Scenarios of Development of new rail freight vehicles. : Capacity4Rail, WP2.2, MS 15. EC Contract No FP7- 605650

In this report the following parameters has been evaluated mainly from a capacity point of view: · Wagon concepts as longer wagons, lighter wagons and voluminous wagons · Wagon components as draw-bars, automatic couplers and new brake systems · Longer trains and combination of longer trains and wagon improvements One measure to make wagon longer and more efficient is to couple them permanently together with Jacobs-bogies. This has been done for container and trailer wagons in this project. For 45 feet containers a 12-axle wagon with Jacob-bogies has been developed. By this the capacity per train-meter increase with 3- 4 % compared with an ordinary 6-axle wagon with Jacob bogie. For 40 feet containers however a 4-axle 80 feet bogie wagon like VEL-wagon is more efficient. For liftable trailers two 6-axle wagons with Jacob-bogies has been coupled with a drawbar. This 12-axle wagon is 2 % more efficient than an ordinary 6-axle wagon. The problem with long wagons is that they are not so flexible to adapt to different demand and train lengths. Our analysis shows that in many situations shorter wagons are more efficient. This can in practice be solved if long wagons can be combined with shorter wagons to optimize the train lengths. For non-liftable trailers the problem is to find a solution which can handle trailers with in simple terminals, at best only a siding with a flat ground. It will often make the wagons more complex. Both Flexiwagon and Megaswing can load wagons on a siding by the truck-driver and no other equipment. Megaswing is as efficient as an ordinary 6-axle wagon for liftable trailers in length-utilization. The Flexiwagon is very long but is also constructed to load both the truck and the trailer. This will decrease the capacity utilization by approx. 40 % compared with wagons only for trailers. Modalohr, which is a low-built platform wagon, is more efficient than an ordinary 6-axle wagon for non-liftable trailers however it need a
QC 20220412