Freight Trains versus HGVs

[HSTEd]

We are continually increasing road capacity to match projected traffic, "predict and provide".

Perhaps we could use the same model on railways rather than using price increase to suppress demand.

If the railways have been doing that since privatisation, it clearly hasn't proven very effective?

Running in daytime does not "inevitably" impact on passenger service frequencies if the timetable is properly planned. The principle of first on the graph applies and if the freight service was there before an altered passenger service. The TOC should ask the freight operator if they can flex their timings. Often the answer is yes.

Well unless you've invented a way for a passenger train to pass through a freight train without interacting with it, they do.

Lots of proposed improvements to passenger rail service get shot down because low performance drag freights "have" to be allowed to run, using equipment and practices that haven't changed since the Beeching era.
Most of crossrails trains simply dead end at Paddington because a handful of freight trains want to continue operating very slowly on the GWML, the passenger rail service through Altrincham is a joke for the benefit of freight trains etc etc etc

Huge infrastructure is constructed to allow these toy train operators to continue to operate like it's the 50s, and lines that could be filled with passenger trains cannot be filled with passenger trains.

EDIT:

Also a lot of people here comparing intermodal container loads between lorries and trains, when many modern lorry trailers hold rather than more than a 40' intermodal container by virtue of having enormous internal volume.
Lots of loads cube out before they run out of mass allowance

A modern 15.7m long trailer, 4.9m tall, has a cubic capacity on order of 132 cubic meters.
That is pretty much two 40' (non high cube) containers.

Even a standard 13.7m length, 4.7m height, trailer manages 102 cubic meters.

Good luck competing with this with our tiny loading gauge.
A lorry trailer is more comparable to a 53' high cube container these days.

 

[SuspectUsual]

Oddly enough this subject is one of the few things I remember from my degree course donkeys years ago. Fundamentally, freight by road has the lowest fixed costs but the highest marginal cost per mile, rail has higher fixed costs but a lower cost per mile, finally sea freight has the greatest fixed costs but lowest cost per mile. We were shown a graph of the three, and at the time (late 1980s) the break point from road to rail was in simple terms a journey of around 400 miles. I know real life is a bit more complicated than that, but it does demonstrate the point

 

[Romsey]

Quote

Romsey said:
Running in daytime does not "inevitably" impact on passenger service frequencies if the timetable is properly planned. The principle of first on the graph applies and if the freight service was there before an altered passenger service. The TOC should ask the freight operator if they can flex their timings. Often the answer is yes.

Well unless you've invented a way for a passenger train to pass through a freight train without interacting with it, they do.

Lots of proposed improvements to passenger rail service get shot down because low performance drag freights "have" to be allowed to run, using equipment and practices that haven't changed since the Beeching era.
Most of crossrails trains simply dead end at Paddington because a handful of freight trains want to continue operating very slowly on the GWML, the passenger rail service through Altrincham is a joke for the benefit of freight trains etc etc etc Unquote

OK, but what traffic has survived over the last six months?
Freight ton miles has dropped by about 20 to 30 percent. Passenger carryings by anything up to 90% and has slowly recovered to about 50% across the country.

If you were a senior DfT official who now holds the purse strings, where would you allow investment in the railway in the short / medium term?
Passenger facilities may one day be fully used again. Freight trade is holding up better and some flows (Thamesport) are increasing.

 

[PeterC]

My thought on reading the OP, as with most bright ideas about freight was "if I was going there I wouldn't start from here".

 

[HSTEd]

Quote


Well unless you've invented a way for a passenger train to pass through a freight train without interacting with it, they do.

Lots of proposed improvements to passenger rail service get shot down because low performance drag freights "have" to be allowed to run, using equipment and practices that haven't changed since the Beeching era.
Most of crossrails trains simply dead end at Paddington because a handful of freight trains want to continue operating very slowly on the GWML, the passenger rail service through Altrincham is a joke for the benefit of freight trains etc etc etc Unquote

OK, but what traffic has survived over the last six months?
Freight ton miles has dropped by about 20 to 30 percent. Passenger carryings by anything up to 90% and has slowly recovered to about 50% across the country.

If you were a senior DfT official who now holds the purse strings, where would you allow investment in the railway in the short / medium term?
Passenger facilities may one day be fully used again. Freight trade is holding up better and some flows (Thamesport) are increasing.

I think you tried to quote me but the quote marks haven't worked properly.

 

[furnessvale]

EDIT:

Also a lot of people here comparing intermodal container loads between lorries and trains, when many modern lorry trailers hold rather than more than a 40' intermodal container by virtue of having enormous internal volume.
Lots of loads cube out before they run out of mass allowance

A modern 15.7m long trailer, 4.9m tall, has a cubic capacity on order of 132 cubic meters.
That is pretty much two 40' (non high cube) containers.

