Class 68 Progress, what's the latest?

[455driver]

Bo-Bo plus wet/leafy/greasy fells is going to equal fail.

Agreed, the more wheels the more traction and all the fancy electronics in the world wont get around the fact that the wheels need to be able to grip the rails and you simply need more wheels for that.

They might be mixed traffic locos but they have an eye on express passenger work and are configured for such work.

 

[Peter Sarf]

I seem to recall from threads ages ago that Network Rail prefer two axle bogies rather than three axle bogies. that was perhaps only a problem for higher speed work. It was why 3 axle higher speed electric locos were not pursued iirc.

Bring back class 40s thats what I say . Never mind a 2-10-0 .

 

[NightStar]

What will become of DRS 12 Class 37/6 locomotives? I hope the heck they are not going to become scrap? :cry:

Robert

 

[HSTEd]

I imagine the 57s will be first on the chopping block, then the 47s as they both have significant issues and are in a (more) comparable power range to the 68s.

37s might last the longest if the 88s do end up eliminating the 20s primary role of RHTT and flasks.

 

[The Planner]

'Thunderbird' and the infamous drag duties... Network Rail test trains... Charters... Freight as well... Need I go on?

What freight? and the rest are hardly massive in numbers.

 

[Wavertreelad]

DB are to operate freight from London Gateway and predict at least 4 trains per day for a start (4 in , 4 out):
http://www.rail.dbschenker.co.uk/cmsnews/news_article.asp?guid={F3A85387-9504-43E1-8126-25C68DC4CBFC}

Network Rail expect the number to rise to 50!
http://www.networkrail.co.uk/browse...ion responses/d/dp world - london gateway.pdf

So who knows?

Any intermodal traffic out of London Gateway will only be traffic that was previously handled by other ports and not new business. Tilbury is already scheduled to loose a big chunk this month, Felixstowe is also likely to loose business to the new port, whilst the last deep sea operator into Thamesport is about to switch their business to Southampton. It is therefore doubtful if Thamesport will survive in it's present form. London Gateway was planned prior to the slump when UK port capacity was under pressure, whilst this problem will be resolved, the problem of congestion and shortages in the road haulage industry, particularly drivers will remain a problem. On a positive note, when the new container at Liverpool comes on stream in 2015 there could be an opportunity for an operator to run shorter intermodal trains from the Seaforth railhead to locations in Scotland and elsewhere which might make these locomotives ideal.

 

[Photohunter71]

With the UK doing more deals in China and making it easier for Chinese businesses to invest etc,could we be seeing a possible upturn in container/intermodal traffic? I reckon the furthest north a 68 will be seen will be Grangemouth.

 

[Beveridges]

what freight?

d r s

 

[Wavertreelad]

With the UK doing more deals in China and making it easier for Chinese businesses to invest etc,could we be seeing a possible upturn in container/intermodal traffic? I reckon the furthest north a 68 will be seen will be Grangemouth.

This press report from a Dutch shipping website.

Quote
New China-Europe railway route will open to freight by year's end
CHINA's northeastern hinterland city Xian (pop 8.4 million) plans to start a new international container railway transport service via Xinjiang's Alashankou border pass to Europe, a recent transport forum on Asia-Europe logistics cooperation was told, reports Xinhua.

Xian is the start of the ancient Silk Road and the centre of the New Eurasia Land Bridge. It has become an important pivot for the east-west and north-south cargo flow, Xian vice mayor Han Song told delegates.

The Xian-Xinjiang-Europe Railway, called the new Silk Road by the industry, is bound to play the role of a bridge of cooperation that connects all countries the route passes through, he said.

For the last five years, Mr Han said Xian work has been directed at building the largest "dry port" in China to offer intermodal service to sea ports. The "dry port" is comprised of a container railway container terminal, a bonded port area and a road freight distribution facility.

Opened in July 2011, the Chongqing-Xinjiang-Europe Railway, the first Sino-European railway crosses at Xinjiang's Alashankou checkpoint and traverses Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland on its way to Duisburg, Germany.

A single journey lasts 16 days. Over the past two years since its commencement of operation, the Chongqing-Xinjiang-Europe Railway already moved thousands of made-in-Chongqing laptops and other electronic products to the European market.
Unquote.

Couple of things to note, Xinjiang is in the North West region of China, whilst the majority China's current economic activity is on the east coast especially in the south east near the main ports. Shanghai for example moves more containers in one month than Felixstowe does in a year. By this time next year the worlds biggest containers ships (18000 teu) will be operating fully in this trade with a typical transit time from Shanghai to UK of 24/26 days on fixed day of the week schedules. There is currently a glut of laid up containers ships worldwide, approx 500000 teu worth to be precise. The combined effect will be to keep seafreight rates low so the only way rail is going to appeal to the market is if the transit is reliable, cheaper, faster and/or the equipment is available in the right places. I saw somewhere that DB were interested in bringing this service to the UK, but I think they may have an uphill struggle.

