Loading the Luas

strassenwolf · 18-10-2007 8:44pm #1

I've been in Dresden for the last few days. About 500,000 people living here, served mainly by an excellent tram and bus system. There are 12 tram lines in total, many of them sharing sections of track.

Not, as yet, an orbital tram. From the building work that I've seen, they still seem to be developing lines into the city.

What interests me particularly, because it's not something I've ever seen before, is that they also have freight trams. I've seen a couple of them during the daytime - trams with about 6 cars of cargo. They may also run at night, I'm not sure, but it seems likely, as they run a passenger service through the night on the lines I've used. (1-2 trams per hour). In other words, they're not only using the night time to maintain the tracks.

Does anyone know of other cities where this is done? And could there eventually be scope for doing the same thing in Dublin, e.g., down to the North Walll?

mikemac · 18-10-2007 8:49pm

Someone here suggested that they could run a Luas for freight down to the incenerator at Poolbeg.
It may never happen but interesting idea.

I can hear the residents objecting already

Prof_V · 18-10-2007 9:06pm

strassenwolf wrote: »

Does anyone know of other cities where this is done? And could there eventually be scope for doing the same thing in Dublin, e.g., down to the North Walll?

There's an experimental operation in Amsterdam: http://www.citycargo.nl/index_eng.htm (the site mentions that it was inspired by Dresden). Other than that, I haven't heard of anything, though there may be a few examples. There are places (New Jersey, Baltimore and San Diego in the US, and probably others elsewhere) where ordinary freight trains run at night on segregated light rail lines that used to be conventional railways, but that isn't quite the same thing.

The Dresden operation, so far as I remember, was meant to serve a single customer (VW, I think), shuttling between a rail yard and their factory; has it expanded beyond that? The idea in Amsterdam is to use the trams for deliveries to the city centre, shuttling from truck-tram transshipment depots to on-street transfer points where the freight is loaded on electric trucks.

I suppose this kind of thing is easier in a dense network, which tends to be more characteristic of older tram systems than new-build light rail, even mature systems. It might be an interesting niche service in some applications, though.

Gran Hermano · 18-10-2007 9:11pm

Stock deliveries to Dundrum shopping centre must account for a fair amount
of road traffic.

Ham'nd'egger · 19-10-2007 12:56am

micmclo wrote: »

Someone here suggested that they could run a Luas for freight down to the incenerator at Poolbeg.
It may never happen but interesting idea.

I can hear the residents objecting already

The idea had been toyed with on other discussion boards but there is some inherent design issues with the Luas that will severly hinder it's ability to deal with any freight deliveries. Luas has few points to allow trams to pass each other and rather simple signalling systems in comparison to IE so tracking trams; massive thought will need to be made on same before it can be implemented.

Cionnfhaolaidh · 19-10-2007 3:57am

Imagine hauling 100 tons of ammonia through Busáras!

strassenwolf · 19-10-2007 11:28am

Prof_V wrote: »

The Dresden operation, so far as I remember, was meant to serve a single customer (VW, I think), shuttling between a rail yard and their factory; has it expanded beyond that?

I can't say, Prof. My map of the city does show a connection between the regular tram network and the VW operation - "CargoTram" is written beside this branch line on the map. I saw the two freight trams on a stretch right in the middle of the city, but I don't know where they had come from.

I've also been on a couple of lines where they have single track running, though with two tracks at the stops. This seems to be mainly out in the sticks, though I've seen it on one fairly central street. It doesn't seem to be a problem - in terms of having to wait a long time at any one stop. It might be difficult to increase the frequency - currently every 10 minutes in the daytime - without it becoming a bit of a pain.

carrotcake · 29-10-2007 4:45pm

I used to live in Dresden, right beside the VW plant, and would often see the CargoTrams coming and going. I never saw any other freight trams though.

strassenwolf wrote: »

I've also been on a couple of lines where they have single track running, though with two tracks at the stops. This seems to be mainly out in the sticks, though I've seen it on one fairly central street. It doesn't seem to be a problem - in terms of having to wait a long time at any one stop. It might be difficult to increase the frequency - currently every 10 minutes in the daytime - without it becoming a bit of a pain.

I presume the central one was the section of the 13 line that goes through the Neustadt. From what I remember it was just the one street that had this. Often one tram would have to wait at the end of the street until the other passed, but they still ran on time, God bless 'em

Capt'n Midnight · 29-10-2007 4:51pm

At night Royal Mail have their own tube trains on the London underground.

Then again there are train lines down in Dublin port and how underused are they ?

John R · 29-10-2007 5:07pm

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

At night Royal Mail have their own tube trains on the London underground.

No they don't. At night the Underground is closed for maintenance.

You are probably thinking of the purpose-built narrow guage line built in the 1920s for transporting mail between sorting offices underneath London. It was closed about 5 years ago due to high costs in favour of putting more vans on the roads.

Edit: Link.

John R · 29-10-2007 5:08pm

Cionnfhaolaidh wrote: »

Imagine hauling 100 tons of ammonia through Busáras!

You don't need to imagine, just visit the mens jacks. :eek:

daniel3982 · 30-10-2007 10:58pm

The Dresden tram is amazing, it has virtually a city centre circle line from what I remember, the trams have about 7 carriages too, the interchange at the station is mad.

Leipzig has an equally amazing tram system. Personally I wouldnt mind us doing something similar, swamping our city with Luas lines (with better city centre connections) with the metro money.

strassenwolf · 01-11-2007 11:12am

carrotcake wrote: »

I presume the central one was the section of the 13 line that goes through the Neustadt. From what I remember it was just the one street that had this. Often one tram would have to wait at the end of the street until the other passed, but they still ran on time, God bless 'em

That's the stretch - along Görlitzerstrasse. Trams at one end have to turn a corner to enter the street, while trams at the other have to make a slight "jink" to do so.

I did meet one man who claimed to have been involved in a situation, back in the old GDR days, where the signalling system there got a bit muddled. He said he was on a tram which entered this street when there was another one going in the opposite direction.:D

Unfortunately, because of the points systems at either end of the street, neither of them were able to reverse back, so when the trams met in the middle everyone had to leave both trams and it took hours to sort the mess out.

Apparently, this has not yet happened under the new regime.;)

Loading the Luas

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