Maschen Marshalling Yard
Maschen Marshalling Yard Maschen Rangierbahnhof | |
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Railway classification (hump yard) and repair facilities | |
General information | |
Location | Seevetal Maschen, Lower Saxony Germany |
Coordinates | 53°24′17″N 10°03′23″E / 53.40472°N 10.05639°E |
Construction | |
Structure type | at-grade |
Other information | |
Station code | AM |
Location | |
Maschen Marshalling Yard (
Layout and duties
The marshalling yard takes up an area of 280 hectares, has a length of 7,000 metres and a maximum width of 700 metres.
In 2002 a central relief yard (Dispostelle) replaced the previous two yards—one for each direction. In 2004 the goods wagon repair shop was upgraded into a combined shop (Kombiwerk), and is now responsible for the maintenance of locomotives as well as wagons.
In order to achieve the aspiration for a capacity of 11,000 goods wagons per day, Maschen was equipped from the beginning with the most modern shunting technology available in the 1970s.
Maschen Marshalling Yard is responsible for the formation of both regional, national and also international goods trains. Importantly, it also acts as a hub for the transportation of export goods to, and imported goods from, the ports of Hamburg and Bremerhaven, as well as traffic to and from Scandinavia. Currently shunting operations are carried out by DB Cargo, Cargo Zentrum Hamburg.
From 1977 to 2007 around 1.18 million trains with a total of 35.5 million wagons were assembled and dispatched from Maschen Marshalling Yard.[4] In the 1980s 75 trains per day were formed in the north-south system and 125 in the south-north system. The highest number of wagons dispatched was 8,400 on 11 December 1985. At the beginning of the 1990s the figure was about 8,000; in 2009 it was 4,000 goods wagons. So Maschen has so far not reached the upper planning limit of 11,000 goods wagons per day; one of the reasons is that in the last 40 years there has been a considerable[quantify] increase in the length of freight wagons.
Outlook
Because the 30-year-old facilities were in need of renovation, in 2009 work started on replacing and partially converting the yard.[5] This will also take account of the increasing significance of container traffic from the ports. In the course of renovation a secondary hump with shorter sorting and formation sidings (Nachordnungsgleisen) will be given up in favour of longer sorting sidings for the formation of long-distance trains. Reception and sorting sidings and their associated points will be replaced in sets and the hump technology will be upgraded to the latest state of the art as part of the renovation work on the whole yard. A total of 220 million euros is being invested in this work which should be completed by 2014.
References
- ^ Wiesmüller, Lawrenz: Die Hamburger Rangier- und Güterbahnhöfe, p. 127.
- ^ Zahlenangaben bei Wiesmüller, Lawrenz: Die Hamburger Rangier- und Güterbahnhöfe, p. 131ff.
- ^ Wiesmüller, Lawrenz: Die Hamburger Rangier- und Güterbahnhöfe, p. 132ff.
- ^ Zahlenangaben bei Wiesmüller, Lawrenz: Die Hamburger Rangier- und Güterbahnhöfe, p. 135f.
- ^ "Logistik inside – Größter deutscher Rangierbahnhof bei Hamburg wird modernisiert". Archived from the original on 2009-05-09. Retrieved 2011-10-30.
Sources
- Deutsche Bundesbahn, Bundesbahndirektion Hamburg (ed.): Der Rangierbahnhof Maschen. Stalling, Oldenburg (Oldb.) 1975, no ISBN.
- Wolfgang Klee: Eisenbahnen in Hamburg. Eisenbahn Journal special 5/97.
- Railion Deutschland AG (today DB Schenker RailDeutschland), Cargo Zentrum Hamburg-Maschen, Planung, Hesse, December 2007.
- Benno Wiesmüller, Dierk Lawrenz: Die Hamburger Rangier- und Güterbahnhöfe. EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-88255-303-1.
External links
- Track list and map on the DB Netz site (pdf; 1,792 KB)
- Maschen Marshalling Yard railway fan site[dead link]
- Pictures from the Maschen Marshalling Yard