Even a standard 13.7m length, 4.7m height, trailer manages 102 cubic meters.

Good luck competing with this with our tiny loading gauge.
A lorry trailer is more comparable to a 53' high cube container these days.

WH Malcolm are currently running 9' 6" high swap bodies 50ft long by rail.

SOME loads cube out but a large proportion of high curtain siders are running around with a lot of fresh air above the palleted loads.

If cube out is such a problem, why is a suggestion to increase overall HGV dimensions ALWAYS accompanied (by the RHA) with a demand for increased weight limits?

Edit to add: Rail loading gauge is not as big a problem as you make out, especially as rail can match the vast majority of road vehicle heights only 15' 6" trailers being out of reach. One HGV equals one driver. On rail, one 60ft container flat carries one 40ft and one 20ft box. Add rail wagons to your desired length but it still equals one driver.

 

[Colin Morgan]

Follow the link that has been given and actually read the "justification" for the trial it gives all kind of reasons why the "trial" should not go ahead.
It is proposed to only be based on limited 50 mile long routes that have to be agreed by the local authorities for the area. This approval can only be given if the LA concerned agree that all the highway structures will take the additional weight with only very limited expenditure if required. However once the 48 trailers are on the road there will not be the monitoring to ensure they stay on the approved routes. There are plenty of examples around the country of bridges collapsing because of drivers ignoring weight restrictions, The ignoring of height restrictions is a clear indicator of the road haulage industry lack of commitment to basic safety.
The trial is being justified on the grounds that it will make rail freight more attractive because it will reduce the cost of onward transit from the rail terminal!
It acknowledges that one possible cost is additional road accidents due the greater length of the vehicle. Little publicity is given to HGVs in general being involved in a disproportionate number of collisions causing death or serious injuries. The cost of this is not charged to the road haulage industry, if it were the industry would contract substantially.
The suggestions that a modern HGV is less polluting than freight trains hauled by some of the Diesel locomotives in use is not relevant. There are plenty of HGVs on the road which do not have Euro VI engines. If you are going to replace them by something less polluting then far better to investing in modern rail haulage, preferably electric haulage.
If you look at the BEIS document on emissions in the attachment you will see that rail haulage produce less than half the CO2 and very much less Nitrgen oxides than road haulage

This is a consultation exercise so hopefully will receive many responses pointing out that the number of 50 mile routes that can be identified and agreed is likely to be too low to be useful. It would be better to look for opportunities to install or reopen rail connections to industrial sites. Carbon dioxide is only one of many pollutants from road haulage of freight which means any marginal improvements by a small reduction in one of them is just a diversion from serious efforts to combat global warming and other destructive pollution of our environment

 

[FordFocus]

The traditional heavy industries that rail relied on have collapsed like Coal. Rail was excellent as it could cope with heavy, slow loads that weren't time critical. The infrastructure was purpose built. The extra proposed 4 tonnes of road haulage is pointless as rail would win.

Where rail freight hasn't capitalised is the the parcel and distribution industry. It has grown massively in the past decade with the rise on online shopping but I struggle to see where rail can fit in. It didn't help with Royal Mail sticking two fingers up at EWS in 2004.

A typical parcel journey is Sender --> Local Depot --> Hub --> Local Delivery Depot --> Recipient. All of which rely on road within this country. Local Depots and Hubs aren't near railheads. Some Hubs like DPD Hinkley are next door to a railway line but have no rail connection to other depots.

There's potential with Amazon as they move a lot of items and parcels between hubs but again, not many (if any at all) are next to a railhead. Orion have pitched the 769s but I think ultimately it's cheaper and logistically better to go by road.

Many UK Distribution Hubs are next to a Motorway or Trunk Road, if 48 tonne trucks are limited to these roads then it makes sense to allow the increase.

 

[CW2]

The traditional heavy industries that rail relied on have collapsed like Coal. Rail was excellent as it could cope with heavy, slow loads that weren't time critical. The infrastructure was purpose built. The extra proposed 4 tonnes of road haulage is pointless as rail would win.

Where rail freight hasn't capitalised is the the parcel and distribution industry. It has grown massively in the past decade with the rise on online shopping but I struggle to see where rail can fit in. It didn't help with Royal Mail sticking two fingers up at EWS in 2004.

A typical parcel journey is Sender --> Local Depot --> Hub --> Local Delivery Depot --> Recipient. All of which rely on road within this country. Local Depots and Hubs aren't near railheads. Some Hubs like DPD Hinkley are next door to a railway line but have no rail connection to other depots.

