- dnautics 6y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_trains https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_trains it seems the longest US train ever had ~700 containers
- guidopallemans 6y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_container_ships 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 6y agoThose 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 6y agoThere 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 6y agoMaybe one day they will build the bering straight tunnel!
- wahern 6y ago> 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_century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bering_Strait_crossing#21st_ce...
- greedo 6y agoIsn't unloading train cars also a similar time constraint?
- Scoundreller 6y agoIt can help that they arrive in 1d instead of 3d.
- Animats 6y agoThe 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 https://youtu.be/jdIzRFOaTCY
- AnimalMuppet 6y agoSiding length isn't an issue if the line is double-tracked the whole way.
- Animats 6y agoIf 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 6y agoOn 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.
- elygre 6y agoAn unexpected discovery from that video was how many Evergreen containers there were. Suddenly I see them everywhere!
- bombcar 6y agoThe one I always see (and keep an eye out for) is the TEX containers - I like to think of it as TeX as in LaTeX :)
- m4rtink 6y agoEnergy 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 6y agoSmart but — highly doubt Russian electric will be “clean” in the foreseeable future.
- bruiseralmighty 6y agoShipping 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.
- pm90 6y agoA 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.
- bombcar 6y agoThe main advantage of a train is that it can go over land, and that the cars can be "humped" without an unload/load cycle which allows a single train from LA serve multiple midwest destinations (by splitting at a common junction). But where boats and barges can operate, they usually win. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classification_yard#Hump_yard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classification_yard#Hump_yard
- billfruit 6y agoMay 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 6y agoSouthern 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.
- intrepidhero 6y agoI 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_gauge
- namibj 6y agoIt works for freight, but the cars are comparatively expensive.
- Scoundreller 6y agoAnd 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 6y agoWhen 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 6y agoHaving a unique gauge stymied Nazi invasion logistics in the Great Patriotic War.
- db48x 6y agoThe 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…
- AtlasBarfed 6y agoChina 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 6y agoInteresting 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 6y agoIt 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 6y agoIt’s not positive when an illiberal authoritarian Party-first ethno-nationalist dictatorship is Daddy.
- OldHand2018 6y agoThis 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.
- hinkley 6y agoIf 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.
- Scoundreller 6y agoReminds me of US Steel selling off a rail that bypassed the Chicago railtraffic jam for big money: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2007-09-27-0709260847-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2007-09-27-070926...
- OldHand2018 6y agoFrench 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.
- Animats 6y agoThe 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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjiJoAjqVHs
- hef19898 6y agoThe 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.
- burnte 6y ago> 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.
- meltedcapacitor 6y agoActual trains! They're cool too but slightly disappointed that it is not a new type of escrow or delivery method for dark markets.