As we seem to have a couple of well informed posters on this thread maybe I can ask a couple of questions of my own with regards to intermodal traffic in the UK.
Has the gauge clearance work seen an increase in volumes being moved? How many 9'6' boxes are actually coming through UK ports as a percentage and can this traffic ever justify the costs that have been incurred in increasing the work?
Is there any chances of London gateway being used as a single European stop for the largest vessels or will they always multi stop with say a Rotterdam or Hamburg as well. I know that DBS were tasked with exploring options for using the tunnel for distributing traffic from Gateway but this wont happen if vessels are also dropping into European ports also.
Lastly railfreight is growing rapidly in the UK but intermodal is flat. Is it just lagging behind the bulk commodities or is there a deeper malaise? it was expected that intermodal traffic would be the driver for railfreight growth going forward but as yet it has not done so.
The 9'6" question is difficult to answer because I suspect their may not be any accurate figures although in theory they may be available from the Department for Transport as the different sizes of unit load will be collected from the main port inventory systems. However, this all depends if they separate out separate unit load types whilst the ports themselves will have the information but for confidentiality reasons are unlikely to reveal them. Instead most reveal their tonnages in TEU terms, although uniquely Liverpool traditionally has only released figures in number of containers format. This is largely due to the fact that the North American market is mainly 40ft units because of road weight restrictions in most states being limited to 80000lbs all up which is about 36.5 tonnes without special permits, and because the axle restrictions favour 40ft trailers. My best guess is about 50% of all 40ft containers are now 9'6" but it will vary by trade and shipping line depending on whether the pricing is the same or not. According to World Bank figures the total movement of containers through UK Ports in 2013 was about 9.2 million, but this includes transhipment traffic which could result in containers being counted twice and would not usually move inland.
How you measure the additional cost is equally difficult, as without the gauge enhancements, the rail industry would either have to invest in huge numbers
of low height rolling stock or allow the road industry to gain a stranglehold over this business with all the knock on effects that this would result in. It should be also be remember that the trend is towards 40ft HC (9'6) containers often being the standard equipment in some global trades.
London Gateway is never likely to become a sole European hub port for several reasons. The population of the UK is about 60 million, which is about 20 million less than Germany, 4 million less than France and about double the combined population of the Netherlands and Belgium, but Hamburg, Bremerhaven, Rotterdam and Antwerp all serve larger hinterlands. German ports tend to act as hubs for the Baltic states and Scandinavia, whilst Rotterdam and Antwerp serve countries to the East and south so there four ports are always likely to be hubs. Felixstowe, London Gateway and Southampton all suffer the risk of having port calls cut if a vessel is likely to be delayed as the operator will then discharge containers at one of the European hubs and feeder the cargo back to the UK, the problem rarely happens in Liverpool, as apart from high winds from the north west at certain times of the year the port is not usually subject to bad weather even though the North Atlantic can be challenging for maintaining schedule. No single UK or even group of Ports could handle the combined volumes of the mainland European ports and no ship owner would ever consider adopting this as a way forward, and the increasing size of vessels, now 18000 teu in some cases restricts the choice anyway. Maersk who operate this size vessel already cannot operate them fully laden because not all European Ports have the depth of water available so they are being operated at about 14000 teu capacity. With ship builders already developing plans for 20000 teu plus the number of options will reduce, but I very much doubt the London Gateway will be the last port left.
As for DBS distributing via the Chunnel, it will never happen because of the restrictions on hazardous cargo and the inability to move open top and out of gauge containers which will still need to be feeder by sea. Furthermore, for the reasons above, there is more danger of the UK in the long term becoming loosing direct calls on some trades if vessels of 20000 teu plus are introduced.
Getting back slightly on topic, there is also another reason why Thamesport is unlikely to use the rail network for the short sea traffic it is currently handling and concentrating on which are generally from Iberia and thus similar to the movements through Liverpool. One of the interesting characteristics of this trade is the use of 45 high cube containers, which are also 2.50mtrs wide. Apart from dry vans there are also a considerable number of reefer containers in operation which are favoured because two Euro pallets can be loaded alongside each other and thus the capacity is similar to a road trailer. As the shipping line provides multiple sailing a week from Bilbao, they offer advantages over road freight which cannot move through France over the weekends due to their driving restrictions and are generally much more expensive and also subject to disruption. These units are not normally used in the deep sea trades to and from Europe, although 45ft HC containers are used in the Asia and US trade but they are 2.40mtrs wide variety so whilst all 45ft containers are fitted with 40ft twist lock spacings, there could be issues with clearances in some cases.
