lack of wagonload freight - a crime?

[daccer]

I keep reading projections forecasting the doubling of railfreight in the next twenty years and for the life of me I cant see how this can be achieved especially as coal will face severed decline at some stage as coal-fired power stations come off line. How can new traffic flows be found and developed when there is no wagonload service available for smaller consignments and companies who cannot product trainloads are basically prevented from using rail for moving their goods. Containerisation is all well and good but is basically an instrument of international trade - there is no provision for less than trainload domestic flows anymore.

The 1955 modernisaton plan may have been misguided with the provision of so many large marshalling yards but i think that the complete abandonment of the wagonload network by BR was actually a bigger folly. Sure the system was losing money but didnt it fulfil some social function. To eradicate it so completely does mean that it will be impossible to bring it back. Surely wagonload freight fell under the same parameters as rural passenger services - they fulfilled a social need that warranted some form of govt support. The other issue is that as environmental pressures and the cost of fuel increases railfreight becomes more and more attactive especially if more of the network becomes electrified.

Its amazing how short sightedness has blighted the railways since the 60's, we seem averse to mothballing anything - it has to be ripped up and oblitarated. The wagonload network would have provided a much easier entry into the market for new customers. How many companies can produce demand for a full trainload of product - it seems a crying shame that our freight infrstrucure has been discarded so easily and is something that we may well regret when we see pressure for larger and larger lorries building due to the need for economies of scale.

 

[generalvegitable]

reading this gave me an idea

if we think think of passengers as goods, for wagon load we have got small multiple units, and for train load we kept our big locos. (well we don't any more but it doesnt matter for this comparison)

for freight we could develop small freight multiple units simalar to network rails MPV to deliver wagon load goods to destinations al over the country, then eventually use simalar tech on big freight trains to make them accelerate faster and possibly squeeze more capacity out of them

 

[Geezertronic]

I don't know what it is like now but when I worked in Freight Forwarding many years ago, there were still a lot of truck drivers taking their containers down to the docks themselves rather than using Freightliners.

Also as a Freight Forwarder, we offered a service whereby people or companies could buy space in a container for say Singapore. Their cargo was delivered to a local freight depot where the container was then loaded, shipped, and unloaded at a similar depot at the other side. Don't know how this would work for UK railfreight (if at all) though, but maybe could for European railfreight?

 

[BlythPower]

If I remember correctly some trials were done using MPVs as FMUs (timber in Wales?). I don't think anything come out it, though.

Does the 'Enterprise' wagonload network still exist or has the crunch put paid to that?

 

[O L Leigh]

Wagon-load freight worked really well up until the 1950's because the road network was poor and there wasn't any expectation that deliveries would be fast. If I wanted to, I could put some items into the back of a lorry and it could be in Leeds inside 6 hours. I somehow don't think this would be realistic if I were to send it by rail.

The problem is that most small to medium-sized businesses of the type who might make use of a wagon-load freight network are nowhere near the rail network. If they have to load up a lorry to take their wares down to a railhead for loading onto a train, the lorry might as well make the whole trip.

Then again, the wagon-load concept does still survive in the form of the container-load. Admittedly the decision on the mode of transport used will rest largely with the shipping firm and, as has already been noted, containerised freight is mostly international, but the concept exists. The problem is that for containerised freight to be cheap it has to travel in bulk. At the moment this means that the majority of it flows between the big industrial and distribution centres and the ports.

Then again, would it take much to add smaller regional railheads to the existing network together with feeder services to and from the big yards. There are plenty of vacant railway lands where yards formerly stood that could fulfil the purpose. Containers could then be fed in at, say, Reading and travel down to Southampton on a train that maybe originated further west or from Wales and picked up elsewhere along the way. They could then be sorted dockside together with containers coming off the ships onto a train to Mossend before being transferred to another feeder service and taken off the rails again at, say, Aberdeen. You may need a couple of lorries pick-up and drop-off the containers, but these would then just be local trips.

O L Leigh

 

[jopsuk]

The same vehicles as the MPV are used for freight services in Germany and Australia I believe, with additional wagons marshalled between the power cars. There's a freight (container) EMU in Japan, too.

The wagonload concept does live on, to a certain extent, in containerised freight.

 

[90019]

The same vehicles as the MPV are used for freight services in Germany and Australia I believe, with additional wagons marshalled between the power cars. There's a freight (container) EMU in Japan, too.

The MPVs are based on the German CargoSprinters, as are the ones in Australia. They can have up to 7 wagons inbetween them IIRC.

