Idea for return of Motorail?

[RT4038]

For that price you could pay someone to drive it for you.

Exactly, and that is why there is no market for it, and why it will not happen.

 

[coppercapped]

Lots of extremes going on here. 100mm is a very thick body - what's in it to make it so thick? A 2 metre wide car is exceptionally wide and unusual. Why are you suggesting two feet on both sides? Only the driver's door needs to be opened, and two feet either side is more generous than in many parking spaces and garages.

Motorail won't come back for various reasons, but I don't think the width of cars is one of them.

My VW Golf Estate is 2027mm over the door mirrors and the body is 1799mm wide. It is not exceptionally wide or unusual. Even the smaller Up! is 1910mm over the mirrors with a 1910mm body.

I think that cars are wider than you think they are. And why does/do the car's passenger(s) not need to get out?

Anyway, Motorail is essentially uneconomic - cars take up too much of a train's length.

 

[Bald Rick]

Not this again...

I would prefer car hire places right outside very key railway stations rather than motorail. A bit like they exist right next to virtually all US airports.

They exist at or next to many major stations in this country, and indeed many smaller stations. I have hired cars from inside, or within a minute’s walk of Glasgow, Aberdeen, Inverness and Dundee stations. Just in the West Country there’s car hire at or right next to Penzance, Plymouth, Exeter SD, Torquay, Truro and Paignton stations (and those are the only places I looked up).

With the advent of electric cars requiring multiple charges to get from...say, London - Scotland, it would be quicker to Motorail them. But people travelling for business will always do car hire which is quicker more convenient. Expenses can be claimed. And the "fuel" cost in an electric car would be cheap anyway if it's for a leisure trip.

It wouldn’t be quicker. Most pure electric cars intended for anything except a city runabout that are for sale or coming to market (eg all Audi Enron, Jaguar i-Pace, Polestar, Volvo XC40 recharge, VW ID3, all Teslas, etc etc) will be able to do London to Scotland central belt (at least) with only one recharge stop of under an hour. And you should stop midway through a 400 mile drive for a long break anyway.

Oh how I would love motorail to be an option for our annual trips to Cornwall. ABD (All B***** Day) in the car with 2 kids, and every available space crammed with "stuff" is not fun.

Yes, because you also have potties, toilet seats, nappies, high chair, travel cot, packs of nappies, changing mats, kiddy crockery and cutlery, soft toys, books, boxes of toys for rainy days. It's endless. We fill a Renault Grand Scenic + roof box. And it only just goes in.
And if we were renting a car we'd also have to bring 2 car seats with us.

Would it cost 2 grand return? Really? With all the stock that's going to be sat about doing nothing for the next few years. There's going to be spare capacity on the railway for sure.
At 2 grand return, I'd still be tempted.

Not sure about 2k, but allowing for inflation, tickets on the old motorrail in high season for a family sized car would be nudging £500 one way now. And that was when you could chuck a couple of flats on the back of a loco hauled service train. I think it would be heading towards high hundreds of pounds each way.

However the situation you describe is no different to anyone flying abroad for holidays. Car hire companies hire car seats too. Supermarkets everywhere sell nappies. Accommodation has high chairs / cot. And so on.

And I’m not sure that driving to a motorail terminal, followed by a wait of an hour or so between arrival and train departure, followed by a 6h plus trip to Cornwall, followed by another 30 mins for unloading, and then a journey to destination, with 2 young kids and all that goes with it would be fun either!

 

[RT4038]

Yes, because you also have potties, toilet seats, nappies, high chair, travel cot, packs of nappies, changing mats, kiddy crockery and cutlery, soft toys, books, boxes of toys for rainy days. It's endless. We fill a Renault Grand Scenic + roof box. And it only just goes in.
And if we were renting a car we'd also have to bring 2 car seats with us.

Would it cost 2 grand return? Really? With all the stock that's going to be sat about doing nothing for the next few years. There's going to be spare capacity on the railway for sure.
At 2 grand return, I'd still be tempted.

