An industrial railway is some kind of railway ( mostly private ) which is not available for the public transportation , however is used exclusively for serving a particular industrial , logistics or military site . some regions of the world influenced by British railway culture and management practices .
Industrial railways have greatly diminished by the rise of road transport . The main reason of industrial railways is technically for one of the reasons :
1 ) onsite shunting consolidation
Part finished products require to move between many different parts of the process site to allow them to be produced or prepare for shipment . moving comparatively small amounts of products over short distance , it costs too much if under taken by mainline railway operators , who make money due to charging for the shipment of goods over long distances in bulk .
2) control of manufacture
Some of industrial lines only operates for short periods of time , base on requiring the shipment of time –sensitive goods to the factory or processing point . over relatively short distances . these are mainly food products often operating o arrow gauge lines to allow closer access to the originating point .
Therefor , most of the railways are short , just a few miles / kilometers long . however , these types of lines mostly at some point connect via exchange siding or transfer siding to bulk mainline shipping railways .
Industrial railways serve different industries . for more information , in both Australia and Cuba a large number of industrial railways serve the sugarcane industry .
Military railways
The purpose of some industrial railways is military and serve ammunition dumps or transportation hubs and storage facilities . it is good to know , the world’s largest industrial railway serves the “ Baikonur cosmodrom “ and has been long operated by military rail unit of the Russian Armed Forces . the railway performs in space launches , transporting space vehicles to their immediate launch pads .