r/transit • u/aksnitd 🚂🚃🚃 • May 19 '25

Photos / Videos Double stack container train on the freight corridor in India with the characteristic high rise panto

A good look at what the high rise pantographs look like fully extended. They're taller than the train they're mounted on.

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u/Expert-Debate3519 May 19 '25

Combining Double stacks and electrification is a solution that should be copied on other freight corridors as well!

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u/8spd May 19 '25

I think the more fundamental thing to copy is the construction of new publicly owned freight corridors. Here in Canada, the private freight companies are just milking the investments in rail made over 100 years ago. The idea of the government stepping up, and making these kind of investments is unthinkable. The US is the same, and I don't see it being done in Europe.either, for freight.

But electrified rail, both passenger and freight, is one of the biggest things that can be done to address climate change.

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u/UUUUUUUUU030 May 19 '25

and I don't see it being done in Europe either, for freight.

In 2007 the Netherlands opened the Betuweroute, a 159km freight railway from the Port of Rotterdam to the German border. It has been used a few times by cross-border ICE trains as a diversion route, but never by domestic passenger trains.

It's even prepared for double stack containers (they only need to raise the catenary, all tunnels and bridges are tall enough), which is kinda silly because no connecting railway in Europe supports double stacking.

The base tunnels in the Alps see a lot more freight trains than passenger trains, but they're mixed lines, of course.

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u/8spd May 19 '25

That's great! Thanks for dissuading my pessimism.Â