Reading about a new railroad that just began construction in Russia and it got me thinking about freight traffic in tons vs freight traffic in trains:http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/infrastructure/single-view/view/construction-of-northern-latitudinal-railway-to-start-in-2019.html …
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The route will connect to recently-built railways in the Yamal Peninsula, home to Russia's largest natural gas reserves. Population is negligible in this part of Russia, and the new railway is intended for freight use, shipping gas and oil.pic.twitter.com/5fkWVC7U2M
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The news story linked earlier says that traffic is estimated to be 23.9 million metric tons per year. Sounds substantial! How much is that in terms of trains per day, though? 23.9 million metric tons per year = 65,435 metric tons per day
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Some hasty googling suggests that a fully loaded crude oil tank car in the USA weighs 286,000 pounds, or about 130 metric tons. So: 65,435 metric tons per day = 503 oil tank cars per day Bit more googling suggests that a crude oil train usually has 100 cars, so abt 5 trains/day
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Presumably, Russian tank car sizes and train lengths might be different--and this back-of-the-envelope estimate is only based on oil, not on natural gas--but I expect my hunch that heavy freight traffic doesn't necessarily mean lots of freight trains will still be true
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What if this railway had been built in a heavily populated part of Russia instead of in the frozen north? With adequate signals and good scheduling, 5 daily freight trains shouldn't pose any serious obstacle to frequent passenger service.
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This lesson must be taken to heart in the USA as well, where there's a lot of friction between freight railways and passenger interests--you don't need to be each other's enemies; both of you benefit from expanded and modernized infrastructure!
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