New Amazon warehouse in Manchester: Will it have rail access?

[matacaster]

Anyone know if the proposed new Amazon warehouse in Manchester will have rail access?

 

[Jamesb1974]

Is this the one being built adjacent to Junction six of the M56? I doubt it very much. Although it is physically close to both the Manchester Airport spur and the Skelton Jnc - Northwich line at Ashley (about 1 mile and 2 miles respectively), both would require construction of a brand new line at significant cost. One would have to be through open countryside and the other underneath the main airport terminals and apron.

 

[furnessvale]

Anyone know if the proposed new Amazon warehouse in Manchester will have rail access?

The best you can hope for will be containers of imported goods being brought in by road from various rail container depots in the area.

Outbound - nil.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Is this the one being built adjacent to Junction six of the M56? I doubt it very much.

The very proximity of the M56 must have been a compelling reason for the siting of the new warehouse.

 

[Darren R]

Although it is physically close to both the Manchester Airport spur and the Skelton Jnc - Northwich line at Ashley ... both would require construction of a brand new line at significant cost.

They could write-off the cost against tax though!

 

[RichmondCommu]

The very proximity of the M56 must have been a compelling reason for the siting of the new warehouse.

And assuming that it has a freight terminal, the close proximity to the airport would also have been a significant factor.

 

[dangie]

There's a huge Amazon warehouse in Rugeley and that just has standard road access.

 

[8A Rail]

Although not Amazon, numerous large warehouses have appeared on the old Burtonwood Airfield site (Warrington) next to the M62 with no thought by anyone for any possible rail access if the site was nearer to the WCML! Present occupiers include Asda, Blakes, Travis Perkins, Hermes, etc, none of them small concerns. (see:- http://www.omegaopportunity.com/development/). Basically town planners / developers dont give a xxxx about the logistics of additional road traffic, let alone even thinking about any rail connections!

 

[Poolie]

The Amazon warehouse in Sheffield is right next to the line to Meadowhall, but no chance of a rail connection:cry:

 

[Kite159]

And even if a rail connection is put in, if it's like the M&S warehouse around Castle Donnington it won't see any use!

 

[DarloRich]

Anyone know if the proposed new Amazon warehouse in Manchester will have rail access?

No, it will not.

 

[jopsuk]

rail is only efficient for freight if you have well loaded trains on a regular basis

 

[Wavertreelad]

The best you can hope for will be containers of imported goods being brought in by road from various rail container depots in the area.

Outbound - nil.

I think you could find the containers could be shipped to Liverpool2, then up the Manchester Ship Canal to Port Salford where Peel will devan them and deliver the goods already palletised and labelled ready to enter the Amazon storage system. Many of these sort of warehouses don't like handling containers because usually the contents are packed loose to maximise on the capacity of the container. Palletising and labelling the huge amount of stock would cause a huge drain on resources especially if there are problems with the stowage of the container, or the delivery is late etc.

You may also be interested to know that Amazon has recently set up it's on freight forwarding agency in China to handle initially it's exports to the USA. The subsidiary will negotiate rates and bookings with shipping lines and control the delivery from door to door, and is then due to expand it's brief to serve the European market and sell it's services to third party suppliers who supply Amazon and sell in there own name. If Peel haven't made an approach already I would be amazed and very disappointed given the how long this facility has been talked about.

The very proximity of the M56 must have been a compelling reason for the siting of the new warehouse.

The proximity to the airport is the "prime" (sorry for the pun) reason. High value goods will be flown into the airport on new Chinese freighter aircraft that will start to serve the airport. Sorry Paul if may get a little busier in the skies about your head.

Although not Amazon, numerous large warehouses have appeared on the old Burtonwood Airfield site (Warrington) next to the M62 with no thought by anyone for any possible rail access if the site was nearer to the WCML! Present occupiers include Asda, Blakes, Travis Perkins, Hermes, etc, none of them small concerns. (see:- http://www.omegaopportunity.com/development/). Basically town planners / developers dont give a xxxx about the logistics of additional road traffic, let alone even thinking about any rail connections!

