Mega Movers train transportation

[stuartmmcfc]

I was watching Mega movers yesterday on Quest.
It featured a new train engine being loaded onto a ship in Southern Spain-to be delivered to the customer in Germany via the Med, Bay of Biscay, channel etc
It was fascinating but I did wonder why they didn’t just put it on the rails and drive it to Germany.
Any ideas why they chose this apparently more difficult method?

[normalbloke]

Gauge,overhead/side clearance differences? Or just plain Brexit....

[Cold]

normalbloke said:

Gauge,overhead/side clearance differences? Or just plain Brexit....

Not sure how Brexit would cause issues for moving a train from Spain to Germany.

[bigpriest]

stuartmmcfc said:

I was watching Mega movers yesterday on Quest.
It featured a new train engine being loaded onto a ship in Southern Spain-to be delivered to the customer in Germany via the Med, Bay of Biscay, channel etc
It was fascinating but I did wonder why they didn’t just put it on the rails and drive it to Germany.
Any ideas why they chose this apparently more difficult method?

I think any new locomotive has to go through months / years of commissioning, testing and certificating by the country that is going to operate it - so it can't just be put on the rails at the port and driven to its new home. I doubt on delivery it's in a condition where it can be simply switched on and driven.

[matchmaker]

bigpriest said:

stuartmmcfc said:

I was watching Mega movers yesterday on Quest.
It featured a new train engine being loaded onto a ship in Southern Spain-to be delivered to the customer in Germany via the Med, Bay of Biscay, channel etc
It was fascinating but I did wonder why they didn’t just put it on the rails and drive it to Germany.
Any ideas why they chose this apparently more difficult method?

I think any new locomotive has to go through months / years of commissioning, testing and certificating by the country that is going to operate it - so it can't just be put on the rails at the port and driven to its new home. I doubt on delivery it's in a condition where it can be simply switched on and driven.

Not always the case. From Wikipedia about the Class 66:

Wikipedia said:

The first locomotive shipped to the UK arrived at Immingham in June 1998, taken to Derby for testing. The second was taken to AAR's Pueblo Test Centre for endurance testing, before shipping to the UK. The locomotives then shipped at a rate of 11 per month into the UK via Newport Docks, until the order was completed in December 2001. After unloading, EWS engineers then simply took off the tarpaulin, unblocked the suspension, and finally as each was shipped with water and fuel, connected the batteries, before starting the engine and handing the locomotive into service. The ability to simply start up '66s' on the dockside and drive them under their own power to depots to enter service was nothing short of a revelation compared with many other BR locomotives, particularly the BR Class 60s.

[FourWheelDrift]

Was it an electric train? Because if it was electric going from Spain to Germany would mean going through different electrification networks. Spain uses 3 kV DC, France uses 25 kV AC, Belgium uses 3 kV DC, Netherlands uses 1500 V DC and Germany uses 15 kV AC.

[stuartmmcfc]

FourWheelDrift said:

Was it an electric train? Because if it was electric going from Spain to Germany would mean going through different electrification networks. Spain uses 3 kV DC, France uses 25 kV AC, Belgium uses 3 kV DC, Netherlands uses 1500 V DC and Germany uses 15 kV AC.

I think you have hit the nail on the head.
I’m not certain that it was but it might have been
I assume the gauge of the tracks is the same in Europe?

Edit to add, I’m a member of “the dull men’s club” over on Facebook and that’s the sort of post they love over there!

Edited by stuartmmcfc on Sunday 21st February 14:51

[normalbloke]

Cold said:

normalbloke said:

Gauge,overhead/side clearance differences? Or just plain Brexit....

Not sure how Brexit would cause issues for moving a train from Spain to Germany.

Nor me, but it would seem for sure I was too subtle.

[bigpriest]

matchmaker said:

Not always the case. From Wikipedia about the Class 66:

Wikipedia said:

The ability to simply start up '66s' on the dockside and drive them under their own power to depots to enter service was nothing short of a revelation compared with many other BR locomotives, particularly the BR Class 60s.

I take it back! Damn those Canadians building things that work straight away

[Robscim]

I'm not a train spotter (past employer!) but you'll find the Iberian gauge (of track) is bigger than the standard European gauge (and UK).

The Spanish high-speed tracks have been built to European gauge since the early 90's but there aren't that many of them!

Finland too have a different gauge, but that's linked to Russian gauge, so I'm led to believe.