 

[The Planner]

d r s

Ok, so what freight is DRS using 57s on?

 

[Beveridges]

Ok, so what freight is DRS using 57s on?

Nuclear flasks, Intermodals, and (I think) RHTTs.

I saw plenty of 57 hauled Intermodals and Flask trains last Summer.

 

[Photohunter71]

Would be fantastic if DB could bring intermodals from China to the UK and also for others such as GBRf/Colas/Freightliner and DRS to get heavily involved.

 

[Beveridges]

So far DB have done nothing to increase freight over in this country, the opposite in fact!

 

[Photohunter71]

I wonder if that's to do with the charges for freight on rails anyway,it appears to be too high and therefore making transporting freight by rail less attractive.Those charges need to be either lowered significantly or scrapped completely.

 

[HSTEd]

Freight Rail is already subsidised to a ludicrous extent, even compared to passenger transport, and now you want to subsidise it even more?

 

[YorkshireBear]

Freight Rail is already subsidised to a ludicrous extent, even compared to passenger transport, and now you want to subsidise it even more?

It is subsidised no more than road freight.

 

[Wavertreelad]

The fact is a lorry with movable skeleton trailer can operate more or less 24/7 363 days of the year (all UK container ports close Xmas and New Years day), with a team of three or four drivers working shifts from a port. A road haulier acting on behalf of a shipping will aim to turn an import road delivery to an export load, so a 40ft container arriving from China in Felixstowe could be delivered by road to Birmingham and then pick up an export load for a ship out of Liverpool to the USA and vice versa. Alternatively, the vehicle could drop the empty 40ft in a Birmingham depot and pick up a 20ft empty which would cover the booked export load. The permutations are endless, the only real restriction is that most of UK industry only works Monday to Friday and prefer collections or deliveries at 0800hrs! The truck also offers day 1 for day 2 delivery, although sometimes at a premium cost, whereas rail only offers a 5 1/2 day week service only on a day 1 for day 3 delivery as the cut off for booking is usually a minimum of 8 hours prior. to departure. Some hazards, out of gauge and open tops cannot be moved by rail due to safety reasons whilst reefer containers with separate gen sets cannot travel either so it is not just a case of which is subsidised the most, it is flexibility of the truck offers that makes it so attractive to industry. With all the will in the world I cannot see rail being to and from China being an option, especially as eastbound the biggest volume moved from North Europe to China is waste paper which will pay about USD1000.00 or less door anywhere south of the M62 to Chinese Port, including handling and 14 days free storage at destination. Also don't forget the huge containers ships now being introduced to the trade might cost USD100/125 million to build and you need 9 to 11 to operate one weekly service and are all built in China, or Korea and paid for over 10 to 12 years. With Far East banks awash with cash an owner can secure favourable terms to fund the deal. By this time next year there will be approx. 200 plus 8000 teu or more vessels in the Europe Far trade, including the Mediterranean ports most of which will last a minimum of 25 years. Rail really faces an uphill climb to compete.

 

[HSTEd]

It is subsidised no more than road freight.

And?
Freight causes all sorts of operational and infrastructural issues for the passenger railway and I am not entirely sure the costs are justified by the supposed social benefits of removing lorries from the road.

 

[RichmondCommu]

And?
Freight causes all sorts of operational and infrastructural issues for the passenger railway and I am not entirely sure the costs are justified by the supposed social benefits of removing lorries from the road.

Try telling that to someone who uses the motorway network on a regular basis. Life would be much better if more HGV's were removed from our motorways / dual carriageways.

 

[HSTEd]

Try telling that to someone who uses the motorway network on a regular basis. Life would be much better if more HGV's were removed from our motorways / dual carriageways.

But the rest of the road network would benefit to a far greater degree from the removal of cars.

We can either remove cars or lorries, it appears there is no money to do both.
And there is a reason that noone else in the world really has a high intensity mixed railway like the one that is attempted in the UK.

 

[RichmondCommu]

But the rest of the road network would benefit to a far greater degree from the removal of cars.

We can either remove cars or lorries, it appears there is no money to do both.
And there is a reason that noone else in the world really has a high intensity mixed railway like the one that is attempted in the UK.

I would suggest that it would be much easier to take HGV's off our motorways rather than cars. I don't see anyone giving up their car in the near future. And the price of fuel is coming down, not too mention more efficient cars.

 

[HSTEd]

I would suggest that it would be much easier to take HGV's off our motorways rather than cars. I don't see anyone giving up their car in the near future. And the price of fuel is coming down, not too mention more efficient cars.