You might need to tunnel under the retail park and /or the M62 to reach these sites and it's actually Brakes not Blakes. Brakes is food service supplying mainly frozen product to the hotels, pub chains etc although they do handle import containers of product at other locations, I have not seen any at the Warrington site.

The Asda complex seems to be a distribution centre although must admit I haven't seen much external activity going past on the M62 every day, except for an odd couple of trucks on the bays suggesting it may not be fully operational yet. Things may get busier if it takes stock from any rerouting of product via Liverpool2. Meanwhile on the Asda webpage their is a short video showing what the site does.

http://www.railforums.co.uk/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=2496030

I believe the Travis Perkins site was opened in anticipation of Liverpool2 so this would not require a rail link, as neither would the Hermes site next door, whilst next to Asda is the Hut Group facility. This also looks like it being opened to benefit from Liverpool2.

http://www.thehutgroup.com/the-hut-group-invest-100-million/

 

[Jamesb1974]

Deleted

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Anyone know if the proposed new Amazon warehouse in Manchester will have rail access?

Have you any reason to suppose it might?

 

[8A Rail]

You might need to tunnel under the retail park and /or the M62 to reach these sites and it's actually Brakes not Blakes. Brakes is food service supplying mainly frozen product to the hotels, pub chains etc although they do handle import containers of product at other locations, I have not seen any at the Warrington site.

The Asda complex seems to be a distribution centre although must admit I haven't seen much external activity going past on the M62 every day, except for an odd couple of trucks on the bays suggesting it may not be fully operational yet. Things may get busier if it takes stock from any rerouting of product via Liverpool2. Meanwhile on the Asda webpage their is a short video showing what the site does.

http://www.railforums.co.uk/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=2496030

I believe the Travis Perkins site was opened in anticipation of Liverpool2 so this would not require a rail link, as neither would the Hermes site next door, whilst next to Asda is the Hut Group facility. This also looks like it being opened to benefit from Liverpool2.

http://www.thehutgroup.com/the-hut-group-invest-100-million/

I think you have missed my point altogether but it don't matter. sorry.

Likewise I'm sorry I mistyped Blakes for Brakes - I know what they do - I drive past the site on a regular basis!

The thought of two/three of the Omega residents receiving / sending Containers to / from Liverpool 2 via the local roads fills me with joy of joys (not)!!

 

[Wavertreelad]

I think you have missed my point altogether but it don't matter. sorry.

Likewise I'm sorry I mistyped Blakes for Brakes - I know what they do - I drive past the site on a regular basis!

The thought of two/three of the Omega residents receiving / sending Containers to / from Liverpool 2 via the local roads fills me with joy of joys (not)!!

Sorry I was actually trying to agree with you. The pity is of course if I remember is that when the site was part of USAF Burtonwood I believe it was rail connected. I remember being given a tour of the site by the Commander at the time who showed me the rail sidings at the side of a huge warehouse that was so big people got around the place on bikes. I even got to use the private road access from the M62 services on what is now junction 8 which lead to the new access roads on both sides of motorway. However, I remember about 10/15 years visiting one of the hangers that used to be where Brakes and Travis Perkins now stand, and it was huge detour around Burtonwood to get to it.

 

[LowLevel]

Burtonwood was connected to the CLC Liverpool - Manchester line between Warrington and Sankey.

There's still an old semaphore shunt signal standing out of use there with it's arm on etc. It has all been disconnected though.

 

[daodao]

Is this the one being built adjacent to Junction six of the M56? I doubt it very much. Although it is physically close to both the Manchester Airport spur and the Skelton Jnc - Northwich line at Ashley (about 1 mile and 2 miles respectively), both would require construction of a brand new line at significant cost. One would have to be through open countryside and the other underneath the main airport terminals and apron.

The latter link would cut through "green belt" (and also make my drive to work via Castle Mill Lane) somewhat less pleasant.

Freight traffic is only viable for longer distance bulk loads, which are declining, e.g. the fairly rapid run-down of the use of coal. Most rail lines now have to stand or fall on whether they are economically efficient carriers of high volume passenger traffic.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

The proximity to the airport is the "prime" (sorry for the pun) reason. High value goods will be flown into the airport on new Chinese freighter aircraft that will start to serve the airport. Sorry Paul if may get a little busier in the skies about your head.

