• Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!

Class 769 for London Gateway freight trial

Status
Not open for further replies.
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R

RailUK Forums

fgwrich

Established Member
Joined
15 Apr 2009
Messages
9,252
Location
Between Edinburgh and Exeter
It certainly has a rather odd looking yellow panel. A bit of a shame that it's just a standard rectangle going against the face of the 319 than going with it (ala Northern purple). A very minor detail I know, but one I'm surprised ROG Hasn't designed out seeing as they do seem to tinker with their liveries.

 

Bletchleyite

Veteran Member
Joined
20 Oct 2014
Messages
97,540
Location
"Marston Vale mafia"
Amused that Northern fitted a blind to a 319 that had Whitehaven on it! Or do they just have the same standard blind for all paper-blind-fitted units?
 

AMD

Member
Joined
6 Dec 2017
Messages
604
Amused that Northern fitted a blind to a 319 that had Whitehaven on it! Or do they just have the same standard blind for all paper-blind-fitted units?
It's a standard blind that all units received, as demonstrated by my optimism of getting the unit to Southport when we had it in use :)
 

Attachments

  • 20181217_122846.jpg
    20181217_122846.jpg
    3.1 MB · Views: 235

_toommm_

Established Member
Joined
8 Jul 2017
Messages
5,846
Location
Yorkshire
It's a standard blind that all units received, as demonstrated by my optimism of getting the unit to Southport when we had it in use :)

Presumably these are the same blinds that used to be used on most of the Sprinters before they were redone with TrainFX?
 

4-SUB 4732

Established Member
Joined
7 Jan 2018
Messages
2,150
No call at Newcastle on The Plymouth - Glasgow Service , Doncaster / Leeds then Glasgow , is it going via the Settle & Carlisle

Probably deliberate. If no demand exists on Tyneside, it can then go any way to Scotland (S&C, Tyne Valley, ECML) depending on engineering work.
 

Killingworth

Established Member
Joined
30 May 2018
Messages
4,812
Location
Sheffield
As the service doesn't launch until 2021 it's all going to depend on the volume of traffic offered, places actually needed, paths available to take it, and costs. Filling whole trains, even substantial parts of them, for significant distances and in both directions at the right times will be very challenging.

Yes, rail can beat road if both start from the same point at the same time and can end at exactly the same point to finish. It can't beat road for flexibilty of starting and end points and flexibilty of timings to start. It relies on final mile transfers by road vehicles, probably requiring two time consuming reloadings between start and finish points.

I recall British Railways doing something similar to what appears to being prepared for using those wonderful Scammell Scarabs for collection and final deliveries - and they'd had decades of practice!

By using still untried 769s some might suggest reliabilty could be an issue on top of all else. I wish this brave project well.
 

XCTurbostar

Established Member
Joined
13 Sep 2014
Messages
1,877
I hope those windows are clamped shut!

Still no numbers on it. I’m guessing this is still 319373 since it doesn’t have an engine?
 

SussexLad

Member
Joined
7 Jan 2020
Messages
193
Location
UK
Random thought, would you be able run an old tube train full of parcels during the night to get them from one place to another?

Aware of the night tube, could fit in around that? Wouldn't use main passenger station, maybe sidings on the above ground levels to load and offload?
 

hst43102

Member
Joined
28 May 2019
Messages
945
Location
Tyneside
Random thought, would you be able run an old tube train full of parcels during the night to get them from one place to another?

Aware of the night tube, could fit in around that? Wouldn't use main passenger station, maybe sidings on the above ground levels to load and offload?
Could be a good topic for the speculative ideas subforum?
 

Bald Rick

Veteran Member
Joined
28 Sep 2010
Messages
29,070
Random thought, would you be able run an old tube train full of parcels during the night to get them from one place to another?

Aware of the night tube, could fit in around that? Wouldn't use main passenger station, maybe sidings on the above ground levels to load and offload?

It would be a right pain to get the parcels down and up, and get in the way of maintenance. Far better would be to run them round in an electric vehicle at ground level.
 

SussexLad

Member
Joined
7 Jan 2020
Messages
193
Location
UK
It would be a right pain to get the parcels down and up, and get in the way of maintenance. Far better would be to run them round in an electric vehicle at ground level.