Well, before the first train turns a wheel, the expenses are going to start, which will need to be recovered through the fares that are charged. Inter alia:
(1) Appointment of Management (or Consultants) to look at feasibility
(2) Suitable loading docks, and adjacent passenger platforms identified, risk assessed, access created from public road. If no suitable loading docks and adjacent passenger platforms found, then construction of same.
(3) Suitable passenger and car-carrying rolling stock identified and hired/purchased. If none available then conversion of existing and/or new build.
(4) Suitable traction identified and hired/purchased.
(5) Booking website constructed.
(6) Operating procedures agreed, established and risk assessed, covering loading/unloading of vehicles, shunting of stock to/from loading docks/platforms etc.
(7) Marketing budget to tell potential customers of new service. (Easily spend £1m)

Once all of this is complete (probably 5 years later) the service could start. As almost by definition it will be a long-distance service, there will be multiple drivers and train managers to pay for, track access charges, empty runs to & from depots, running costs of locomotives and rolling stock. Unless the car carrying wagons can be customer loaded without assistance (unlikely), the costs of additional reception/ground staff.

Not sure what average occupancy you could expect, but probably 50-60% for a summer only service (April-Oct) or 30% for year round. If the service only ran in the summer, a fair amount of cost would still have to be paid for all year (drivers/train managers/management/leasing cost etc), and the capital set up costs spread over a smaller amount of operation. £2 grand return per car and occupants is not sounding much to cover these costs.

 

[SynthD]

The shuttle trains can go no further into France than they can in the UK. Continental gauge is not that big!

From Wikipedia pages for the Class 9 and Loading Gauges: "a loading gauge within the UIC 505-1 standard", "G1 / UIC 505-1 - w3.150 m h4.280 m", "GC w3.150 m h4.650 m"

From this thread https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/loading-gauges-map.207164/#lg=post-4695256&slide=0 you can see G1 reaches St Pancras (and Temple Mills, but the slope out of Stratford could be an issue).

 

[furnessvale]

From Wikipedia pages for the Class 9 and Loading Gauges: "a loading gauge within the UIC 505-1 standard", "G1 / UIC 505-1 - w3.150 m h4.280 m", "GC w3.150 m h4.650 m"

From this thread https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/loading-gauges-map.207164/#lg=post-4695256&slide=0 you can see G1 reaches St Pancras (and Temple Mills, but the slope out of Stratford could be an issue).

Not quite sure what you are saying. CT shuttle vehicles are well over a metre taller than the largest UIC gauge and are confined to the tunnel by tighter gauges on both sides.

 

[edwin_m]

The shuttle locos are small enough to travel on HS1 or into France - I think this was to make overhauls and repairs easier, and it may need an aerodynamic fairing to be removed. But as mentioned the wagons are too big to leave the Eurotunnel network by rail.

 

[SussexLad]

Why is this thread even a thing? People that love their cars and want to drive it on the other end will just drive unless you talking an exssesive distance over 600 miles each way. Then thwy might, maybe could consider it if its cheaper than petrol or a lot quicker. People that are concerned about the environment would probably rather save money and just use public transport on the other end.

In my oppinion, euro tunnel only works well because its cheap, its quicker than a ferry and is unique.

 

[SussexLad]

But why waste energy transporting the car when you can just hire one at your destination?

Also btw I find the bluntness of this comment hillarious. Its so true. Motor rail just won't appeal to anyone

 

[6Gman]

Also btw I find the bluntness of this comment hillarious. Its so true. Motor rail just won't appeal to anyone

The motorail services added variety to the railway scene in the 70s. It was fun.

Less fun was asking people if they wanted the good news or the bad news first. The good news was that the windscreen repair guy was on his way.

And even less fun was the night a guy walked into the Travel Centre in Crewe having just learnt that while he was in Crewe his car was still in Inverness.

 

[ainsworth74]

Last few posts on this thread got a bit off-topic so I've deleted them. The economics of Sleepers are different to that of Motorail (though not necessarily any more healthy!) so would be a subject worthy of their own thread (indeed I think we may have one knocking around somewhere at the moment). Let's stick to the topic at hand which is about the possibilities for a return of Motorail services