Of course, but I was making reference to the onward road transport on the M56 after the delivery by air to the airport cargo area.

We are fortunate that unlike forum members who live in the Mobberley and Knutsford areas, we live in a much more eastern area of Cheshire East than those.

 

[furnessvale]

I think you could find the containers could be shipped to Liverpool2, then up the Manchester Ship Canal to Port Salford where Peel will devan them and deliver the goods already palletised and labelled ready to enter the Amazon storage system. Many of these sort of warehouses don't like handling containers because usually the contents are packed loose to maximise on the capacity of the container. Palletising and labelling the huge amount of stock would cause a huge drain on resources especially if there are problems with the stowage of the container, or the delivery is late etc.

You may also be interested to know that Amazon has recently set up it's on freight forwarding agency in China to handle initially it's exports to the USA. The subsidiary will negotiate rates and bookings with shipping lines and control the delivery from door to door, and is then due to expand it's brief to serve the European market and sell it's services to third party suppliers who supply Amazon and sell in there own name. If Peel haven't made an approach already I would be amazed and very disappointed given the how long this facility has been talked about.

I wonder how containers from the Far East will find their way to Liverpool?

The large container ships employed on these services make one call in the UK. A second UK call is out of the question and a divert to Liverpool puts 2 days extra into the circuit.

The best that Liverpool can expect are feeders from the big four down south. These feeders will be in direct competition with rail which has the advantage of speed and the ability to directly deliver to inland destinations such as Trafford Park, Wakefield or even Port Salford.

Liverpool WILL compete on North Atlantic and other services where a 2 day divert is not necessary but I really can't see them taking big chunks out of round the world services.

 

[Wavertreelad]

I wonder how containers from the Far East will find their way to Liverpool?

The VLCC ships employed on these services make one call in the UK. A second UK call is out of the question and a divert to Liverpool puts 2 days extra into the circuit.

The best that Liverpool can expect are feeders from the big four down south. These feeders will be in direct competition with rail which has the advantage of speed and the ability to directly deliver to inland destinations such as Trafford Park or even Port Salford.

Liverpool WILL compete on North Atlantic and other services where a 2 day divert is not necessary but I really can't see them taking big chunks out of round the world services.

Containers from the Far East are already reaching Liverpool Royal Seaforth Container Terminal from feeder vessels and have been doing so for the last ten years. CMA-CGM are currently operating their own feeders from Southampton and Rotterdam to link the terminal which of course is only capable of handling Panamax size vessels, whilst MSC are operating two sailings a week from their Antwerp hub. In addition Peels own feeder subsidiary BG Freight Lines is operating two or three vessels a week from Rotterdam for numerous shipping lines, but including Evergreen, Hamburg Sud, and many more. All these services generally add about a week to the transit the typical transit time, but from next month Maersk will start a service from their Algeciras hub to Liverpool which could shorten transit time by several days.

From October 2016 the new Liverpool2 terminal should be fully operational and this will officially allow vessels of 14000 teu to call at the port but there is speculation that this may have now been increased to 18000 teu as the berth pockets dredging has been allegedly completed to 16.5 mtrs. The question of the deviation to Liverpool is a valid point, but what you have to remember that at the moment, and for the foreseeable future there will be vast over capacity in this market and shipowners are willing to deviations consider non-core ports if they can generate sufficient volume. In recent years the carriers have added Gothenburg, Aarhus, Gdansk in North Europe alone and one Maersk loop actually already includes a call at Felixstowe followed by a call at Southampton. Furthermore, I have first handle knowledge that when Peel have been talking to the shipping lines, they have been approached about handling vessels from China to their surprise. Furthermore, you also have to look at the situation developing in Felixstowe, where the port is struggling to cope with the large number of ULCCs calling at the port. This is lead to several in recent months either cancelling the call, or diverting to London Gateway. This latter option is far from ideal, because whilst the port facility is fully capable of the being able to turn the ship around efficiently, there is no additional landside capacity to distribute the containers around the country due to shortage of rail paths and HGV drivers.

