Passenger Trains in DR?

JD Jones

Moderator:North Coast,Santo Domingo,SW Coast,Covid
Jan 7, 2016
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If you follow the line trail on the DR map to the left of the images, you can clearly see how this line#1 of the hybrid rail will link all the major industrial parks from Haina to Codevi at the DR-Haiti border.


No Puerto Plata. Interesting.

Pich, when were those pictures taken, and where?
 

ohmmmm

Bronze
Jun 11, 2010
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i believe Chinese interests have approached the DR several times over the years to build a rail line from Puerto Plata and elsewhere in the country. Perhaps the terms of the contract were not very good. China has had ambitions here, but i think the DR so far has decided to go with western firms for the big projects and ideas.
 

cobraboy

Pro-Bono Demolition Hobbyist
Jul 24, 2004
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Pichardo,

Convince the local authorities to look into the China straddling bus. This looks it would work here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpiFJsWdCuY
A couple of months ago I passed that video past my brother-in-law who is an architect based in Santiago. His comments were about the challenges at intersections, of which the ones in the DR are rather unruly.

I'd like to see a few regular trains in the DR, two East-West, two North-South. If the container trucks and guaguas could get off the main highways, the traffic would flow much more safely.
 

wuarhat

I am a out of touch hippie.
Nov 13, 2006
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If the possibility of theft was a reason for not doing something in the LRD nothing would ever be done.
 

cobraboy

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The rails cut in the videos I show are not "ordinary" steel. They are the steel used to make rails.


What is the exact alloy used in these magical new rails, likely used only in the DR, and only able to be cut with alien technology and what is the Brindle hardness number of these rails?
Harder than 400 HB?
Reardon Metal? :cheeky:
 

SugarMorena

New member
Mar 24, 2013
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Hopefully it gets done in my lifetime. Having a train that travels between the south and the north will help the tourism and the economy, especially in the south.
 

PJT

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Jan 8, 2002
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Straddling, depends on who straddles ?

Pichardo,

Convince the local authorities to look into the China straddling bus. This looks it would work here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpiFJsWdCuY

PJT has to chuckle. In concept the straddling bus is OK. However, in all practicality it would not work here. The DR auto operators under the bus would have to align in straight forward positions in their respective lanes. Won't happen because as we all know they place themselves half on the median or sidewalks or between lanes. The bus will proceed only in tandem with the vehicles below. No advantage to having the straddling bus here.




Regards,

PJT
 

PICHARDO

One Dominican at a time, please!
May 15, 2003
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Santiago de Los 30 Caballeros
The rails cut in the videos I show are not "ordinary" steel. They are the steel used to make rails.


What is the exact alloy used in these magical new rails, likely used only in the DR, and only able to be cut with alien technology and what is the Brindle hardness number of these rails?
Harder than 400 HB?


The rails you see in your posts are NOT what's used today in hybrid rail systems.
These are from old rails that were either abandoned, disposed or beyond their utility and safety service life.

Today's hybrid rails are made with a higher mix of strong alloys, more so when they will be used to transport double decker cargo containers.

Rail technology has changed greatly in the last decade than all the time since introduced to that point.
Two long standing factors (amid the rest of others) that have always made the rail technology remain unchanged for so long (tensile strength and temperature) have been addressed with the use of space age alloys.
These alloys are less than a decade old and since introduced are only economically feasible in hybrid rail systems.

To use a torch on them and say that they will give way just like the older rails, it's like saying that you can also waste no time in splitting the thermal tiles from what used to be space shuttles, just like any other materials before it.
Same thing for the alloys used on the heat shields of re entry space capsules like the ones used by the Russian space program.

Alloys are very expensive and new.
Japan was the first country to introduce the new hybrid rail alloy, when they upgraded a line of their existing high speed system used by bullet trains to test their maglev version.
The rails are exactly what is now used in Europe and in some extent, China's new high speed train system.
China couldn't get the technology patents to manufacture their own, so they bought some from Japan and then went about trying to copy some of the metallurgy tech behind them, without much success. Some moderate at best.

The alloy for the hybrid rails is only shared by the main protagonists in the international space station program, from which the alloy's tech was created and tested.

If you were to employ those rails in your video and pictures on the new high speed hybrid systems, they would fail after just a few months of traffic.

Metaldom will be able to mill the steel for the rails due to Gerdau's parent company access to the said hybrid rail alloy both in Brazil and their Spain markets.

Gerdau and Metaldom are still in the process of upgrading the DR steel operations.

