Why doesn’t Ukraine strike Russian railways?

It basically comes down to whether the juice is worth the squeeze. Rail has been around for almost 200 years. It's a mature technology that has a lot of specialized equipment that is designed to get railways functioning again quickly.

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Ryan McBeth Productions LLC
8705 Colesville Rd.
Suite 249
Silver Spring, MD 20910
USA

References:
Breaking the Dragons Jaw (if you want to see how hard it was to destroy a rail bridge)

Emergency Railway Track Repair:

Metro Derailment in Silver Spring:

[RyanMcBethProgramming]

It basically comes down to whether the juice is worth the squeeze. Rail has been around for almost 200 years. It's a mature technology that has a lot of specialized equipment that is designed to get railways functioning again quickly.

For uncensored video, check out my substack at:

Like my shirts? Get your own at:

Watch all of my long form videos:

Twitter:
@ryanmcbeth

Join the conversation:

Want to send me something?
Ryan McBeth Productions LLC
8705 Colesville Rd.
Suite 249
Silver Spring, MD 20910
USA

References:
Breaking the Dragons Jaw (if you want to see how hard it was to destroy a rail bridge)

Emergency Railway Track Repair:

Metro Derailment in Silver Spring:

[ronmaximilian]

Hitting railroad bridges, tunnels, and depots is another matter.

[lornamorgan]

It might be useful if you need a temporary delay.
It's not a long-term solution unless it's a really difficult to repair bridge.

[Rameon]

Ryan: “they can be fixed pretty fast.”

Ohio: “time to prove you wrong!”

[FENCYCLIST]

During ww2 an ammunition train caught fire and caused a massive crater near the village of Soham in the uk. Next train trains were able to run on a single line, and 2 days later full double track working was in operation, if you Google it you can see pictures of the damage, just seemed amazing to fix it so quick.

[williamthurmond]

Don’t strike the rail…attack the supporting infrastructure; bridges, tunnels, switches, etc.

[vosterhh]

There is a single railroad thing you can't repair fast: long span bridges

[sancheznish]

I love that Ryan apologized for using “is the juice worth the squeeze” gave me pre managerial ptsd

[jaquaviontaviousbonquequex]

there's also more things to consider too, like alternate routes, you could strike a mainline only to find out that the enemy decided to move things on an alternative route while at the same time rapidly repairing the line you just destroyed, one more thing is that you might end up needing to use the tracks once you capture them. the best way imo to shut down a railroad for a while though is to target things like tunnels and bridges, it's easier to replace a section of track, but it's a whole other thing to replace a collapsed tunnel.

[ChairmanMeow]

I asked my friend this who works for B&O and he said the same thing. It'd be (fairly) easy to repair. He said a better idea would to act like you're going to disable a railroad and then actually attack the people that show up to repair it.

[QuintonMurdock]

I love when people suddenly remember rail is the best way to move pretty much anything because it’s efficiency surpasses the the value brought by speed or flexibility in most use cases

[latewizard]

"Rail isn't that hard to repair" *The entrire Norwegian Public Transport hated that*

[dodgy]

Most of the time railroad tracks can be fixed quickly. That’s usually because the companies are losing out on money for every minute that the rails aren’t fixed, and having those rails gone can create massive backups, so it’s imperative for companies to fix them as fast as possible. Most railroad companies have people dedicated to doing this. However, Russian railways are state owned, and having talked to someone who worked for them during the 80s and 90s, aren’t very well run at all. They also don’t have the staff or resources that most privately owned companies do, since they’re Russian. My guess is they could repair it somewhat quickly, but definitely not in 24 hours

[LockyDragon]

This is a FANTASTIC point, I can confirm on the whole "Railways get checked with specialized equipment frequently" as I literally get woken up by a train every morning and bnsf is frequently monitoring the track

[sideshowbob]

I'm a civil engineer who designed & managed many modes of transportation infrastructure projects, including electrified & diesel heavy commuter rail, for 3+ decades. I'd say:

- Hit all the catenary substations they can. Most European rail runs on overhead electric catenary, & most engines are electric. Russia has more non-electrified mileage than other countries due to it's size & lack of development. But here's why this would be painful: Catenary Substations are made of components that are not "off the shelf" & need to be fabricated. Many of them are very old, made of components that are obsolete, but they have been kept in operation due to tight budgets (this is true in the northeast USA as well, I dealt with these problems all the time at my job). Catenary substations are spaced out along the line, very easy to identify, easy to target, lots of damage "bang for buck". Now of course you will say "they will just run diesels instead". Well, of course, but as I mentioned, most lines are electrified, most locomotives are electric, even in Russia. So, they would now have to pull diesels away from service on non-electrified trackage, & use up scarce diesel fuel.

- Target "interlockings" (crossovers between parallel multi tracks typically before major junctions or at major stations) with lots of switches & complicated trackwork. This is far harder to repair, as many of the switches are "special fab's", due to tight real estate in urban areas, there will be "nested" switches (with one starting within the geometry of another), "double slip" switches (you can go in 2 or more directions), switches on curves, custom "numbers" that fall in between standard geometry's, etc, etc. Again, these "interlockings" are easy to target, easy to hit, a lot of "bang for buck". If you hit enough of them, they will Shirley use up any scant supplies of spare parts (frogs, rail guards, etc). You will also mess up their signal systems big time (which are very intense & complicated within interlockings), which are also difficult & time consuming to repair, & require a lot of non-off-the-shelf components, & just like the power substations, probably a lot of old, obsolete, difficult to replicate components. Now, again, lack of signals is not going to stop rail traffic, but it will slow it down significantly, & require a lot of manual labor (flagmen w/walkie talkies stationed everywhere, manually relaying train status, authorization to proceed, etc)


Sorry for long windedness, once I get started . . .

[Just_Adrian_]

I work for a railway company and yup pretty much all you said was true, tho rails don't get inspected that often, at least over here, usually once a year for most sections, only very important frequently used sections about twice a year and rarely used sections get inspected about once every 2-5 years depending on frequenzy of use

[zack]

I feel it’s super effective to see that Russia has a train going down a rail so you go like an hour ahead and cut the rail. Super simple and easy and if Russia dosent realize that’s extremely good that sets them back at least a day and if they do realize it still slows them down a little.

[gandydancer]

I am a railroader... specifically track maintenance. Those prefabricated patch sections are actually called panels. We assemble those near the job site for planned work. In the event on a derailment we usually build as we go starting at sections that are still in place

[samsmith]

Your video highlights the true target, the rail depot where the specialized workers hangout when not on the tracks themselves.

[markhottman]

Soldier McBeth : the WMATA TRAIN wreck was AWFUL. Yes, you are correct the clean up of the wreck was easier than the FATALITIES that occurred in the crash. Grace to YOU: SOLDIER 🇺🇸