There's potential with Amazon as they move a lot of items and parcels between hubs but again, not many (if any at all) are next to a railhead. Orion have pitched the 769s but I think ultimately it's cheaper and logistically better to go by road.

Many UK Distribution Hubs are next to a Motorway or Trunk Road, if 48 tonne trucks are limited to these roads then it makes sense to allow the increase.

With parcels traffic the load typically reaches its cubic limit before it reaches its weight limit, so adding another 4 tonnes of weight capacity is irrelevant to that market. Where it will make a difference is in the movement of bulk products, such as petrol / oil or aggregates. In these markets road and rail are in direct competition. Relaxing the road weight limits will directly impact upon the competitiveness of rail freight.

 

[InOban]

Are there actually any significant number of trainloads which must be broken down to fit into 44 tonne trucks?

 

[CW2]

Are there actually any significant number of trainloads which must be broken down to fit into 44 tonne trucks?

Pretty much anything that currently moves in 40/45 foot containers.

 

[deltic]

Quote




If you were a senior DfT official who now holds the purse strings, where would you allow investment in the railway in the short / medium term?
Passenger facilities may one day be fully used again. Freight trade is holding up better and some flows (Thamesport) are increasing.

I wouldn't be allowing any investment in the rail network in the short/medium term apart from on-going electrification - difficult to see any justification at present for doing so

 

[WL113]

The traditional heavy industries that rail relied on have collapsed like Coal. Rail was excellent as it could cope with heavy, slow loads that weren't time critical. The infrastructure was purpose built. The extra proposed 4 tonnes of road haulage is pointless as rail would win.

Where rail freight hasn't capitalised is the the parcel and distribution industry. It has grown massively in the past decade with the rise on online shopping but I struggle to see where rail can fit in. It didn't help with Royal Mail sticking two fingers up at EWS in 2004.

A typical parcel journey is Sender --> Local Depot --> Hub --> Local Delivery Depot --> Recipient. All of which rely on road within this country. Local Depots and Hubs aren't near railheads. Some Hubs like DPD Hinkley are next door to a railway line but have no rail connection to other depots.

There's potential with Amazon as they move a lot of items and parcels between hubs but again, not many (if any at all) are next to a railhead. Orion have pitched the 769s but I think ultimately it's cheaper and logistically better to go by road.

Many UK Distribution Hubs are next to a Motorway or Trunk Road, if 48 tonne trucks are limited to these roads then it makes sense to allow the increase.

Remember Red Star? That had a very good reputation but was thrown away. The parcels distribution market certainly is booming at the moment with the ever growing demand for internet shopping, hardly any of it going by rail.

Amazon. Now there's a good example. They have a huge distribution centre in Rugeley, Staffordshire. What is just across the road? The closed and being demolished Rugeley B Power Station. The Station is rail connected but there has been no take up of the site by Amazon. The plan is for a 'Sustainable Community' to be built on the site. Not sustainable enough to use the rail connection obviously.....

Another local site; the big container depot at Hawks Green, Cannock. A rail connection was put in there as part of the Cannock and Walsall resignalling in 2013. Guess how many times that has been used....Not once! Every single container arrives and leaves by road.

 

[6Gman]

Exactly, its time though for change though especially as they keep on about being green. I fell to see how even bigger and heavier lorries can be green. One freight train can do away with many of these monstrosities. Also I wonder how much of our country has been destroyed with so called road improvements to accommodate these polluting trucks. Again I am well aware of the need to be able to deliver raw materials to businesses and finished goods to point of sale, it just seems ironic that the government are even considering this instead of using our railway network to its best potential. Also I will remind the HGV supporters out there that road improvements are paid for by the public. So what is the problem with public money being used on the rail network. There is never going to be enough room for everything to travel by road and it is about time those at the top realised this physical FACT. The transport ministry needs a good clearing out and new brains bringing in. We are a small densely populated country and we cannot emulate the USA with its huge freeways and large shopping malls. Physical FACT.

Presumably 5 x 48tonners are "greener" than 6 x 40tonners?

 

[HSTEd]

Edit to add: Rail loading gauge is not as big a problem as you make out, especially as rail can match the vast majority of road vehicle heights only 15' 6" trailers being out of reach. One HGV equals one driver. On rail, one 60ft container flat carries one 40ft and one 20ft box. Add rail wagons to your desired length but it still equals one driver.

Correction, add rail wagons until you hit the limit set by the infrastructure.
Which is a lot shorter than the desirable freight train length.


