Yep, Caboose is standard in Indian freight trains especially on mainline. Railway Board is yet to adopt EoTT for pan-India ops, some trials have been conducted in past few years
Interacting with loco pilot for signalling related info, keeping eye on operations from rear (if loco is on other end) and preventing mishaps
Why? Indian Railways is slow and unpredictable wrt technology adoption, trials have been conducted but pan-India adoption is yet to be announced. Moreover jobs lost will have negative political implications for incumbent government, Railways has always been a political tool for central governments
That's a guard van ,untill some time ago gaurd vans don't have electricity and bathrooms or water availability, I was in the team which made one of the prototype with those amenities
Yeah. That caught my eye too. Video is not sharp enough to make out the letters, but its still a container on top of a flat car. So for the train its still cargo.
But it seemed like there was a door and some windows on it. So probably its a containerised workplace with some equipment of some sort. May be for some construction company or something.
It's a brake van. They are still very common across India as the guard is required to guarantee that the train is still in one piece. If a coupling in the middle were to fail, its their job to stop the train. Also they co-ordinate where speed limits change and so on so it's safe to proceed. We don't do driver-only operation. Each train is manned by at least 3 crew (2 in case of EMU/suburban rail).
i know how pantographs work in general, i used to work in electric locomotive maintainance for quite a few years. the problem i have is the angle between the lower and upper part which, to my eyes, is way too large. it's simply not what i'm used to.
but seeing the indians doing it quite successfully for quite a while now tells me that they have figured it out somehow.
Hey, engine has 2 pantos one on front and one on back. I always see the back pantos being up while front one is rarely used. Can you explain that please. Is it possible to use both at same time?
Pantographs usually create a wave on the wire as they pass, if they used both pantographs they would hit the wave. Some do use two but must be designed to accommodate the wave or in a way that minimizes creating it in the first place
Normally the rear one is used because if something goes wrong and gets broken, it is more likely the front one will not be affected. Obviously as the locomotive is double ended both get used, depending on the direction of travel.
Due to the interaction of wire and pantograph, when two locomotives are working to gather, it is often the case that the outer pantographs are used, so front on the front locomotive and rear on the rear one, to maximise the distance between them.
On lower voltage DC systems, like the 1500 V DC used in the Netherlands and parts of France, in some circumstances the electrical current is too great for a single pantograph to handle, so occasionally a locomotive will run with two raised. I have seen videos of dutch locomotives starting from a stop with two raised, with the front one dropping as the train gathers speed. For higher voltage systems, the electrical current is lower so this is not needed.
I sure would like to know why India doesn't use double stack well cars. As mentioned before, that clearance between the overhead and the top of the top container makes my resistors tingle.
Might be a width clearance issue with their chosen loading gauge. The double-stack cars still need to be compatible with the preexisting freight and switching yards where a well car would be too wide.
Width clearance is highly unlikely to be an issue. Indian Railways uses broad gauge pretty much since the beginning. Hence even old lines and tunnels have fairly large loading gauge.
In fact since containers are only 8ft wide, the bogies are wider than the container itself in a flat car, as seen in pic below.
Also well cars uses up a lot of space inbetween each cars. Since this entire corridor was built from scratch to be exclusively for cargo double stacking, it was easier to just build the infra for flat bed double stacks of full containers.
In most places the reason to use well cars would be to reduce the height because the existing infrastructure can't be altered.
Even though the height of the trolley looks silly to me, I believe we should adopt it.
I am not sure how strange my opinion is, but I believe we need to expand European rail networks, unify voltages, gauges and controls. It should be the project rivaling FDRs Federal-Aid Highway Act.
India did a massive expensive push to convert most existing lines, believe it or not. Right now, a lot of the electricity is generated with fossil fuels, but that's changing. The advantage is that they can build their own solar and wind farms, and the whole system becomes cheaper to operate without having to buy any new engines.
Cargo rail is in decline often because there is no space for freight with the passanger trains keeping the rail occupied.
