How much does a freight train cost to run?

[Donny_m]

I’m curious. How much does the entire process of loading, moving, and unloading freight cost?

For example, I live near a depot where Hanson Tippers drop off aggregate all day. A train of FLHH MWA hoppers is loaded, it’s then driven to Banbury, emptied, and returns to repeat the process.

Can anyone help with the cost of this whole process? Would be interesting to compare possible prices of other transportation options.

 

[ExRes]

I’m curious. How much does the entire process of loading, moving, and unloading freight cost?

For example, I live near a depot where Hanson Tippers drop off aggregate all day. A train of FLHH MWA hoppers is loaded, it’s then driven to Banbury, emptied, and returns to repeat the process.

Can anyone help with the cost of this whole process? Would be interesting to compare possible prices of other transportation options.

Unless you actually negotiate a contract with one, or more, of the FOCs I honestly don't think you'll ever get a realistic idea, no sensible commercial company is going to give away their pricing structure to its competitors

 

[Rebel Viking]

It’s difficult to break down the cost because it will be mainly determined by aggregate type and distance travelled. One fixed cost might be the offloading fee, depending on method it will typically be £1-1.50 per tonne.

 

[Towers]

Track access, which presumably will be pretty steep for a loaded stone train, will surely be at the top of the expense list?

You then have rolling stock leasing/financing costs (no idea if freight kit is usually bought or leased TBH?), fuel, staffing and so on.

Pricey, I would imagine!

 

[pdeaves]

staffing

This would, hopefully, be lower than the number of drivers needed for the equivalent number of lorry moves (but unlikely to be 1:1 equivalence owing to wage differences).

 

[uww11x]

I’m curious. How much does the entire process of loading, moving, and unloading freight cost?

For example, I live near a depot where Hanson Tippers drop off aggregate all day. A train of FLHH MWA hoppers is loaded, it’s then driven to Banbury, emptied, and returns to repeat the process.

Can anyone help with the cost of this whole process? Would be interesting to compare possible prices of other transportation options.

For a one off move,

Driver only 12 hours £1k-£1.5k
Shunter will be extra ££
Loco anything up to £5k
Wagons depends 20 probs around £1400
Train Planning for a path £500
Control £500
Track Access

Then if you depart late from the terminal potentially unlimted TDA bills.



Obviously a long term contract will be cheaper to run

 

[Rebel Viking]

Due to the volume shifted on a single train, it does work out cheaper than road haulage, but where the money is made depends on the business model employed.
The aggregate rail depot I managed made only a small margin, because it’s main purpose was to act as a satellite outlet for the quarry that supplied it, and the pricing structure was designed for the profit to be made at the quarry. (Quarry and depot owned by the same company but operated as separate business units)

 

[swt_passenger]

Due to the volume shifted on a single train, it does work out cheaper than road haulage, but where the money is made depends on the business model employed.
The aggregate rail depot I managed made only a small margin, because it’s main purpose was to act as a satellite outlet for the quarry that supplied it, and the pricing structure was designed for the profit to be made at the quarry. (Quarry and depot owned by the same company but operated as separate business units)

There must be some benefits to the supply side, as it’s basically aggregate delivery that keeps the flag flying for freight in a huge area of the former SR. But I wonder if sometimes it’s forced by local planning restrictions, for example would the aggregates terminal in Chichester be permitted to operate if all the incoming loads were on the road as well as all local deliveries?

 

[norbitonflyer]

When observing the merry go round trains delivering to our local power stations in the lower Trent Valley back in the 1970s, I came to the realisation that which of the three organisations involved would make a loss was actually completely academic, since the producer (NCB),the consumer (CEGB) and the carrier (BR) were all nationalised and so the Government of the day could arbitrarily make any one of them profitable simply by adjusting the price paid by the CEGB to the NCB for digging out the coal and to BR for moving it

I'm not sure actually whether the CEGB or the NCB paid for carriage - it would depend on when the coal became CEGB property - although I do know that the wagons were weighed at both ends of the journey.

During a summer job at one of the power stations when I was a student, I was able to solve a puzzle that had baffled the regular staff as to why one of its weighbridges was intermittently weighing a phantom wagon. (There were two weighbridges, one before and one after the unloading bay, the difference in weight they measured being the amount of coal delivered). Each weighbridge took a measurement when a pair of sensors, spaced at the wagons' wheelbase, both detected an axle. Asked to monitor what was happening, I was able to confirm the manager's suspicion that it was also sometimes taking a reading when the rear axle of the loco and the front axle of the first wagon were over the sensors. But because I had been noting the loco numbers for my own interest, I realised that it was not random - it always happened when the train was hauled by a Class 56 - and never with a Class 47. It so happened that the position of the rear axle of a 56 relative to the lead axle of the first wagon was close enough to the wagons' wheelbase to trigger the sensors, thereby weighing approximately one sixth of a locomotive and half a wagon. The other weighbridge had the sensors marginally further apart, so the problem didn't occur with that one. The solution was to tighten up the tolerances on the positions of the sensors.

 

[alf]

I suspect the reason so much aggregate goes by rail is not because rail is cheaper. It is possibly a lot more expensive than road & less reliable.

But it gives the aggregate companies instant depots close to building activity. For example Southampton, Crawley, Stratford for probably very little rent.

I hope there is a clause in these contracts that insist x% of traffic into the depot goes by rail.

I believe that it was why Royal Mail still run a couple of UK Mail trains a day.
They were told when they pulled out of rail completely at Stonebridge Park, Wembley that Railtrack would take back the depot if they stopped using rail completely.

 

[Spaceflower]

There's likely to be planning restrictions on churning out hundreds of lorries onto unsuitable roads too. Built up/urban areas and National Parks come to mind....