Re:“It Is Getting Worse. People Are Leaving”
by mschuster91 on Monday May 09, 2022 @11:26AM
(#31315351)
- Shorter trains need less engines (or rather, they can be run with one or two locomotives). That means when one fails the conductor can immediately hear this and halt the train. When a mid- or end engine fails, it may escalate to catastrophic failure
- long trains have issues with brake apply speed - remember, train cars are dumb. No electricity, all they have (at least here in Europe) is one main brake line where the transmission speed is the speed of sound - that means, for a 700m long train a drop in pressure at the front is only registered after 2 seconds at the last carriage.
- long trains are a nightmare to shunt around. Not just because you have immense distance between the engine and the conductor at the end, but especially if the train has to run over a street level crossing. Old shunting yards simply were never estimated to run such long trains.
- long trains are a nightmare for residents along the lines for the same reason
- long and especially double stacked trains put up a hell of a lot more stress on the infrastructure than it was constructed for - remember again, this infra is sometimes well over a century old!
- long trains have issues with brake apply speed - remember, train cars are dumb. No electricity, all they have (at least here in Europe) is one main brake line where the transmission speed is the speed of sound - that means, for a 700m long train a drop in pressure at the front is only registered after 2 seconds at the last carriage.
- long trains are a nightmare to shunt around. Not just because you have immense distance between the engine and the conductor at the end, but especially if the train has to run over a street level crossing. Old shunting yards simply were never estimated to run such long trains.
- long trains are a nightmare for residents along the lines for the same reason
- long and especially double stacked trains put up a hell of a lot more stress on the infrastructure than it was constructed for - remember again, this infra is sometimes well over a century old!