Also rail requires a lot of staff beyond simply train drivers requires when it wants to start handling swap bodies etc.
Lifting a container or swap body twice costs a significant amount of money.

That alone will price you out of the vast majority of the road haulage market, even if line haul was free.

You need to cut the cost of "lifting" containers/swap bodies, or find an alternative way of loading goods, fit way more goods into containers (so abandoning 40' for 53' at least), dramatically cut railway staffing bills, or some combination of the above.

 

[The Planner]

Another local site; the big container depot at Hawks Green, Cannock. A rail connection was put in there as part of the Cannock and Walsall resignalling in 2013. Guess how many times that has been used....Not once! Every single container arrives and leaves by road.

Has ghost paths in the timetable for Freightliner.

 

[Bald Rick]

Amazon. Now there's a good example. They have a huge distribution centre in Rugeley, Staffordshire. What is just across the road? The closed and being demolished Rugeley B Power Station. The Station is rail connected but there has been no take up of the site by Amazon. The plan is for a 'Sustainable Community' to be built on the site. Not sustainable enough to use the rail connection obviously.....

There was a discussion about Amazon’s logistics on another’s thread not long ago, where some ‘know it all’ had a few things to say...

https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/class-365s-possible-use-as-freight-trains-by-varamis.203411/#post-4537157

 

[HSTEd]

There was a discussion about Amazon’s logistics on another’s thread not long ago, where some ‘know it all’ had a few things to say...

https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/class-365s-possible-use-as-freight-trains-by-varamis.203411/#post-4537157

So maybe we get some rail use if Amazon's business was to increase tenfold.....
Thus raising the cross-dock to fulfillment centre traffic to trainload proportions

What fraction of the UK retail market are they right now?

 

[Bald Rick]

So maybe we get some rail use if Amazon's business was to increase tenfold.....
Thus raising the cross-dock to fulfillment centre traffic to trainload proportions

What fraction of the UK retail market are they right now?

About 6% of the whole retail market, 12% of non-food (which includes several markets they are not in). Increasing that 10fold may be tricky for competition and mathematical reasons...

 

[HSTEd]

About 6% of the whole retail market, 12% of non-food (which includes several markets they are not in). Increasing that 10fold may be tricky for competition and mathematical reasons...

It does lend credance to the only way to make anything like this even close to workable is with an integrated delivery train for all retail systems.... unfortunately that is politically impossible.

 

[RyanOPlasty]

The transport of goods by road is hugely subsidised. We know that not all VED is used to pay for roads, but even allowing for this, HGVs do not pay their fair share towards the upkeep of the road infrastructure.

If we take a typical family car. it will have an axle load of about 1 tonne fully laden, and 2 axles and drives 10000 miles a year. Let's say this causes 2 units of damage to the roads. ( 1 per axle)

a 44 ton 5-axle HGV will at best have 5 axles with 8.8 tonnes on each axle. The damage to the road rises by the 4th power of the axle load. so each of the 5 axles causes 5997 times as much damage. multiply by 5 for the 5 axles and then by 6 to allow for the 60000 miles per year they average. This gives us about 180000 units of damage.

The car is taxed at £75 per unit of damage per year. The HGV pays less than 0.5 pence.

If the cost of infrastructure was properly apportioned, then 44 tonne HGVs would never be competitive with rail.

 

[eslcma]

I consider this to be a really interesting debate, but I think the challenge is summed up in the thread title. It is not as straightforward as road versus rail. Logistics operations can best serve the market through a combination of road and rail, for it will be a while until every retail unit has its own siding.

Amongst other reasons rail freight currently loses freight is because it is not competitive on cargo weight compared to pure road operations. The road equipment required to perform the first or final road mile of a rail move weighs 19t-22t (tractor unit, 45' skeletal trailer and container) leaving 25t-22t for cargo. Road equipment (tractor unit plus 45' box or curtain trailer) for use without rail leg can weigh between anything between 14t and 18t leaving 30t - 26t for cargo.

This weight penalty means that rail can carry less cargo in an equivalent swapbody/container, and a typical 26 pallet load at 1t per pallet is not compatible. This adds cost, inefficiency, lack of standardised freight loads etc for the customer.

So whilst a 48t road limit looks like a road advantage it is only equalising the opportunity for rail to play more of a part in unit freight logistics.

There are some technical standards to be considered such as road axle weights, but most modern road vehicles and trailers have plated capacity to do 50t+ already.

I can see the scenario of a future push for harmonisation, but if the rail sector supported 48t for multimodal operations it may actually generate growth for UK rail. The differential must be retained if it is introduced. May be linked to mandatory use of LNG or in due course electric road vehicles to support the local road journey and further enhance the environmental credentials of rail?

