Mid Wales Freight multiple units - small timber trains

[catfordbags]

Anyone know anything about trial, a while back, transporting timber to kronospan chirk from mid Wales, using freight multiple units ? Why it wasn't successful etc ?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/4327419.stm

Timber deliveries are being taken off roads and put onto the railway in an attempt to cut down on traffic congestion and pollution.

The five-week experiment means loads will travel from Aberystwyth station to the Kronospan woodchip factory in Chirk, near Wrexham, by train.

The plan will see the equivalent of 180 lorry-loads - around 4,500 tonnes of wood - taken off the road.

If the experiment works, it could be made permanent.





The new initiative will be welcomed by drivers who have found themselves stuck behind slow-moving lumber lorries

 

[Llanigraham]

Blimey that was a few years ago!

I seem to remember there were problems with the double handling of the logs, the fact that it was slower than the direct forest to Chirk with a truck, and it forced the road hauliers to drop their prices, so rail wasn't competitive.

 

[Meole]

Road much shorter and quicker than by rail, the direct Oswestry route closed 50 years ago, single track, lack of passing sidings etc, rail needs to considerably exceed a driver's shift to be competitive.

 

[Edders23]

It was a failed experiment to see if MPV's could be used for freight where loads were less than trainload

Never been repeated since although previously there was the attempt at "minimodal" smaller flows of containers

 

[Spartacus]

Plenty of attempts at this kind of thing down the years but for such small loads the economics have been on the side of the roads for the last 100 years and are likely to stay the same for the foreseeable future.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Blimey that was a few years ago!

I seem to remember there were problems with the double handling of the logs, the fact that it was slower than the direct forest to Chirk with a truck, and it forced the road hauliers to drop their prices, so rail wasn't competitive.

Along with the overall low rates for timber traffic. Knew all about it in Speedlink days when despite using surplus vans to make cheaply converted OTA wagons , it was a very low yield business with high levels of peaks and troughs.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Plenty of attempts at this kind of thing down the years but for such small loads the economics have been on the side of the roads for the last 100 years and are likely to stay the same for the foreseeable future.

Exactly - Freightliner in domestic days had 10 ft module containers , later on "Minilink and Maxilink" (Speedlink - a financial disaster) etc etc ......hard to beat white van man and a "free" road.