A dropping price of fuel will drop the price of road haulage further, making attempting to compete with it almost impossible.

So it either way has little net effect.

 

[jopsuk]

And?
Freight causes all sorts of operational and infrastructural issues for the passenger railway and I am not entirely sure the costs are justified by the supposed social benefits of removing lorries from the road.

Less local emissions along trunk road routes, lower chance and seriousness of accidents, less damage to roads, less congestion. "supposed" social benefits?

 

[Peter Sarf]

Cannot do too much to remove road vehicles as someone has got to use the roads so as to pay fuel/road tax to fund the alternatives .

I was also going to ask. Is it still the case that diesel is cheaper in Europe. That used to make foreign lorries cheaper to run over in the UK than for UK hauliers as the foreighn hauliers would fill up just before crossing the ditch into the UK.

 

[starrymarkb]

Cannot do too much to remove road vehicles as someone has got to use the roads so as to pay fuel/road tax to fund the alternatives .

I was also going to ask. Is it still the case that diesel is cheaper in Europe. That used to make foreign lorries cheaper to run over in the UK than for UK hauliers as the foreighn hauliers would fill up just before crossing the ditch into the UK.

Depends on where you fill up. Much of Western Europe is the same or more expensive these days. Though if a Truck has extra long range tanks it might be able to do Western Poland-Southern England and back.

 

[YorkshireBear]

And?
Freight causes all sorts of operational and infrastructural issues for the passenger railway and I am not entirely sure the costs are justified by the supposed social benefits of removing lorries from the road.

Lorries are horrendous for motorway capacity, on some of the key stretches such as the M62, A1 and the M6 you would need to remove up to around 100 cars to make the same impact as a lorry. Lorries are also one of the most dangerous aspects of long distance driving.

The benefits or removing lorries from the road definitely do stack up in my opinion. They more than stack up.

 

[Rhydgaled]

Lorries are horrendous for motorway capacity, on some of the key stretches such as the M62, A1 and the M6 you would need to remove up to around 100 cars to make the same impact as a lorry. Lorries are also one of the most dangerous aspects of long distance driving.

The benefits or removing lorries from the road definitely do stack up in my opinion. They more than stack up.

1 lorry = 100 cars? If so, would removing all the lorries save the equivlent of one lane of traffic in each direction? I suspect two motorway lanes is plenty wide enough for a double track, continential loading guage, railway, and frieght doesn't worry too much about curves. So, blue-sky idea coming up: let's put a freight railway down the middle of the motorways. Just gradients, junctions and over bridges to worry about I suppose.

 

[HSTEd]

Lorries are horrendous for motorway capacity, on some of the key stretches such as the M62, A1 and the M6 you would need to remove up to around 100 cars to make the same impact as a lorry. Lorries are also one of the most dangerous aspects of long distance driving.

The benefits or removing lorries from the road definitely do stack up in my opinion. They more than stack up.

Then lets build dedicated freight railways on the major corridors so that we can do frieght properly, rather than messing around playing trains with equipment designed for the technology and conditions of a hundred years ago.

Why do we have such short trains operating using single pipe brake systems when heavy haul/self contained railways in other parts of the world are now switching to very long trains using ECP brakes and distributed traction (if not multiple units then multiple locomotives down the train) and large enough loading gauges for TOFC and double stacks?

That is the only way freight operating costs are ever going to be able to compete with lorries.

Freight and Passenger flows have to be kept apart wherever and whenever possible so we don't have lines closed for a week because freight wagons derailed and smashed up an alignment and so freight can be run in freight optimal conditions.

 

[Wavertreelad]

Depends on where you fill up. Much of Western Europe is the same or more expensive these days. Though if a Truck has extra long range tanks it might be able to do Western Poland-Southern England and back.

Despite the basic principle of free trade within the EU, foreign owned lorries are usually restricted to the work they can complete within a country. So for example an Irish owned truck can bring a load to the UK and I think can complete one domestic UK load before they must return to the UK. The UK will shortly be introducing a tax on foreign registered vehicles to help pay for the up keep of the road network, something which our European partners have managed to do for several years.

There is also another twist, during recent years many owner drivers who predominantly carried containers as subcontractors of major road hauliers and shipping companies decided it was not longer sustainable left the industry. In order to cover the daily workload some UK hauliers have taken to hiring foreign drivers to drive their fleet of vehicles, so don't always assume a UK registered truck is being driven by a UK national.

 

[RichmondCommu]

A dropping price of fuel will drop the price of road haulage further, making attempting to compete with it almost impossible.

So it either way has little net effect.

However if the train is long enough it will always be competitive in terms of fuel consumption. Even more so if the train is hauled by an electric loco.