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Is it typical for trains to be custom made? For some reason I had imagined them to be made like cars

by pubby 4y ago

fhars 4y ago
They are usually procured in series, but only a few (compared with cars) trains per series are built. For example, there are three configurations for Germanys current top of the line ICE4 high speed train, with 37, 50 and 50 sets built. Trains seat more people than cars, and they don't spend most of their time sitting idle in parking lots, so you need fewer.
Scoundreller 4y ago
These ones are probably custom made because they’re being built to a 1-meter gauge. There are about 3 popular train gauges in Spain: 1m, Iberian and the high speed trains at least use the European standard so they can travel non-stop. Toronto had to spend a lot more money on its streetcar refresh because they use a gauge nobody else uses, along with tighter turning radii than most other systems. No off-the-shelf possible. https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/threads/ttc-flexity-streetcars-testing-delivery-bombardier.3263/page-423 https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/threads/ttc-flexity-streetcars... Usually manufacturers take their standard designs and modify them, but can run into issues like where things unexpectedly resonate because you tweaked the design subtly.
- pvaldes 4y ago
  a) First Spanish railways were built more wide by design than french ones. This allows more speed and stability but has the plus to disconnecting the Iberian Peninsula from Europe on purpose [1]. Therefore replacing the old trains is not so simple as just choosing a new model in a maker's catalogue. b) Neither is to fix the railway. The North of Spain has a lot of mountains so to fix the thousands of extant tunnels would be just too expensive. The delay to connect the North with Madrid by fast train can be measured in decades and a main obstacle is snow melting and falling through tiny crevices to flood the tunnels in construction. We have very good engineers but unexpected events just happen. All of this said, none of this facts should be a secret for the maker, and after hearing about the other cases, I wouldn't bet that this is not an old maker's trick to increase the bills. Not without more context. As politician Revilla is an opportunist survivor, so acting outraged is expected [2]. ---------------- [1] Therefore blocking other countries to use their trains to move troops and tanks and invading Spain in a lightning operation. When your neighbor could be Napoleon or Hitler is better to be safe than sorry. This sword cuts both ways and was a problem later in peace times to export our products to Europe. [2] He just will say anything that his current audience wants to hear, as has been doing for decades. He knows probably that acting angry and blaming other will deflect any responsibilities far from himself.
fredoralive 4y ago
Because there was no one standard back in the 19th century, not everything is standardised. You can have different loading gauges (roughly, what size vehicle will fit through the infrastructure) and the track gauge (the width between the rails). Whilst most of continental Europe is fairly standardised nowadays, you have various exceptions, like Spain and Portugal using a metre wide track gauge, or Great Britain[1] having a very small loading gauge. Beyond that, the order size of the various railways is often relatively low (hundreds to thousands or carriages, or dozens of full sets) and railway operators often want them customised for specific services types (an intercity operator will want first class coaches and provision for food service, a commuter operator will want to cram as many people in as possible etc.) so everything going to be bespoke at some level. [1] The island of Ireland, both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, uses a different set of standards to Great Britain or mainland Europe.
- Someone 4y ago
  There’s also variation in - how power is delivered through the overhead wire (direct or alternating current, switching frequency, voltage), often even within a country, for example because high speed rail needs more power and cannot use what’s used elsewhere (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_railway_electrification_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_railway_electrificatio...) - platform height (again, often even within a country. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_platform_height https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_platform_height) Two centuries of work leads to significant technical debt.
  - linker3000 4y ago
    The UK's Southern/South Eastern region train networks have third rail power pickup.
panick21_ 4y ago
The numbers are just far lower then cars. The individual parts are far larger and far lower numbers. You can't have as much economics of scale. Also, every customer has a lot of wishes. Imagine it more like Uber buying 1 million GM cars demanding to have costume interior and many other details. It really depends on what the train is supposed to do. A train is mostly costume to its mission. An S-Bahn that operates more like metro, needs lots of large doors with a open layout. The same basic train can also be configured for an inter-city operations, having very different layout, different doors and so on. And each country has different standard, differ track gauge, loading gauge, signaling, breaking and so on. Accessibility standards is another huge thing that is slight different everywhere. But even so, lots of train types are quite similar, lots of train are built on the same platforms. Each of the manufactures have a few standard platforms. And inside different train there is lots of reuse.
Kon-Peki 4y ago
> Is it typical for trains to be custom made? Well, yes and no. There is a basic train set, and then it is usually customized to the operator’s needs. There isn’t really a “reference design” you can order, because nobody would order it. But the manufacturer tries to have as much commonality that they can to get some scale advantages. Metra (Chicago’s intracity rail) has ordered a few hundred of these French trains [1]. They will be push/pulled by diesel locomotives, and the “customizations” are mainly just having bicycle storage areas and wheelchair ramps on both sides that work regardless of platform height (even no platform at all). But that basic train car is used in a lot of European countries. [1] https://www.alstom.com/coradia-stream-regional-trains-higher-capacity-and-operational-efficiency https://www.alstom.com/coradia-stream-regional-trains-higher...

