Freight loco utilisation

[telstarbox]

Simple question that won't have a simple answer. How many hours does a freight loco get used in a week and how does that compare to DMU / EMUs on the passenger side?

 

[Western 52]

Freight locos often do a lot of light running too. In west Wales the locos used on the Robeston oil trains regularly run light between the terminal and Margam, over 2 hours each way. The locos are in use, but not earning money!

 

[Stewart2887]

Lots of 59/66 action Somerset-London during the week. Check out the Newbury camera

 

[Dr Hoo]

What do you mean by ‘used’? Are you including a weekend when a locomotive may be in an engineering worksite, only moving a few metres at a time as work progresses, for example?

 

[WAB]

Some FOCs are better than others at this sort of thing, but utilisation generally tends to be far worse than on the passenger side.

 

[zwk500]

Simple question that won't have a simple answer. How many hours does a freight loco get used in a week and how does that compare to DMU / EMUs on the passenger side?

Are you including light/unloaded positioning moves and shunting time in this, or purely when the loco has a rate-paying load behind it?

 

[telstarbox]

Either