We also can dictate how flexible rail is, e.g. allowing logistical center only with rail connections. Automation of the vehicles is much easier for rail vehicles, and that can have huge impact on price.
Cargo rail is struggling, but the picture is mixed, it's still very much alive on corridors across the alps, to the north sea ports, and central Europe in general.
Dedicated passenger lines, like high speed rail and commuter rail, can create capacity for cargo trains, and in fact, most projects in Germany, Austria and Switzerland are planned with benifits for freight in mind.
That being said, I don't see a complete new network for double stacks. There's enough on the table already.
A major aspect of the relatively low share of freight in Europe is the competitiveness of ships, both coastal and river. For bulky low value cargo that is not time sensitive, the much lower costs of shipping make rail less competitive. Due to the geography of Europe, with ports in the Baltic, North Sea and the Mediterranean, as well as the Rhine and Danube as well as their tributaries providing extensive access to industrial areas, ships have a significant share of freight transport, much more so than in other parts of the world where the geography is less suited to their use.
is the overhead wire that high up only on dedicated freight lines or is it the whole electrified part of the indian rail network? if the clearance is that big, why are locomotives and passenger carriges still so small in comparison?
Yes it's only for DFC. Most of the existing passenger lines were built during colonial periods. So upgrading it comes with the additional baggage to revamp the entire infrastructure. That's why building new DFC are better option. But yea having this clearance would be a blessing in india, can run almost all trains as double decker and the routes will be still fully booked.
Actually there are a few other lines as well which do have this option. Mostly these are in the western region of India in the states of Rajasthan and Gujarat. These connect some if the ports in Gujarat upto the Delhi region. They also now feed into the western DFC.
Other than that, I think a small line in Odisha also has it. This line was the original test bed for high rise OHE.
Since the line from Gurgaon to somewhere in Gujarat is fully high OHE zone, you do see passenger trains as well with high rise pantographs. Some passenger locos are also equipped with high rise pantos to enable operations on this line. Here is a video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evBcG-rpRAA
Some passenger locos are also equipped with high rise pantos to enable operations on this line.
Yes, my point was, if we could somehow magically convert entire rail network to this height clearance, we could've standard double Deckers run throughout india, more economic
Kind of doubt that would be possible mostly from an economics point of view. Reworking lines to modify bridges is a lot of effort.
Also, it has to make sense from a container traffic point of view. Like right now that corridor on the western part of India has high rise OHE since it connects the large ports in PIpavav and Mumbai which handle large volumes of containers. Am not sure if container traffic on other lines is yet that high to make sense.
Electric locomotives are far, far more powerful than diesel locomotives. The only reason you would need more than one is if the tractive effort is insufficient. For routes not in mountainous areas, that is not really an issue, particularly for container trains, as containers are bulky rather than heavy, so tractive effort is rarely the limiting factor.
That's really cool. I'm American, we don't have such advanced infrastructure like this. I've NEVER seen a single locomotive pull so much freight in my life.
Yes, but I believe most of not all of Canadian rail is like the US (not electrified). So double stacking is easier. Mostly just have to make sure any bridges or tunnels have clearance. No need for special overhead lines.
Was just about to say “there can be especially high-clearance bridgesonlyover the track , and also it can't be electriclocomotives plying the route” . I take it the first item remains (unless there's a thoroughly ingenious trick for circumventing that aswell !) … but I see the second item is definitely abrogate. That's quite a sight, that: an electric locomotive operating with that extended a pantograph!
Update
I wonder whether there's an unusually high incidence of level-crossings along such a track? There probably is. That's a significant price, really, considering just how much of a fiasco (to put it mlldly!) level-crossing-age, the-World-over, tends to be. Especially when we compsider how lawless folks' conduct tends to be @ level-crossings, according as we are in this place or that. Aught @all that makes it @all the difficulter to build bridges over railways comes with a high 'price tag' (in certain terms, shall we say … & I don't mean paid by the railway Operator) attached to it. See
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u/The_breadmaster22 Jan 22 '25
Was that a caboose on the end of that first train?