Should freight trains be held during peak hours?

[Indigo Soup]

Road haulage has its place but can't even begin to compete on long distance vs high volume services...how many lorries would it take to replace just one 50 container train or a 24 wagon stone train?

Simple rule of thumb: a rigid-wheelbase HGV is equivalent to an old fashioned 4-wheel wagon. An articulated HGV is equivalent to a 1970s air-braked wagon, and you need two of them to equal a modern bogie freight wagon.

The articulated HGV has about 400hp, and needs it to maintain speed. If anyone made a freight locomotive that small, it would be able to shift a lot more than just one air braked van.

The best solution would have been not to have Beeching's cuts and to put a bit more thought into the rail network.

Read Beeching closely, and you realise that in a lot of places he was trying to create a better freight railway by getting those inconvenient passengers out of the way.

 

[pdeaves]

Read Beeching closely, and you realise that in a lot of places he was trying to create a better freight railway by getting those inconvenient passengers out of the way.

Beeching effectively 'invented' containerisation in the form we know it (it had existed before but on a much smaller, unit load, scale).

 

[tbtc]

Does this approach mean you actually favour taking say a single freight off the rails and displacing in onto the road with upto (and in many cases in excess of) 60 lorries?

Wow...

I may be burned at the stake by moderators for saying this, but I'm perfectly relaxed about taking a single freight train off the rails and replacing it with sixty lorries if that means that the paths freed up by removing that round trip provide passenger services that attract a large number of current drivers to switch to trains.

Freight is great at what it does best but there's always an opportunity cost - if running a freight service along the North London Line at rush hour means dozens of additional lorries on the roads but removes hundreds of cars from the roads then that's a trade off I'm willing to have a discussion about.

I'm not saying we should ban freight - far from it - but there are circumstances where a certain path at a certain time of day would be of more use to getting car drivers onto trains than getting lorries off the roads.

The problem is that freight trains are a sacred cow to a lot of enthusiasts - lots of randomly timed loco-hauled services with a large variety of destinations/ wagons etc (compared to a boring modern "metro" railway where all passenger trains are on clockface timetables and generally painted a dull grey/off-white with a funky colour of doors)... so people can't countenance any freight being removed from the railway.

Read Beeching closely, and you realise that in a lot of places he was trying to create a better freight railway by getting those inconvenient passengers out of the way.

If people actually read Beeching, they'd realise that he was trying to build a railway fit for the future (rather than preserving everything that had been built before). He made some mistakes at the time, he took some decisions that were regrettably with fifty years of hindsight, given the tools available at the time I think he did a good job, but he was a guy who realised that rail does best when it handles bulk flows (freight or passenger) and tried to build a railway around coping with the biggest volume loads.

 

[theblackwatch]

From what I can workout:
The 1526 Acton - Merehead empties were running 6 late at West Drayton tonight - 15/44 booked (15/49H actual) which delayed 2N41 the 1550 pad - didcot parkway which was 4 late (having departed PAD 2 late, btw).
http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/H17433/2019/06/20/advanced

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/C23023/2019/06/20/advanced



I further add 9T42 as the potential culprit to snagging the Merehead empties exiting Acton as the cause of the delay:
Acton West: 9T42 15/25H - 3 late at 1529
Fgt. 15/30 - 1H late at 1531H
2N41 15/33H - 2 late at 1536

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/G54234/2019/06/20/advanced

This is ofcouse if 2N41 was the OPs intented train? I struggled to find any other significant freight occurance this afternoon - most of it ran to time ( at west drayton anyway).
Happy to re-assess should further information be provided

So, assuming these were the trains involved, the freight train was running late owing to an earlier passenger train being late! Perhaps the OP can confirm that http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/C23023/2019/06/20/advanced was the service involved (which is 'consistently late' - but was on time on the 14th, 17th and 18th, and 1 min late on the 19th, having left Paddington 1 min late - not delayed en-route by a freight).

