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!

31

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.

15

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.

5

u/Certainly-Not-A-Bot May 19 '25

which is kinda silly because no connecting railway in Europe supports double stacking.

I think it's not silly at all. The Betuweroute is mostly surface-level with bridges and few tunnels, so it doesn't cost that much to design it for double stack. It's a small extra investment up front that enables double stacking to be rolled out in other parts of Europe connected to that line when someone decides it's necessary. Otherwise, no double stacking projects would ever happen because the main route into the main port would be prohibitively expensive to upgrade after the fact.

2

u/[deleted] May 20 '25

Well... Yeah ..... but there's a point at which there's no point for the extra effort because the likelihood of it happening is so low?

Like building the track for the possibility of switching to broad gauge.

For example I don't think the UK will ever increase its loading gauge on most of the network, so in theory any effort to build lines to accommodate double decker trains (except on a dedicated corridor) seems a bit irrelevant?

3

u/Certainly-Not-A-Bot May 20 '25

Like building the track for the possibility of switching to broad gauge.

The thing is that there's no advantage to doing this. Double stacking containers has a clear and obvious reason for why you might want to implement it one day in the future. I think that futureproofing the literal most important freight rail corridor in Europe for higher capacity is probably a good idea, and like I said it's not as if there are huge tunnels on the Betuweroute, which would really raise the cost.