 

[daccer]

Containerised freight whilst in theory offering a wagonload concept is primarily used for international trade. There is little domestic containerised freight expect in trainload form such as gypsum. The complete destruction of the wagonload network during the 70's and 80's whilst adhering to economic principles showed very little foresight or even optimism. Government was interested in only trimming budgets and so despite being in the red only marginally (cost/benefit analysis' werent aroudn then) much of the network was abandoned.

MPV's are an intersting proposal but the fact remains that much of the network they could have been used to serve (including terminals and terminal connections) no longer exists. I believe the problems with boosting Chunnel freight have been increased as there is no domestic wagoload network feeding into the international one. It is really only when one starts to build europe into the equation that railfreight can achieve one of its key strengths which is distance. It is a interesting notion that keeping a rural line open for passengers to keep cars off the road is ok for govt subsidy but keeping the same line open for freight to keep lorries off the road is not.

 

[O L Leigh]

My reason for raising containerised freight is that it does not need to be mostly for international trade and could be used for domestic trade also. One of the reasons why it isn't is because most businesses are competing on speed as well as price. It is quicker and arguably cheaper for a company in Slough to fill a lorry and send it by road to their customers in Wigan than it would be to involve rail transfers.

However, that aside the technology exists so there is no need to go away and re-invent the wheel. There are vacant railway-lands at strategic locations that could be turned into regional container depots with a rail connection, the rolling stock is already in place and the major flows between the big distribution centres and the ports are already running. Adding in these regional centres and feeder services would be quick and easy.

A return to wagon-load freight is wonderfully nostalgic but woefully out-dated. The concept just would not stand up in the modern economy. Businesses do not have connections to the rail network any more so cannot be expected to have their own sidings. Shuffling containers off one train and onto another is quicker, easier and cheaper than the endless shunting and marshalling of individual wagons. Containers give businesses access to an integrated transport network that includes road, rail and sea.

I think that MPV's are a red herring. Yes they can haul a certain amount and would be cheaper to run on a short "trip" working than a Cl66, but they are limited in their capacity. Plus they would require constant re-marshalling. At least a loco-hauled train can be backed into a siding so that extra wagons can be hooked on. It's a much harder operation with an MPV.

O L Leigh

 

[Waverley125]

We do need to see the opening of proper container freight terminals to serve our major centres. If it's going to be miles quicker to take something on the train to the edge of a city, and then use a road vehicle to take it to the final destination, we should be looking to do that.

There are plenty of places these can be done. Just round the north, Rotherham (Sheffield, Barnsley, M1), Castleford (Leeds, Bradford, A1, M1), Washington (Newcastle, Sunderland, A1), Denton (M60, Manchester), Widnes (Liverpool, M62) all would serve large metropoli & further regions, making rail a more attractive option for freight from the south.

 

[generalvegitable]

There are plenty of vacant railway lands where yards formerly stood that could fulfil the purpose

when I go past wolverton I always think, "what a waste of space" as I go past the freight hub there, it isn't even rail served, that would be a brilliant place for a small depot

 

[87015]

when I go past wolverton I always think, "what a waste of space" as I go past the freight hub there, it isn't even rail served, that would be a brilliant place for a small depot

It used to be rail served with a daily trip working. The chopping of Speedlink was the death knell for that and countless other less-than-trainload railfreight customers across the country. Transrail/EWS got some back under "Enterprise" but its nothing like what Speedlink was - but then again Speedlink lost money... The question is should a loss making wagonload network receive the government subsidy that would be required to keep it in business?

 

[gordonthemoron]

for the first time ever, I saw hump shunting yesterday. I was cycling over the goods yard north of Munich when I saw it. I'm not so sure about using it for car transporters though (which was being done)

 

[daccer]

The UK does seem to be the only developed country where wagonload traffic has been eradicated. In Europe and the USA there are still networks available for less than trainload traffic.

What does seem slightly strange was that the speedlink network and the associated yards and motive power/wagons were given up for the sake of saving a few million per year. Wagonload traffic may be marginal in economic terms but things change. Fuel prices can alter as can legislation on HGV's and environmental concerns will always be an increasing concern. To dismantle the network in such a way as to make it impossible to revive it seems a very dubious decision now that rail is back in vogue and we are seeing expansion for the first time in 50 years.

The current railfreight operators are running as private for profit companies. There is no incentive for them to revisit less than trainload flows. Also with the fragmented nature of the services now being operated it may be never be possible to have a network operation in place as it would involve more than one operator handling a flow.

EWS maybe had a chance to do something when it was first privatised as it had a virtual monopoly in the rail freight market. However the way wagon load freight had been summarily dumped meant that there was no reservoir of good will left from customers to allow this to be done. If we are ever to see railfreight make a real difference then there has to be provision for smaller consignments that dont justify a dedicated train.