Bad rail joints - rotten rail sleepers - jumping track ballast - recognizable sound of trains [4K]

Why do freight trains in Serbia derail so often?
Some of the more important reasons could be shown by videos like these. Completely rotten sleepers, cracked and broken rails, destroyed rail fasteners, jumping track ballast... Completely ruined and neglected railway tracks. This video shows the movement of freight trains over a completely poor railway infrastructure. All of this is an explanation of how the recognizable sound of trains is created.

These scenes were recorded on the main railway corridor for all transit freight trains through Serbia - The main freight railway line in Belgrade:
Belgrade marshalling yard - Ostružnica - Surčin - Batajnica (official lines: Beograd ranžirna park A - Ostružnica and Beograd ranžirna park B - Ostružnica - Batajnica). According to the current railway classification, the mentioned lines officially belong to category D4 railways. Track category D4 means a permissible axle load of 22,5 t and a load per linear meter of 8 t. This is official data and the old measured state.

Railway line shown in the video is in such state of infrastructure that it can't support criteria "allowed axle load capacity" of 22,5 t and "meter load" of 8 t. According to the current situation on-site, this line is not suitable for any kind of rail traffic.

The video shows the movement of various freight trains on a very bad tracks. These trains are mostly consisted of 4 - axle or 6 - axle, 80 t to 120 t, electric locomotives which usually haul trains of over 1000 t. Very often these are intermodal freight trains. Usually, these are intermodal freight trains consisting of about thirty wagons with bogies, which make the very nice and well-known sounds of train wheels clattering (sound of the rattling train wheels on bad rail joints). Of course, there are other freight trains, such as those carrying hazardous materials (Zaes tank wagons with sulfuric acid) or cereales trains (Uacs wagons) and other general goods (Habbins wagons). Some weigh as much as 2000 to 3000 tons.

In order to be able to withstand such a load on tracks, it must be regularly maintained - especially track superstructure. In track constructions, the superstructure has the task of absorbing the vertical and horizontal forces resulting from the traffic load and transferring them to the track substructure and subsoil. The distribution of the forces over to larger areas results in a load distribution that prevents overloading and overstressing of the individual components of the superstructure and ensures that the surface pressure on the subgrade is as low and uniform as possible. The scenes from this video show an unmaintained railway infrastructure that is not able to meet the mentioned requirements.

At the same time, the video is represent of the real state of the railway infrastructure in Serbia and Serbian Railways in general. Serbian Railways has almost no maintenance of railway infrastructure. Railway lines like this are completely unmaintained, run down and neglected. Train derailments in Serbia occur on average every 7 days. Most of them are successfully hiden from media and public, but it officially happens and it really does on average every 7 days. As the situation with the tracks are bad on most railway lines in Serbia, the permitted train speeds are also low. Therefore, derailments most often occur with one axle or bogie of a locomotive or wagon, but there are also more serious and larger rail incidents. Anyway, numerous lines are suffering from train delays and rail traffic suspensions.

There is a little hope that this video will raise awareness of the importance of investing in railway infrastructure in these areas and prevent further train derailments on tracks across Serbia and the Balkans.

Date of recording:
September and October 2024.