 

[Railwaysceptic]

You are un observant then, I'm an NLL driver and I often leave a Stratford platform and get held while a freight comes round Channelsea. I don't know why they are late, but they are. I also get held at Camden while they come up from Primrose Hill and at Gospel Oak too.

The OP was referring to Stratford Station in general and not just to the Channelsea curve. When I travel on LO to Stratford, the train is often delayed there - without causing any chaos - by waiting for a platform to become available. Nothing to do with freight trains.

 

[800002]

(which is 'consistently late' - but was on time on the 14th, 17th and 18th, and 1 min late on the 19th, having left Paddington 1 min late - not delayed en-route by a freight).

To be fair, the term consistently is awefully ambigeous. So the freight concerned was a Thursday Only runner, and his train is delayed each thursday - that would certainly be be 'consistet' in my book (anyway).

*just thinking outloud. Perhaps we need a similar thread to the TOPS / TRUST requests entitled 'Why is xx train delayed on XX?'

 

[baz962]

The OP was referring to Stratford Station in general and not just to the Channelsea curve. When I travel on LO to Stratford, the train is often delayed there - without causing any chaos - by waiting for a platform to become available. Nothing to do with freight trains.

I know when I'm waiting for a platform, I'm talking about when I leave the platform and the front of the freight is alongside a Stratford platform and the rear is still over channelsea junction, and being in the best seat in the house I get a good view.

 

[800002]

I know when I'm waiting for a platform, I'm talking about when I leave the platform and the front of the freight is alongside a Stratford platform and the rear is still over channelsea junction, and being in the best seat in the house I get a good view.

It is certainly beautiful watching the freight snake its way through Stratford - From the OverBridge to/from the shopping center anyway.

 

[6Gman]

To me as an individual yes, freight is more important, but to tens of thousands of fare paying passengers who are at their wits end?

"Tens of thousands" of passengers?

At their "wits' end"?

Hyperbole?

 

[6Gman]

Before we say it's impractical/impossible, the old Southern Region a generation ago used to do EXACTLY THIS. Embargo hours were much as described, morning and evening peaks. And there was more freight around then.

Nowadays I'm regularly at Lewisham at 16.30 on a Friday afternoon. An empty stone hopper freight comes through the substantial multi-scissors junction there which is such a pinch point for suburban passenger services just at that time, off the Nunhead line and slowly through the station. Seems surprising, bearing in mind those old rules.

I certainly recall old Notices for Clapham Junction along the lines of "no freight traffic will be accepted between xx.xx and xx.xx".

And I can also recall (in the last few months) an intermodal coming through Platform 14 at Manchester Piccadilly at around 16.45 very, very slowly (and occupying several block sections ) and disrupting several passenger trains in its wake. But in the great scheme of things not sure it's a big issue.

 

[6Gman]

I totally agree with OP. The amount of time late running freight trains cause chaos at Stratford is really ridiculous, causing late notice platform changes to avoid. Nevermind the limit on NLL services that freight causes (with massive gaps in the service to allow them being pathed causing serious overcrowding)

This forum seems to fetishize freight, but it's totally on the way out (thankfully). Coal is virtually eliminated from the power grid now which was one of the key uses (plus transporting the waste out of the stations). A14 improvements will allow more containers to be moved by road, freeing the rails for much more useful passenger services.

What was this "waste" from the power stations?

Do you mean the flyash? (hardly a "key use")

 

[Ianno87]

What was this "waste" from the power stations?

Also, the A14 upgrades are mainly to help it cope with the *existing* lorries wanting to use it....

It's not stopping the parallel stuff like Ely area improvements to increase the parallel rail freight capacity.

 

[6Gman]

The best solution would have been not to have Beeching's cuts and to put a bit more thought into the rail network. As I have previously stated, I'm all for advocating freight by rail. Where I live, we have a disused freight terminal which could in theory with a bit of forward thinking, be used as a city distribution centre from rail to road and vice versa. Re-instate the Portobello freightliner depot and use it sensibly.

