So, are there no breakdown trains on the Southern anymore? Eastleigh, Wimbledon and Hither green had one each, more in steam days. They were capable of lifting locos and stock. Is Leeds the only one now?
In those days there would have been a derailment, at a guess, about once a week somewhere on the Southern. Most of them would have been shunting accidents in yards, not regarded as serious and unlikely to have been investigated by HMRI unless there was a more serious consequence such as a passenger train hitting the debris. So just counting derailments on Railways Archive then versus now won't give a true picture. Yard shunting is now massively less, what still happens is no doubt done with much more regard to safety, and the far fewer wagons that are used these days are probably designed and maintained more rigorously for heavy loads and higher speeds*. These days, if there were still that many breakdown trains, it's unlikely that the staff involved would get enough practice on real derailments to remain competent without having to go out and do exercises on simulated ones.
*There have been accidents caused by poor maintenance of modern freight wagons, but I suspect there were 4-wheelers in the steam age that went for years on end without being touched!
Is there a reason the containers can't be weighed when it arrives at the rail depot? I'm sure a contract could be written such that any container found to be a different weight to that declared (outside a small but reasonable tolerance) would be refused carriage with no refund. If they want the product shipped they have to book it again at full price for the actual weight or collect it from the depot at their own cost. That would soon stop weights being wrongly declared.
I imagine it's pretty straightforward to fit some sort of load cell to the crane so the container is weighed. But the ones at the ports probably just give a total weight, as the container is small compared to the ship so they aren't too bothered if it's not loaded evenly. On the railway uneven loading is probably a bigger hazard than excessive loading, so the crane would have to measure the lifting force separately at each corner.
At ports they charge the container owners about £100 for weighing the container I believe so I presume if it isn't compulsory that is a cost shippers would rather avoid
If it's as I suggested above I would think the actual cost of weighing is negligible. The fee may be more about the paperwork of transmitting the weight to the customer, plus the risk that the weight might turn out to be different from what was assumed. If it turns out lighter then maybe another container was turned away unnecessarily, and if it's heavier then in the worst case the loading plan might have to be changed and multiple containers re-stacked.
