How do train schedules account for the lengths of trains? Suppose a freight train has a 8:15 arrival time at a station, but the 8:00 train has 400 cars — how is that managed?
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Logistically, is just about ensuring the track is clear. So when scheduling, you ensure enough time for the preceding train to leave the station before the next one arrives. If that first train is 10 cars, it only needs a couple of minutes. If it is 400 cars, it may need 15 minutes.
Passenger trains are often specific car lengths that are much shorter than frieght trains. Passenger trains are also often shorter (or at least not a lot longer) than the platform, so loading and unloading is much quicker.
Frieght trains don’t have timetables that are nearly as tight as passenger trains, and the start and end point usually have yard which are used store and shuffle cars, and are used to build the train of cars. So they don’t have to necessarily worry about one train blocking another when arriving to a location.
400 car trains are super expensive to start and stop, so that’s going to factor into the schedule more than the length.
if such a massive train were to be on a track its schedule wouldn’t be accounting for its length, but instead for for how it would take ot start and get it to speed and stop it at the station.
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