Road Trailers On Trains

[RichmondCommu]

G'day all,

A few years a go and before my interest in railways was rekindled I'm pretty certain that I saw a trainload of Blue Circle Cement road trailers hauled by a Freightliner loco. Does this service still run?

Whether it does or not I'm surprised that no one has thought to run trains through the Channel Tunnel carrying road trailers along HS1 to Ripple Lane. There would clearly be no loading guage issues and I would have thought there would be a market for vehicles heading up from Southern Europe?

Your contributions would be very welcome!

Richmond Commuter!

 

[tsr]

Whether it does or not I'm surprised that no one has thought to run trains through the Channel Tunnel carrying road trailers along HS1 to Ripple Lane. There would clearly be no loading guage issues and I would have thought there would be a market for vehicles heading up from Southern Europe?

If only... but there are quite a few "Chunnel" services catering for road goods vehicles, and perhaps the operators of such services are put off running them further north because of the extra vehicles required, staffing & training, speeds/congestion possibilities on HS1, and the supposed lack of interest from hauliers and investors (there is a school of thought that says once you decide to unload a trailer for further road transport, you may as well do so down in Kent rather than build a premium-cost depot in London, despite the road network's vagaries and all the extra man-hours and salaries). In addition, the more popular and increasingly adaptable intermodal containers may be better for investment if this were to happen, as the weight/bulk of the lorry trailer itself is eliminated until road haulage is definitely required.

I do support the transport of goods until the "last possible mile" by rail, as it saves so much road congestion, eliminates a lot of expense in employing drivers for unnecessary duties, and is very safe & efficient... amongst other points... but the above are reasons why this may not be seen as feasible by some in the industry!

 

[Bald Rick]

Pretty sure there are loading gauge issues on the classique lines in France; I may be wrong but don't think there are many (any?) trailer train type operations through France, although they are used on certain Swiss lines across the Alps. SNCF / RFF would simply do the Gallic Shrug if you had the temerity to suggest operating a commercial freight train on an LGV.

Besides its cheaper in both capital and operation to just move the storage bit of the lorry than the whole trailer, hence the swap body traffic which can reach most UK freight terminals from all over Europe.

 

[The Barlow Boy]

The lack of use by the "chunnel" by freight was raised in a parliamentary question a couple of weeks ago. Eurotunnel were accused of charging too high a price. This also applies to passenger trains where Eurostar have been accusing the tunnel operators of charging too high a price. Some people may recall an unsuccessful attempt by Eurotunnel to sue Eurostar after the Eurostar service started twelve months late for loss of income. The amount of freight passing through the tunnel is miserable considering what was forecast to be transported.

 

[158747]

G'day all,

A few years a go and before my interest in railways was rekindled I'm pretty certain that I saw a trainload of Blue Circle Cement road trailers hauled by a Freightliner loco. Does this service still run?

Whether it does or not I'm surprised that no one has thought to run trains through the Channel Tunnel carrying road trailers along HS1 to Ripple Lane. There would clearly be no loading guage issues and I would have thought there would be a market for vehicles heading up from Southern Europe?

Your contributions would be very welcome!

Richmond Commuter!

This train used to run from Westbury cement works, I think it must have been about 2003 or 2004. It ran for a trial period but was unsuccessful so the trial was cancelled.

 

[miikey]

There is a wagon called the Eurospine that can sit a trailer on the back of it.
Ive never seen one though and I don't know exactly where they are route cleared.

 

[edwin_m]

The Eurospine and similar designs need the trailer to be lifted on by crane rather than driven on. If you are doing that, as suggested above, it's probably easier just to lift the load as a swap body.

The Channel Tunnel has a larger loading gauge than mainland Europe so it can take HGVs on a flat deck wagon. The truck-carrying trains elsewhere in Europe use special small-wheel wagons with drive-on loading from one end, or in the case of the Modalohr system a wagon with a turntable deck allowing a trailer to be driven on from one side before the deck is rotated into place.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_highway
http://www.modalohr.com/gb.htm


Either of these last two would be physically possible on HS1, but this route only carries freight at night and the advantage of unloading in the Dagenham area instead of just using Eurotunnel to Folkestone is unlikely to justify the extra cost and hassle.

Going beyond HS1, most HGVs wouldn't fit on any type of wagon within the UK loading gauge. Although there have been various trials they have been limited to lower-height trailers, not helped by the fact that UK roads have greater height limits than other European countries so our trucks can be higher too. Trailers for carrying dense commodities, such as the cement wagons mentioned, tend to be lower anyway in order to stay within weight limits - but if you're transporting lots of lorryloads of cement on the same journey at the same time then it's probably cheaper to use conventional rail wagons. For lighter goods a special low-height trailer would be required, which is non-standard so more expensive and also less efficient as it carries less payload. Again swap bodies have succeeded here on the Tesco and similar trains where attempts to carry whole trailers have failed.

 

[AnonymousUser1]

<snip>

Besides its cheaper in both capital and operation to just move the storage bit of the lorry than the whole trailer, hence the swap body traffic which can reach most UK freight terminals from all over Europe.

look at the number of 45 ft ISO boxes knocking about - this is mainly for European road and rail although some of the container ships can take 45 footers
in some places without impinging on the next stack as 45 foot isn't a standard multiple of the TEU (20 ft box = 1, 30 foot box = 1.5 , 40 foot = 2TEU)