Er, you do know that Beeching was a great advocate of the Freightliner concept?

 

[Andrew S]

I totally agree with OP. The amount of time late running freight trains cause chaos at Stratford is really ridiculous, causing late notice platform changes to avoid. Nevermind the limit on NLL services that freight causes (with massive gaps in the service to allow them being pathed causing serious overcrowding)

This forum seems to fetishize freight, but it's totally on the way out (thankfully). Coal is virtually eliminated from the power grid now which was one of the key uses (plus transporting the waste out of the stations). A14 improvements will allow more containers to be moved by road, freeing the rails for much more useful passenger services.

None of the freight on the NLL is coal. It is Tescos and cars from what I've seen.

 

[Andrew S]

It is certainly beautiful watching the freight snake its way through Stratford - From the OverBridge to/from the shopping center anyway.

I used to live in that orange diagonal student residence building near Stratford International. The view from the roof was great for watching trains around Stratford.

 

[RT4038]

I certainly recall old Notices for Clapham Junction along the lines of "no freight traffic will be accepted between xx.xx and xx.xx".

And I can also recall (in the last few months) an intermodal coming through Platform 14 at Manchester Piccadilly at around 16.45 very, very slowly (and occupying several block sections ) and disrupting several passenger trains in its wake. But in the great scheme of things not sure it's a big issue.

And maybe these embargoes (and the resultant delays to freight traffic) contributed to the decline of freight traffic by rail......

 

[Railwaysceptic]

I know when I'm waiting for a platform, I'm talking about when I leave the platform and the front of the freight is alongside a Stratford platform and the rear is still over channelsea junction, and being in the best seat in the house I get a good view.

Yes, quite possibly but your train being delayed a few minutes does not constitute chaos! Stratford is a very busy station even by London standards and it works very well. Most of the passengers know where they're going, which platform they need, which steps to use and everything proceeds in an orderly manner. Chaos would be if trains were not arriving at regular intervals, if passengers were being told of platform alterations at the last minute and if nobody knew what was going on.

 

[Grannyjoans]

Delaying a 142 rail bus service full of passengers all squashed in shoulder to shoulder in the heat who can't wait to get off for the sake of a freight train hauling containers just seems wrong. The containers aren't suffering.

 

[Dr Hoo]

Delaying a 142 rail bus service full of passengers all squashed in shoulder to shoulder in the heat who can't wait to get off for the sake of a freight train hauling containers just seems wrong. The containers aren't suffering.

So when the Pacers are replaced in (hopefully) the next few months it will all be OK, then?

This really does seem to be an argument for there being no freight at all, anywhere, except possibly in the depths of the night. Presumably you would ban lorries from the roads to avoid squashed passengers on road buses being delayed as well.

 

[Dr_Paul]

Delaying a 142 rail bus service full of passengers all squashed in shoulder to shoulder in the heat who can't wait to get off for the sake of a freight train hauling containers just seems wrong. The containers aren't suffering.

A lot of deliveries these days are 'just in time', that is, work to a very strict timetable with little margin for delays; a delay in delivery of, say, a key component can hold up a manufacturing process, with all kinds of knock-on delays further down the line. The old expression 'time is money' is all more the pertinent these days. The cost to a manufacturer by way of a delay could well exceed the fares taken for the passengers on said Pacer unit.

 

[EM2]

Delaying a 142 rail bus service full of passengers all squashed in shoulder to shoulder in the heat who can't wait to get off for the sake of a freight train hauling containers just seems wrong. The containers aren't suffering.

But freight pays its way too. The only way that 'holding' freight could be justified was if it was charged substantially less than now, which would reduce income to the railway.

 

[Indigo Soup]

Delaying a 142 rail bus service full of passengers all squashed in shoulder to shoulder in the heat who can't wait to get off for the sake of a freight train hauling containers just seems wrong. The containers aren't suffering.

