LAST EDITED ON 03-Feb-07 AT 05:55 AM (MST)
As Dorr had once posted the railborne radiotelescopes in Arizona with a true railway infrastructure, and we also had a discussion on a mega-railway in parallel to the Panama Canal some time ago, and as I had then proposed a 2-track layout for train vehicles resembling the DORA rail gun of WW II, I must now confess I had made the mistake of ignoring the Russians ... haven't found that on the URL listing, pls. forgive me if I had overlooked it; I just was told about it after having discussed the latest www.funimag.com updates with a friend in Kassel. <http://www.e-river.ru/gallery/view.php?id=1413&p=1>
That "rail link" was established in 1967 at Krasnoyarsk on a 100-m-high dam of the river Yenissei, to cross the 100-m-dam for barge traffic without cargo transfers - it's the entire boats ! Target had apparently been not to interrupt the North-South barge transportation in this part of Siberia.
The funicular equivalent seems to be the ship-lift devices near Arzviller and Ronquieres, but this one is a rack railway, a dry dock running as its motor car.
This truly colossal end of the spectrum had been mentioned in W.Hefti's book "Ungewoehnliche Bergbahnen" (Unusual Mountain Railways) Basel, Stuttgart: Birkhaeuser 1978, ISBN 3-7643-1005-7, pages 40 - 42, as sorts of a interim post-scriptum to his two-volume "Zahnradbahnen der Welt (Rack Railways of the World, 1972)" books (1976:"Nachtraege").
This rack railcar, being essentially a dry dock tub conveying barges resting on the dry flat- bottom plate of the vehicle, not in the original water basin as described by W.Hefti. The "Locher" type rack is simply geometrically inverse to what we know from the Pilatus cremaillere <= rack railway>, the horizontal racks being located to the outer sides of the running rails. Locher's principle features no vertical "liftoff" force component under whatever situation, except when the vehicle overturns.
Running gear (1967 acc. to Hefti):
2 times 39 two-wheeled trucks,
78 powered pinions engaging with the two horizontal "Locher-type" outside-mounted single racks.
33 teeth per pinion at separation circle diam. of 1050 mm give a rack teeth separation of 100 mm, a normal rack railway dimension in Europe
Permanent Way:
Gauge: 9000 mm, two rails of gantry crane dimensions.
Hilltop / above dam top: 142°-segment turntable 105 m diam.,
linked to
1 maintenance siding 132 m long,
1 uphill docking track 306 m long, and
1 the downhill docking track of 1188 m length, incl. bridges and all accessories of a real railway layout, except a tunnel 
All at a gradient 1 in 10, which matches the wedge-angle of the entire car.
Vehicle (acc. to Hefti; may have changed since):
108 m long,
tare weight 3200 t,
3600 m³ water contents (? may be dry dock now),
trough at 90 x 18 x 3 m dimensions, pinions 33 teeth at 1050 mm separation circle dia (100 mm separation),
3-phase power supply for some 7500 kW via 6 Pantographs at three o/h horizontal power lines, speed 1 m/sec.
Hefti had supposed a single-pole catenary with a "Leonard" type converter aboard, but with the details in the photos I doubt if this is still the case. After all, static inverters had made some progress since 1967.
Hefti might either have got it wrong from the quoted source "Wasserwirtschaft - Wassertechnik", or the line was rebuilt later; maybe his drafts are showing a car as it was used during dam construction. At least it seems that the river barges are now conveyed "on the dry" - so it is not the equivalent to the Ronquieres or Arzviller "Plans inclinées" - which are true "funicular bathtubs", by contrast.
Especially the "dry dock" running over a viaduct is breathtraking.
Vertical outside rack had already been employed by Blenkinsop with Murray-built 1812 rack locos "Salamanca" and "Prince Regent", in service until 1838. The Krasnoyarsk layout solves the pointwork problem by using the 142°-turntable with three connecting tracks. The similar principle of the "Locher-type" Pilatus rack railway uses traversers or "drum turnouts" as pointwork (like monorails) - hardly applicable here.
Allright - I didn't know whether to post it in "links" or "Europe/Asia/Africa", or - with a glance at Panama - in the "North America" section of "TrainNet". It's here now.
Just have fun !
Nice weekend
CTW, DE-Goslar
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