There are sections of the tube above groud, could you not just build a speacial loading station? I could imagine a service starting outside of the underground to connect a major sorting office to an airport or something. No idea how tho as the undergroùnd is not my expertise!
 

markymark2000

On Moderation
Joined
11 May 2015
Messages
3,538
Location
Western Part of the UK
There are sections of the tube above groud, could you not just build a speacial loading station? I could imagine a service starting outside of the underground to connect a major sorting office to an airport or something. No idea how tho as the undergroùnd is not my expertise!
I think something could be looked into using the S7 stock perhaps on the District Line since the units are very big, plenty of space and you cover quite a good distance on them. It all depends on how you get the stuff in and out of the station or if there is a warehouse or delivery centre etc between the stations where a siding could easily be put.
 

SussexLad

Member
Joined
7 Jan 2020
Messages
193
Location
UK
Reinstate Mail Rail instead?

To me, that seems really expensive and quite restrictive because you wouldn't be able to travel outside of London. Imagine the Gatwick mail center being connected to Stansted. Would save quite a few lorries on the M25.
 

Domh245

Established Member
Joined
6 Apr 2013
Messages
8,426
Location
nowhere
There are sections of the tube above groud, could you not just build a speacial loading station? I could imagine a service starting outside of the underground to connect a major sorting office to an airport or something. No idea how tho as the undergroùnd is not my expertise!

Even the above ground bits are typically not at street level - they're either up on embankments/viaducts or in cuttings. However, @Bald Rick's point still stands and you'd be better just putting them in an electric van and driving them directly. The main advantage of the tube (during the day at least) is the speed relative to the heavily congested roads. During the night, traffic is pretty free flowing and there are zero benefits for sticking the parcels onto the tube compared to just driving them.
 

K.o.R

Member
Joined
6 Dec 2017
Messages
658
It certainly has a rather odd looking yellow panel. A bit of a shame that it's just a standard rectangle going against the face of the 319 than going with it (ala Northern purple). A very minor detail I know, but one I'm surprised ROG Hasn't designed out seeing as they do seem to tinker with their liveries.


Yes, very strange. It's not like they actually needed to paint any of the bit that was already yellow anyway!
 

rebmcr

Established Member
Joined
15 Nov 2011
Messages
3,845
Location
St Neots
Imagine the Gatwick mail center being connected to Stansted. Would save quite a few lorries on the M25.

That particular route could already be done via Thameslink and/or the West London Line.

While there are other possible origin/destination pairs for which your idea (or its corollary using Class 345s through the Crossrail core) would make sense, I don't think any of them have parcel flows between.
 

Class 170101

Established Member
Joined
1 Mar 2014
Messages
7,909
Random thought, would you be able run an old tube train full of parcels during the night to get them from one place to another?

Aware of the night tube, could fit in around that? Wouldn't use main passenger station, maybe sidings on the above ground levels to load and offload?

Seems rather pointless to transport them from Liverpool Street to Bond Street say on the tube it would be quicker by road, certainly by night. Upminster to Ealing Broadway might be a different matter. Depending on the line and the day of the week night running shouldn't impinge on maintenance as the line is already open for Night Tube, but other routes however....
 

8stewartt

Member
Joined
18 Mar 2013
Messages
72
Hats off to them for trying......

However, they are advertising a service which, is not even possible.

The route map lists nearly every container terminal in the country for starters, birch coppice, hams hall, east mids gateway, Grangemouth, London gateway, iport, daventry, Widnes etc but, they are not container trains, nor do ANY of these locations, including their first rumoured one, London gateway, have any facilities for loading/unloading caged parcels from a passenger unit. I was at gateway only a m th or so ago and no facilities have even been started to be built.

I also can’t see a 769 being loaded with a container
 

PeterC

Established Member
Joined
29 Sep 2014
Messages
4,069
Hats off to them for trying......

However, they are advertising a service which, is not even possible.

The route map lists nearly every container terminal in the country for starters, birch coppice, hams hall, east mids gateway, Grangemouth, London gateway, iport, daventry, Widnes etc but, they are not container trains, nor do ANY of these locations, including their first rumoured one, London gateway, have any facilities for loading/unloading caged parcels from a passenger unit. I was at gateway only a m th or so ago and no facilities have even been started to be built.

I also can’t see a 769 being loaded with a container
Creating a loading ramp would be a pretty basic bit of metal bashing but I wouln't like to be the person pushing loaded roll cages up it.
 

8stewartt

Member
Joined
18 Mar 2013
Messages
72
Sounds simple right?

but I’ve never heard of a shipping container coming off a ship, with roll cages pre loaded with individually wrapped boxes with address labels on, ready to load into a train via a loading platform. Nor can I see how a shipping container unloaded onto a train and unloaded onto a lorry in the centre of London is quicker than just moving the shipping container.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Top