I'll leave the technical bits to those who are better at this than me (speaking as an accountant!!)

Rob

[DaveyBoyWonder]

Regardless of the differing power systems, you'd have thought they could just hook it up to a locomotive of that country and drag it up through France? Because that didn't happen I guess its a liability thing - you can't just drag a brand spankers new train thats never been tested through a country where it'll never run in case a wheel falls off or something? Or that it'll hit a platform for being too wide in that well known French way

[Dogwatch]

stuartmmcfc said:

I assume the gauge of the tracks is the same in Europe?

No. George Stephenson played a big part in developing the French railway system hence the compatibility in guages (and 'driving on the left'). Seems his influence didn't extend South of the Pyrenees.

[ZymoTech]

Indeed. Spain uses a mix of four gauges; the national railway network is in Iberian Gauge at 1668mm, the high speed lines use the 1435mm standard gauge (and is interoperable with the French rail network), there's some metre gauge knocking about and the Madrid Metro runs on a slightly broader than standard gauge 1445mm.

[Simpo Two]

FourWheelDrift said:

Was it an electric train? Because if it was electric going from Spain to Germany would mean going through different electrification networks. Spain uses 3 kV DC, France uses 25 kV AC, Belgium uses 3 kV DC, Netherlands uses 1500 V DC and Germany uses 15 kV AC.

Unless you googled that, you win 'Anorak of the Day'...

[droopsnoot]

DaveyBoyWonder said:

Regardless of the differing power systems, you'd have thought they could just hook it up to a locomotive of that country and drag it up through France? Because that didn't happen I guess its a liability thing - you can't just drag a brand spankers new train thats never been tested through a country where it'll never run in case a wheel falls off or something? Or that it'll hit a platform for being too wide in that well known French way

Finding a gap in the normal running schedule can be an issue as well. Towing it will naturally be quite slow.

Obviously the gauge thing will be more of an issue, but I think the difficulty in scheduling came into the old episode where they'd recovered a couple of Class 5 steam locos in Europe somewhere, dragged them to the port behind a freight train, but then did all the UK leg by road.

[Collectingbrass]

Helps if you don't drop them on delivery though

1. ThatWontBuffOut

[P5BNij]

Collectingbrass said:

Helps if you don't drop them on delivery though

1. ThatWontBuffOut

One less to worry about. Hateful things the Class 70s, I passed out on them at the tail end of 2019 and compared to the rugged reliability of the 66s they are far too complicated!

[DaveyBoyWonder]

P5BNij said:

One less to worry about. Hateful things the Class 70s, I passed out on them at the tail end of 2019 and compared to the rugged reliability of the 66s they are far too complicated!

There was a huge queue of them at Midland Road in Leeds for a long while (maybe even still there?) seemingly not being used. Given the fact you can't go anywhere these days without seeing 66s, the 70 I guess was a pretty major fail?

[ZymoTech]

droopsnoot said:

Finding a gap in the normal running schedule can be an issue as well. Towing it will naturally be quite slow.

Obviously the gauge thing will be more of an issue, but I think the difficulty in scheduling came into the old episode where they'd recovered a couple of Class 5 steam locos in Europe somewhere, dragged them to the port behind a freight train, but then did all the UK leg by road.

That was from an episode of Monster Moves from about 10 years ago. Some enthusiasts had bought two Stanier 8Fs that had originally gone out to Turkey in the 1940's for war service and had then stayed on in use on the Turkish railways. They had last moved under their own steam in the 80s but were still intact and judged as fit to be towed. So they were coupled onto the back of a freight train and hauled, mostly overnight to avoid holding everybody else up, from somewhere in the middle of Turkey to the port of Izmir on the Med. if memory serves frequent stops had to be made to check for hot boxes and to keep everything all lubed up.

[P5BNij]

DaveyBoyWonder said:

P5BNij said:

One less to worry about. Hateful things the Class 70s, I passed out on them at the tail end of 2019 and compared to the rugged reliability of the 66s they are far too complicated!

There was a huge queue of them at Midland Road in Leeds for a long while (maybe even still there?) seemingly not being used. Given the fact you can't go anywhere these days without seeing 66s, the 70 I guess was a pretty major fail?

They were in store for a while, along with some at Basford Hall, Crewe. They're ok when they're moving, it's the faffing about when changing ends and towing a dead one that's a pain in the butt. On a 66 it's a doddle, on a 70 you have to do everything in the right order or it won't work .