Depending on the freight traffic, it might very well be suffering. Refrigerated containers have an on board generator to run the refrigeration unit. If the container is too late arriving, then the generator will run out of fuel and the contents of the container may be lost. Another historic - and extreme - example was molten steel from Middlesbrough to Consett, which I believe had priority over East Coast expresses because if the train was delayed, the steel would solidify, the specially built wagons irreparably damaged, and the Consett steelworks forced to close.

Speed doesn't really correlate with how time critical something is - some of the most time critical traffic in the UK is carried over the final part of its' journey by a person pushing a handcart for several hours. Yet when it's on rail, that same traffic is given top priority.

Some traffics may not be time critical, depending on the size of the buffer at the destination. Coal traffic used to be like this, because of the requirement for power stations to hold several months' worth of fuel in reserve. But coal is basically gone as a bulk traffic; biomass might work this way, but I'm not sure. Oil may or may not, depending on the cargo. Anything forming part of a retail or manufacturing supply chain is almost certainly time critical.

But freight pays its way too. The only way that 'holding' freight could be justified was if it was charged substantially less than now, which would reduce income to the railway.

Unlike passengers, freight actually does pay its' way. Since freight is unsubsidised, it only runs when it's profitable to do so. That includes paying Network Rail for the paths. Virtually all passenger operations run at a loss and have to be subsidised. From a strictly economic point of view, the freight operators should have first pick of the paths and the passengers fit around them.

This, of course, is exactly what happened in the 'golden age' of rail travel, with many fewer passenger trains running at irregular intervals to fit around the freight timetable.

 

[Tomnick]

Delaying a 142 rail bus service full of passengers all squashed in shoulder to shoulder in the heat who can't wait to get off for the sake of a freight train hauling containers just seems wrong. The containers aren't suffering.

The least disruptive way to deal with a long and heavy freight train in a congested area is almost always to keep it moving. Yes, your 142-load of passengers might be briefly frustrated, but stopping the freight to let them go first is almost certain to delay other services as it gets underway again from a standing start, plus whatever might be trapped behind it.

 

[Llanigraham]

On my line there was a freight loop at Woofferton.
The normal time for a passenger or a running freight train between there and Bromfield was about 10 minutes, including a station stop.
If a freight was started from the loop that time increased to at least 15 minutes and normally longer.
Therefore it was sometimes better to run the freight and delay a passenger by a couple of minutes.

 

[800002]

I think it safe to say that freight is a devisive topic... each service (freight or passenger) does need to be treated on its own merrits as presented - and I mean to the signaller managing thier workload (or by the controller in contact with the signaller, relaying instructions).

If the freight presents ontime, why should it be held for a late running passenger?
If the freight is held would both the following be achieved:
-Passenger (formerly late running) making PPM by destination.
-Freight (formerly ontime) recouping loss en route / not causing secondary delay to occur.

If the freight presents late, however, the best option is to keep it running till its next booked recess point. There may not always be an opportunity to 'loop it' before it causes carnage to passenger services.
There is then, as previously mentioned, the issue of getting the freight re-started in a suitable margin between other traffic. It can be vastly more detrimental to stop the freight in the first place.

Slow it down into a loop and you may push passenger in rear out of PPM. The same with restarting it.
Keep it going at line speed and potentially allow PPM be made by all.

Remember you're not getting delay repay (as a passenger) till you're 15 / 30 minutes late. So until that system changes, there's little worry about knocking a passenger by upto 5 minutes.

 

[30907]

Going back to the OP's specific suggestion.
I've just checked RTT for 3 key locations with heavy freight and commuter traffic, Lewisham, Stratford and Piccadilly. In each case there are hardly any freight paths booked for a couple of hours morning and evening peaks.
So actually It seems that NR and the TOCs do by and large prioritise passengers at those times.