Talk:Portage railway

An example for a portage railway in Switzerland

The "Bödelibahn" railway was buildt as an isolated railway to connect the steamboat lines on the lakes of Thun and Brienz. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bödeli ---- Riggenbach (talk) 07:37, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Image needed

It would be very helpful to have a drawing or photograph of a rail car carrying a canal boat in this article, or another article about a particular portage railway. --DThomsen8 (talk) 15:38, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Two incompatible concepts in one article

I just visited the Three Gorges Dam article. When the dam was announced it was to have a massive Lift Lock/Boat Lift/Ship Lift. I was surprised to see it said that there were (new) plans from the Chinese to supplement the dams two parallel staircases of conventional canal locks with a Portage Railway.

I think there is a serious problem with this article, as it seems to try to address several incompatible topics, each of which probably deserves a separate article.

We have:

usual name	image	notes
portage railways		Short railways that connect two bodies of water, which are used to carry cargo from vessels on one body of water to the other terminus where they can be reloaded onto vessels on the other body of water. These railways use more or less ordinary rolling stock. The Huntsville portage railway was an example, a narrow gauge railway, with a puny locomotive, that hauled cargo less than a mile.
Marine railway boat lift		Very short railways, that use multiple pairs of rails, or extremely widely separated rails, to dip an extra long, extra wide flatcar, into a body of water. A vessel is then sailed over the flatcar, where it is secured, so it can be dragged out of the water for maintenance.
canal inclined plane		Very short railways, that use multiple pairs of rails, or extremely widely separated rails, to dip a water filled caisson, into one body of water. A vessel, or vessels, are then sailed into the caisson, where a water tight door is closed. The entire caisson is then dragged out of the first body water, and then dipped into a second body of water at a different elevation. The technology is sometimes considered a variant of a lift lock. Sometimes two parallel ramps are used, each with its own caisson, traveling in opposite directions, to counter-balance one another.
Marine Railway		Very short railways that connects two bodies of water at different elevations, used to transport vessels between the two, which, instead of using water filled caissons to transport the vessels as in the canal inclined plane, use extra large flatcar. The Big Chute Marine Railway is an example. One advantage is that the outer hull of vessels can be pressure-washed, to prevent the mixing of flora and fauna between the two bodies of water.

The image currently illustrating this article is what is usually called a Marine Railway.

The Three Gorges Dam Ship Lift was to have been capable of lifting a caisson over 100 meters in 20 minutes. Its caisson was supposed to have been capable of carrying vessels of up to 3,000 tons -- which would make it, by far, the largest Lift Lock in the entire world. It was supposed to have been completed at the same time as the Dam complex. But it wasn't.

So, what is up with this new Chinese "portage railway"? I suspect they had no intention of building a portage railway, that required cargo to be loaded and unloaded twice. Rather, I suspect that the plans are for a marine railway, because some elements within the Chinese hierarchy recognize that the Ship Lift was announced without thorough research as to whether technology was up to building shiplifts of that size, and that their plan is replace the shiplift with a marine railway. Geo Swan (talk) 00:39, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

related technologies that are often confused

Related to canal inclined plane are the engines known as lift locks/boat lifts/ship lifts in English, and Schiffshebewerk in German. Lift lock seems to be a term used for these engines, in Canada. Boat lift seems to be the term used for these engines, the the UK. Engines of this kind, in other nations, like China, seem to have their name translated as "ship lift". Unfortunately neither "boat lift" or "ship lift" are unambiguous, in English. Both terms are also used for cranes and other engines used to lift vessels out of the water for temporary maintenance. I've suggested, in the past, that the basename for this engine would be best placed a Lift lock, because the term is unambiguous.

Unfortunately, Marine railway also seems to be an ambiguous term -- the definition above -- and another technology for lifting vessels out of the water for maintenance. Geo Swan (talk) 00:39, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

What should be listed here?

I suggest no railway should be listed here where an WP:RS hasn't called it a portage railway.

Even if it is called a "portage railway", I think we have to be careful about how -- or whether -- it is listed here. The Krasnoyarsk Dam, for instance, has a canal inclined plane, and I challenge whether it should be listed here. Geo Swan (talk) 00:44, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

I quite agree that systems that lift an entire boat and move it in a huge rail vehicle, as it is done at Krasnoyarsk Dam should be listed under Canal inclined plane, rather than "portage railway". -- Vmenkov (talk) 02:41, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Three Gorges

Myself, I have also been surprised to read in the news about the Three Gorges railway project. (Actually, I was even more surprised several years ago when I realized that the entire Three Gorges Dam project was apparently started and completed without a railway access to the site; the closest railhead at the time was near the Gezhouba Dam, some 30 km downstream. I think that's highly unusual, since major construction projects like this usually make use of railways to bring construction materials, equipment etc. So it's only now that they are actually planning to build a rail link to the actual Three Gorges Dam area!).

Anyway, the articles I've seen (三峡翻坝铁路前期工作启动 建成实现水铁联运 ("Preliminary work started on the Three Gorges Portage Railways. A water-rail transportation connection will be created"; it has a map)) are talking about 2 standard-gauge railways, which will connect port facilities located near Maoping (upstream of the Three Gorges Dam) with the Yichang metropolitan area, which has port facilities downstream of both the TGD and the Gezhouba Dam. Since the eastern (Yichang) ends of these two lines are tied into the national railway grid, cargo unloaded at Maoping won't necessarily have to be put on boats again at Yichang - in principle, it can go anywhere else by rail; but the articles certainly talk about the "water-rail-water" “水、铁、水” functionality, which is exactly what we mean by a portage railway.

Now, why do they need a "portage" railway around a dam that already has locks (two threads, one for each direction!), and will (soon, supposedly) have a ship lift as well? According to the mayor of Yichang (湖北议案提案：提升三峡翻坝转运能力 ("Hubei's Proposal: raise the Three Gorges dam-bypassing transportation capacity")), the capacity provided by the ship locks is not sufficient for the projected transportation volumes. To which extent the rail plan is the best solution for the region's transportation needs, and to which extent it is what Americans could call a pork barrel project, I would have no idea.

Talking about things that do not belong on the list: how about the Corinth Canal? :-) -- Vmenkov (talk) 02:30, 24 March 2013 (UTC)