Zbornik radova Koridor 10 - Kirilo Savić

3rd International Scientific and Professional Conference
CORRIDOR 10 - a sustainable way of integrations
MARSHALLING YARDS ALONG THE PANEUROPEAN RAILWAY
CORRIDORS
Peter Marton, Faculty of Management Science & Informatics, University of Žilina, Žilina, Slovakia
Ivan Belošević, Faculty of Transport and Traffic Engineering, University of Belgrade, Belgrade,
Serbia
Abstract
Long-term effort of the European Commission is to enable rail to compete effectively and take a
significantly greater proportion of medium and long distance freight. European Union needs especially
the freight corridors that enable to rail freight to optimize energy consumption that are attractive for
their reliability, limited congestion and low operating and administrative costs. Marshalling yards are
integral part of pan European corridors for rail freight.
Key words: railway, marshalling yards, technical specifications and recommendation
1. INTRODUCTION
European railway operators offer a wide range of products in frame of freight railway transportation.
Single wagonload (SWL) belongs to one of basic products offered freight railway transportation. Other
traditional products are intermodal transport and block (full) trains. SWL accounts for approximately
50% of Europe’s total rail market [9]. We focus on marshalling yards in this paper. Existence of
marshalling yards and their services are very important for quality of SWL.
2. ROLE OF THE MARSHALLING YARDS IN THE RAILWAY NETWORK
Movement of the railway vehicles can be realized by two ways on the railway infrastructure – as
a shunting movement or as a train movement. Shunting movements could be understood as
subsidiary to the train movements. Shunting movements are in passenger transportation used to bring
wagons to the platform or pick up them from platform. It is similarly by intermodal transport and block
trains in freight transportation. Shunting movements are used only to relocate wagons from one track
to another one. Completely different is it by SWL. SWL system is comparable with a „hub and spoke
system“. It is a network system which consists of customers’ sidings, stations and marshalling yards.
Single wagons or wagon groups are transported by several trains. First, wagons are added to local
freight trains (feeder service) in customer sidings or stations to transport it to marshalling yards. Then,
generally, wagons are transported from one marshalling yard to another one by direct long-distance
trains. Finally, wagons are distributed by local freight trains from marshalling yards to customer sidings
or stations in catchment area of marshalling yard. It means that several wagon „transfers“ from one
train to another one are necessary. Wagon „transfers“ are called as train formation and are realized in
marshalling yards. Wagons’ sorting is important part of train formation. Marshalling yards are the
biggest workplaces of railway transportation. They occupy large areas, mostly on edge of large railway
junctions. Shunting movements prevail train movements in marshalling yards.
3. MARSHALLING YARDS IN DOCUMENTS OF EUROPEAN UNION AND UNITED NATIONS
Marshalling yards are used not only for domestic SWL. Some marshalling yards in Europe are
connected by direct long-distance trains several times per week. Alliance Xrail is the most know
initiative in international SWL in last years [10]. Importance of marshalling yards for international
Belgrade, 2012 73