Is it typical for trains to be custom made? For some reason I had imagined them to be made like cars

by pubby 4y ago

Is it typical for trains to be custom made? For some reason I had imagined them to be made like cars

They are usually procured in series, but only a few (compared with cars) trains per series are built. For example, there are three configurations for Germanys current top of the line ICE4 high speed train, with 37, 50 and 50 sets built. Trains seat more people than cars, and they don't spend most of their time sitting idle in parking lots, so you need fewer.

Scoundreller 4y ago

These ones are probably custom made because they’re being built to a 1-meter gauge. There are about 3 popular train gauges in Spain: 1m, Iberian and the high speed trains at least use the European standard so they can travel non-stop. Toronto had to spend a lot more money on its streetcar refresh because they use a gauge nobody else uses, along with tighter turning radii than most other systems. No off-the-shelf possible. https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/threads/ttc-flexity-streetcars-testing-delivery-bombardier.3263/page-423 https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/threads/ttc-flexity-streetcars... Usually manufacturers take their standard designs and modify them, but can run into issues like where things unexpectedly resonate because you tweaked the design subtly.

pvaldes 4y ago
a) First Spanish railways were built more wide by design than french ones. This allows more speed and stability but has the plus to disconnecting the Iberian Peninsula from Europe on purpose [1]. Therefore replacing the old trains is not so simple as just choosing a new model in a maker's catalogue. b) Neither is to fix the railway. The North of Spain has a lot of mountains so to fix the thousands of extant tunnels would be just too expensive. The delay to connect the North with Madrid by fast train can be measured in decades and a main obstacle is snow melting and falling through tiny crevices to flood the tunnels in construction. We have very good engineers but unexpected events just happen. All of this said, none of this facts should be a secret for the maker, and after hearing about the other cases, I wouldn't bet that this is not an old maker's trick to increase the bills. Not without more context. As politician Revilla is an opportunist survivor, so acting outraged is expected [2]. ---------------- [1] Therefore blocking other countries to use their trains to move troops and tanks and invading Spain in a lightning operation. When your neighbor could be Napoleon or Hitler is better to be safe than sorry. This sword cuts both ways and was a problem later in peace times to export our products to Europe. [2] He just will say anything that his current audience wants to hear, as has been doing for decades. He knows probably that acting angry and blaming other will deflect any responsibilities far from himself.

fredoralive 4y ago

Because there was no one standard back in the 19th century, not everything is standardised. You can have different loading gauges (roughly, what size vehicle will fit through the infrastructure) and the track gauge (the width between the rails). Whilst most of continental Europe is fairly standardised nowadays, you have various exceptions, like Spain and Portugal using a metre wide track gauge, or Great Britain[1] having a very small loading gauge. Beyond that, the order size of the various railways is often relatively low (hundreds to thousands or carriages, or dozens of full sets) and railway operators often want them customised for specific services types (an intercity operator will want first class coaches and provision for food service, a commuter operator will want to cram as many people in as possible etc.) so everything going to be bespoke at some level. [1] The island of Ireland, both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, uses a different set of standards to Great Britain or mainland Europe.

Someone 4y ago
There’s also variation in - how power is delivered through the overhead wire (direct or alternating current, switching frequency, voltage), often even within a country, for example because high speed rail needs more power and cannot use what’s used elsewhere (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_railway_electrification_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_railway_electrificatio...) - platform height (again, often even within a country. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_platform_height https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_platform_height) Two centuries of work leads to significant technical debt.
- linker3000 4y ago
  The UK's Southern/South Eastern region train networks have third rail power pickup.

panick21_ 4y ago

The numbers are just far lower then cars. The individual parts are far larger and far lower numbers. You can't have as much economics of scale. Also, every customer has a lot of wishes. Imagine it more like Uber buying 1 million GM cars demanding to have costume interior and many other details. It really depends on what the train is supposed to do. A train is mostly costume to its mission. An S-Bahn that operates more like metro, needs lots of large doors with a open layout. The same basic train can also be configured for an inter-city operations, having very different layout, different doors and so on. And each country has different standard, differ track gauge, loading gauge, signaling, breaking and so on. Accessibility standards is another huge thing that is slight different everywhere. But even so, lots of train types are quite similar, lots of train are built on the same platforms. Each of the manufactures have a few standard platforms. And inside different train there is lots of reuse.

Kon-Peki 4y ago

> Is it typical for trains to be custom made? Well, yes and no. There is a basic train set, and then it is usually customized to the operator’s needs. There isn’t really a “reference design” you can order, because nobody would order it. But the manufacturer tries to have as much commonality that they can to get some scale advantages. Metra (Chicago’s intracity rail) has ordered a few hundred of these French trains [1]. They will be push/pulled by diesel locomotives, and the “customizations” are mainly just having bicycle storage areas and wheelchair ramps on both sides that work regardless of platform height (even no platform at all). But that basic train car is used in a lot of European countries. [1] https://www.alstom.com/coradia-stream-regional-trains-higher-capacity-and-operational-efficiency https://www.alstom.com/coradia-stream-regional-trains-higher...