RE: https://mastodon.world/@RailwayGazette/115977927931976376
Shinkansen freight trains for high value/perishable produce!
(Meanwhile in the USA passenger rail runs on freight tracks and has to give way to freight trains.)
Discussion
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@cstross The biggest strength of the Shinkansen is that it does not have to share its tracks with freight trains or anything else.
So I am not sure if introducing mixed traffic on the Shinkansen network is a great idea.
@ratsnakegames Not true: Shinkansen is Japan's first standard gauge network. (Other Japanese railways are all narrow gauge.) It also has all-new stations and is grade-separated from other tracks. Upshot is, it doesn't have to slow down for crossings. If the freight units are designed to Shinkansen spec and run at regular Shinkansen speeds (as seems to be the objective) then there's no problem here.
@cstross No, the Shinkansen is not Japan's first standard-gauge network. It's true that most of the conventional network is standard-gauge but there is a significant chunk of standard-gauge commuter lines including the Ginza line (oldest subway in Asia) and the networks of Keikyu, Hankyu, Keisei, Kintetsu and a bunch more. (I just was in Japan a few months ago).
The ICE is also standard gauge, and a lot of it is grade separated, but freight messes it up quite often.
@cstross
I always felt that Manchester trams could be used to move light freight in the early morning, pre rush hour.
Freight could be collected from loading docks, where big trucks are off loaded, and then distributed by 'last mile' cargo cycles in the city centre.
@Maker_of_Things I suspect they'd need different rolling stock—trams are designed to hold people, not cargo containers or even rolling produce cages. Which in turn implies marshaling yard capacity, sidings for the cargo units when not in use, and so on. Also a reduced daily maintenance window.
@cstross
Maybe just using the tracks for small freight trains, or a light fright wagon behind the tram.
It seems like a lot of useful infrastructure that could have other uses when the trams are not running.
@cstross France used to run postal TGVs. Given the high cost of high speed tracks, running trains with produce at 160 km/h is enough.
@ratsnakegames @thias I have ridden the Odakyu Romancecar once—the 60000 series, I think. Runs on standard Japanese tracks (ie. narrow gauge), peaks at 170km/h. It was *spectacularly* bouncy!
@cstross Oh, that's interesting. The high speed lines in France have relatively recently been extended to Barcelona -- given how much of the produce in the EU comes from Spain I suspect it wouldn't be too much work to run high speed cargo trains from the produce areas to most of France and possibly Belgium and The Netherlands.
Well, not too much work other than dealing with the SNCF, so it's doomed by default, but still. Theoretically doable.
@cstross as someone who had to learn more than a little about this stuff, that's legitimately impressive. The weight and configuration difference between passenger and freight is WAY more than people realize.
N700 trainsets, for example, have up to 56 x 305kW motors (22.9kHP total) in the cars, but weighs only 700 tons total.
A single EMD SD70 locomotive weighs 204 tons, makes 4300HP, and has enough tractive effort to pull 10 full N700 trainsets.
@cstross if Amtrak were able to run the San Francisco <-> Los Angeles segment at the 75-80 MPH they reached during a short segment around Watsonville, there would be little point in HSR. Even less if they could go at the ca. 120 MPH Acela reaches in the NE corridor.
But the actual speed on this run averages less than 35 MPH, 10+ hours. I find it hard to believe that for a fraction of the billions spent on the so-far nonexistent CA HSR plan, they could not have improved the existing UP track.
@oddhack Just noting that on the NON high speed track between Edinburgh and London, a 380 mile stretch, the trains routinely take 4h15m, so averaging 90mph INCLUDING multiple stops. True high speed rail is something else again.
@cstross I was a bit disappointed in the EDI->LON run, mostly because I wanted to take a coastal route for the views and there weren't many of those. But I did get a good look at plenty of urban decay, much as you can see the shanties and other third-world conditions field workers live in on the SF->LA route.
@cstross TGV LaPoste japonaise
@cstross The French had TGV La Poste for a while but a decade ago it was replaced with a slower swap body based freight service.
@cstross "quick, throw a load of UK replacement Prime Ministers on there stat!"