This should all be considered in context that many a standard intermodal rail wagon can already carry a container upwards of 35t, so perhaps the question is why should road continue to limit rail?

 

[InOban]

Surely these 48 tonne containers would be heading from the container port to one of the new inland distribution hubs, from where the contents would be redistributed among several final destinations. All these major hubs are rail connected, so I see no reason why the 48 tonne trucks should be allowed on the road.

 

[eslcma]

Surely these 48 tonne containers would be heading from the container port to one of the new inland distribution hubs, from where the contents would be redistributed among several final destinations. All these major hubs are rail connected, so I see no reason why the 48 tonne trucks should be allowed on

Unfortunately not all distrubution sites have rail hubs, including the largest such as Lutterworth Magna Park. There is also a major opportunity for secondary trunk distribution of full loads from warehouse to stores, using rail and a local road move.

 

[CW2]

Based on previous experience it is nonsense to suggest that this derogation will only ever apply to rail-borne intermodal traffic being delivered from a rail terminal. Within a couple of years it will become the norm - and in the meantime there will be no attempt to actually police the new limits. Therefore rail will be put at a competitive disadvantage once more.

In my humble opinion, it is a really poor idea.

 

[GB]

We could do that.

But good luck getting that past ASLEF and the RMT.

Union aside, how do you go about automating shunting? Shunting also includes physical train prep work such as making sure the wagons are fit to run, the loads are secured and the right containers are on the right wagons on the right services.

 

[RT4038]

Union aside, how do you go about automating shunting? Shunting also includes physical train prep work such as making sure the wagons are fit to run, the loads are secured and the right containers are on the right wagons on the right services.

It is done in many places outside of the UK. It is not fully automatic (i.e. without staff at all) - basically the driver and shunter's job are combined, with the single person controlling the locomotive remotely from the ground and performing the shunters tasks.

 

[furnessvale]

Correction, add rail wagons until you hit the limit set by the infrastructure.
Which is a lot shorter than the desirable freight train length.


Also rail requires a lot of staff beyond simply train drivers requires when it wants to start handling swap bodies etc.
Lifting a container or swap body twice costs a significant amount of money.

That alone will price you out of the vast majority of the road haulage market, even if line haul was free.

You need to cut the cost of "lifting" containers/swap bodies, or find an alternative way of loading goods, fit way more goods into containers (so abandoning 40' for 53' at least), dramatically cut railway staffing bills, or some combination of the above.

Your opinions are interesting but you always seem to start from a position of the UK requiring USA style train lengths and loading gauge to be viable which is simply not the case.

A 775m freight train with a single driver is well suited to UK conditions.

The last time I priced a single container lift it was £20. I would be pleased to receive a more up to date figure.

Deep sea container traffic is settled on 40ft length x max 9' 6" high, which can be, and is, well accommodated within UK gauge. European traffic is settled on a 45ft length, which again is accommodated. Domestic container traffic allow a 50ft length but up to 60ft could be used if the road leg allowed.

As for costs, rail would be in a much better position if it did not face a massively subsidised road haaulage industry, which successive UK governments have cultivated.

 

[HSTEd]

It is done in many places outside of the UK. It is not fully automatic (i.e. without staff at all) - basically the driver and shunter's job are combined, with the single person controlling the locomotive remotely from the ground and performing the shunters tasks.

Also if we were starting from scratch, the use of autocouplers with automatic data and air connection, and possibly remote release could dramatically cut staff and time requirements for shunting

With ECP brakes, the locomotive, and thus the shunting system, should be able to tell the composition and order of all trains entering the yard with a high degree of certainty.

As for costs, rail would be in a much better position if it did not face a massively subsidised road haaulage industry, which successive UK governments have cultivated.

The subsidy is nowhere near as large as some people make out.

Even the Campaign for Better Transport suggests the subsidy is only ~£5bn per year.

That sounds like a lot, until you note that that 79% of tonne-km are by road, as opposed to 9% by rail.
So that is about ~£562m/yr, for the amount of freight moved by rail.

Once you include direct grants, opportunity costs to passenger service/passenger benefit and the indirect subsidies to Network Rail, railfreight is not going to be far behind.

Road consumes the most money because it does the most work.

The truth is rail is simply not well suited to the vast majority of traffic in the UK, certainly with the technical restrictions that prevent use of piggyback or rolling highway operations.

 

[Master29]

Years of crayonism in these forums won’t put the clock back to 1950s either...

So, what do you suggest then seeing as you find this amusing.