Hope that clears it a bit for you.
And no, no reardon metal...
 

PICHARDO

One Dominican at a time, please!
May 15, 2003
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Santiago de Los 30 Caballeros
PJT has to chuckle. In concept the straddling bus is OK. However, in all practicality it would not work here. The DR auto operators under the bus would have to align in straight forward positions in their respective lanes. Won't happen because as we all know they place themselves half on the median or sidewalks or between lanes. The bus will proceed only in tandem with the vehicles below. No advantage to having the straddling bus here.




Regards,

PJT

We won't need it, but for other reasons:

The DR is embarking on a national plan of mass transit.
We are but in the infant steps of such plan.
 

wrecksum

Bronze
Sep 27, 2010
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We won't need it, but for other reasons:

The DR is embarking on a national plan of mass transit.
We are but in the infant steps of such plan.


I really hope so but let's see if they throw the baby out with the bathwater as often happens...
 

PICHARDO

One Dominican at a time, please!
May 15, 2003
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I really hope so but let's see if they throw the baby out with the bathwater as often happens...

Considering the plan had a start date and still no end date, I think is safe to conclude we are no stopping any given time.

Believe it or not, the SD Metro is self sufficient. Yet, the actual fare rate is not the budgeted one as planned. This is due to the delays in having the other lines still slowly being added. The SD Metro was planned by design not only to be self sufficient but profitable as well.

This was one of the aspects of making sure that the main trunk lines are built as soon as possible non-stop.

Lessons learned by projects like the ATI of Puerto Rico, made it indispensably important to expand it as soon as budgets allow it.

The design was a trunk system that was self sufficient and at the same time generates revenues to fund its own expansion.

The biggest expense of the now operational lines is electricity.

This important piece of the project was planned to be linked to a gov funded renewable biomass fed power plant.
This will make the system not only economically profitable but also green. Which will get carbon credits in good amounts being a mass transit system.

The passenger/cargo rail system is also linked to the Metro mass transit system as planned.

It's not about if we will do it, because we are doing it. It's about how quick can we go at it.
 

windeguy

Platinum
Jul 10, 2004
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PICHARDO, A hybrid rail system uses engine technology with different ways of generating electricity to turn the wheels. Why does that require special much harder rails any more than a hybrid car requires special tires and roads?

(I had to chuckle at your mention of a maglev train system needing such hard rail supermetal - Such trains ride above the rails and as such are not in contact with them. I am a bit surprised that the DR does not go directly to maglev trains. Completely different technologies.
The DR could also be the first to use Elon Musk's new transport scheme. )

Back to reality. What is the exact name of this new super alloy rail? What is its hardness?
 
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windeguy

Platinum
Jul 10, 2004
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Here is a link to the company that says they have 100% share of the Japanese rail market. The rails they produce are in the 400 Brinnell Hardness range. Hard, but I get the feeling that a torch can cut them.
They are not from the planet Krypton:

World's highest-quality rail products

Reduction in total cost by being the world's hardest, straightest, and longest lived.

The highest degree of hardness in the world realizes a high degree of economy.

Our rail products boast the highest degree of hardness in the world, realizing superb life cycle cost.
Particularly, the "HE rail" has high wear resistance and high resistance to surface damage, making for long life and reduced grinding, which in turn realizes improved economy.

features_il01.gif


The highest degree of hardness in the world realizes a high degree of economy.
We can manufacture very straight rails in 150m lengths.

Our independently developed universal rolling machine enables us to manufacture straighter rails.
We can offer rails that have a high degree of straightness, such as rails for high-speed trains.

We can correct deviations from the horizontal axis and the vertical axis using our own universal rolling machine.

https://www.nssmc.com/en/product/use/railway/

Or is the DR rail system using some other rail technology not currently searchable from the Internet?
 

PJT

Silver
Jan 8, 2002
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Monorail Advantages ?

An overhead monorail system similar in function like that of Disney and that of 85 mile length Chongqing Rail Transit of China may benefit the country.

The DR has plenty sources of concrete and a burgeoning metal industry that is able to support structure construction of the pylons and transit beams/platforms for the cars.

The advantage of this system is most of the land for columns exist in the medians thus lessening the necessity land taking to accommodate construction. No expensive subway/underground project. Such monorail system is a quick construct. Such undertaking would have the difficulty of having to overcome the resistance of the passenger transport syndicates.

It depends on the will of the government to consider a project of this type.



Regards,

PJT