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Age of rolling stock

Started by Ters, August 24, 2012, 05:00:31 PM

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Ters

There was some discussion about the age of rolling stock in another thread, and for some reason I felt the urge to present the rolling stock of Norway to see how it compares with other European countries. Years are from Wikipedia, while the situation reports are based on casual observations, plus rumours and reports from a rail-related Norwegian forum. NSB was the name of the state owned monopoly on almost anything railroad related. It has been broken up into infrastructure, passenger and freight, with the passenger bit keeping the name. The state still owns the former two, while the freight part became a private company, though it is now owned fully by NSB again. The airport express also became a separate company, but fully state owned. There are several freight companies, most of them Swedish, even the one (until recently two) ultimately owned by Norwegians.

Disclaimer: Descriptions might be a bit wrong or biased since it's gathered from unofficial sources on the Internet.

       
  • El 13, produced 1957–1966. Retired by NSB in the 1990s, but a few were acquired by private company and operated until its bankrupcy a few years ago. After that, I think they were moved to Sweden and put in storage.
  • El 14, produced 1968–1973. Still in full use by the state owned freight company formed in the break up of NSB.
  • El 15, produced 1967. Retired from its original ore duties in 2003, but bought by another company that's still using them.
  • El 16, produced 1977–1984, but based on SJ Rc from 1967. Still in full use by the state owned freight company formed in the break up of NSB.
  • El 17, produced 1981 and 1987. Retired from main line service. Still used for tourist trains and perhaps some shunting.
  • El 18, produced 1996–1997, but based on SBB-CFF-FFS Re 460 from 1991. The sole passenger hauling electic locomotive today, though also used from some freight.
  • El 19 (TRAXX). Recently leased by both the state owned freight company and others, but apparently not a success.

       
  • Di 2, produced 1954–1973. Mostly scrapped, except for some museum use and a single locomotive rebuilt as shunter. I think the latter is mostly retired, but if so, that happend quite recently.
  • Di 3, produced 1954–69. Retired by NSB in 2001. Some where scrapped, some where sold abroad, while a few were used by the same company using the El 13s and have ended up in Sweden. One is on constant stand-by as a NSB rescue train, another is/was used for maintenance trains. Several of its Danish MY siblings are in use by private freight companies.
  • Di 4, produced 1980. The sole passenger hauling diesel locomotive today. Used exclusively for that.
  • Di 6, produced 1995–1997. Returned to factory. Made a return in an upstart freight company that leased them, but have phased it out.
  • Di 8, produced 1996–1997. Until recently very much the main diesel locomotive of the indirectly state owned freight company formed in the break up of NSB. Several were recently sold to Britain. Probably misused for heavier trains than intended due to lack of alternatives.
  • Di 12 (Vossloh Euro 4000). Being leased at the moment with the apparent intention of replacing Di 8, but I seem to remember rumours that it's not successful.
  • MZ, produced 1967–1978. Used by a lot of the new private freight companies.
  • British Rail Class 66. Was leased by the currently indirectly state owned freight company before the Di 12. Currently leased by another company.
The skipped numbers are foreign locomotives that have made a guest appearance, plus a locomotive used on a mining company's own isolated rail line.

       
  • Type 69, produced 1970–1993. Pretty much the workhorse EMU on so called local lines. Slowly being retired.
  • Type 70, produced 1990–1996. EMU. Mid-range intercity. Slightly underperforming. Not sure if its in danger of being retired.
  • Type 71, produced 1997–1998. Airport express EMU. Lengthened recently. Pretty much the most popular of the lot, but it also has the best track.
    Type 72, produced 2001–2005. Local EMU. There have been troubles with this one, but they are in service.
  • Type 73, produced 1999–2001, based on Type 71. Long distance tilting EMU. Supposed to give a speed boost to intercity lines, but mechanical problems limited it to normal speed. This is still in effect according to the time tables. It is also being phased out in favour of locomotive hauled trains on two of the four lines it served, but this increases capacity on the other, where locomotives might be phased out.
  • Type 74 and 75 (FLIRT). Recent arrival meant to replace a lot of the other short and mid range EMUs.
  • Type 92, produced 1984–1985. One of two DMUs currently in service.
  • Type 93, produced 2000–2002. The other DMU currently in service. Got a bit of bad reputation when used on longer lines than it really is suited for, where locomotive hauled trains was reintroduced, but seems to work well on the shorter.
  • Y1, produced 1979-81. Diesel rail car imported from Sweden serving a 99 % electrified line in constant danger of being closed. Also used for maintenance duties.
Three generations of passenger carriges are in use. B5 and B7 have been, or are being, refurbished recently. Not sure about B3. There's also a series of sleeping carriage that I haven't been able to find dates for, but I thinks it's the newest type of passenger carriage.

       
  • B3 is from 1962-1974.
  • B5 is from 1977-1981.
  • B7 is from 1982-1988.
The older stuff seems to have a reputation of being more reliable, which also seems to be that case with pretty much everything from refridgerators to phones. How's the situation in other countries? Is the rolling stock more or less youthful?

prissi

In germany it really depends. Most mainly engines for passengers saw lots of use, like the legendary Br103, which holds the german all time record of an average speed of 67 km/h over 31 days! (Mind you, the engines had to reverse at the end of a journey, and their maximum speed was limited to 160 km/h due to tracks not finished yet.) The whole fleet run 58 km/h per day! No wonder these engines did not survived more than 30 years of service.

All successor are newer. Br120 was never built in big numbers, and the more recent ones like 101, 145, and derived has been built just until recently.

There are some engines, which were delivered just before and after reunification and some older ones. But most of the electric engines is younger than 30 years. Most of the cars have be modernized in the 90ies, since many compartment cars were converted to inter region and Großraumwagen (open seating cars?).

For freight, privatisation really took off. I live close to berlin largest harbour, and on the railyrad (even it does not have overhead wires) I see many different engines, swiss retired electric Re4/6, the strongest diesel ever built in germany, even a british diesel (which unknown liverey) was there. Thus anything built in the last 50 years might be seen, especially for heavy diesel.

But to conclude, most of the rolling stock is younger than 30 years in germany.

jamespetts

Hmm - the oldest rolling stock in regular service in the UK is presently on the Isle of Wight, where former London Underground trains built in around 1938 run on island's only remaining railway line. Underground stock is used because of the limited clearance in the railway's tunnels.

On the mainland, until recently, the oldest stock in regular revenue earning service was the "A" stock on the London Underground's Metropolitan line, running between the city of London and the North Western suburbs of Amersham, Watford and Uxbridge. This is now being replaced by "S" stock from 2011 onwards; I am not sure whether there are still a few trains of "A" stock left, but, if there are, they only have a few months left.

Aside from the Underground, the oldest regular service vehicles are the HSTs and class 315 EMUs from the mid 1970s. It is worthy of note that the diesel engines themselves in the HSTs were replaced in the mid 2000s with modern units to extend their life (the life expiry of the engines themselves I know was mentioned in the other thread).
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For US and Canada, we use whatever is still useable. GP7/9 are still in service, but they are typically limited to yard duty.
I think most of the freight cars are around 20 to 30 years old. Passenger cars seem varied. The design is the same, but I know there's at least a decade or three between bombardier bilevel coaches. It is also very difficult distinguishing amfleet coaches.

If there is anything I've noticed, the diesels get all the attention, whilst everything attached to it has very scarce info.
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