Yes rail does offer the advantage of speed as it stands now, but the distance also means a container that misses the booked train is very often not able to be delivered on time and recovery time can take several days because of the pressures on the system. This is not necessarily the rail network's fault but that of the system that the shipping lines use to cover the deliveries. It's also viewed as fairly green method of transport which is seen to be very important point by major business, despite the door delivery being usually completed by road.

However, looking ahead to when Liverpool2 opens, it offers receivers and shippers in the North of England the benefit of the local service and with modern ships becoming more and more fuel efficient and green advantage plus most important the lower costs that should follow with the direct call of a mothership. The shipowner also gains because for the first few to use the facility there is an opportunity to gain market share and also do things differently to what has been the norm for the last forty odd years in which rail is likely to form an important part. Once the terminal opens, it's likely that Peel which switch some of it's Rotterdam feeder services to provide daily services to and from Liverpool2 to Dublin, Belfast and Greenock, plus perhaps Cork and Portbury in addition to increasing the Manchester Ship Canal feeders. With the ability to serve so many submarkets from a single call there is likely to be sufficient volume to attract several major carriers, and assuming they are the likelihood will be they will drop some calls at either Felixstowe or Southampton and substitute a call at Liverpool in the rotation on their multiple weekly services. This will rail services to distribute containers from Liverpool to many locations on the UK mainland as this would then allow road transport to concentrate on the shorter distance traffic which is of more interest to the road operator as it allows better use of both driver and tractor unit. Exactly how this pans out will to a certain extent depend on which shipping lines and which services are attracted to the Liverpool2 facility so it may be some time before a definite trend emerges.

 

[furnessvale]

Thanks for that WavertreeLad.

It will be interesting to see Freightliner trains carrying containers from Liverpool to say, Southampton and Felixstowe for onward distribution by road.

 

[Phil.]

Anyone know if the proposed new Amazon warehouse in Manchester will have rail access?

Bearing in mind Amazon's reputation for delivering goods I rather doubt that they'd be interested in loading stuff on to a train then paying for someone to off-load it at the nearest rail on to the destination.

 

[8A Rail]

Thanks for that WavertreeLad.
It will be interesting to see Freightliner trains carrying containers from Liverpool to say, Southampton and Felixstowe for onward distribution by road.

You are assuming that it will happen and also not neccessarily "Freightliner" would be the operator of such trains either. There is sufficent container traffic to run trains if the operators do so wish - there lies the rub, a good percentage of containers arriving / departing at the docks, go to either Garston FLT or Ditton by road for onward distribution by train! Not sure that will change with the opening of Liverpool 2. Best hope that as "Wavertree Lad" is suggesting, "new" traffic from "other" markets and this may create some train traffic but I'm not convinced.

 

[Wavertreelad]

You are assuming that it will happen and also not neccessarily "Freightliner" would be the operator of such trains either. There is sufficent container traffic to run trains if the operators do so wish - there lies the rub, a good percentage of containers arriving / departing at the docks, go to either Garston FLT or Ditton by road for onward distribution by train! Not sure that will change with the opening of Liverpool 2. Best hope that as "Wavertree Lad" is suggesting, "new" traffic from "other" markets and this may create some train traffic but I'm not convinced.

Absolutely valid points 8A Rail, the one thing that is slightly different now to when Freightliner last ran trains from the Seaforth railhead is that now there is the competition in the intermodal rail industry and perhaps most importantly there are now road haulage companies promoting their use. Two companies in particular are leading this move Stobbarts and Maritime Transport which acquired the Roadways business a couple of years ago. Stobbarts is carrying the vast majority of Maersk containers to the North West from Ditton and Stoke on a door to door basis supplemented by the Maersk subsidiary Pentalver transport who tend to complete the all road movements. I believe MSC use the Stobbart trains but subcontract the local road leg to local hauliers or their national haulier Goldstar. Hapag, Evergreen and APL use Maritime Transport extensively, amongst many other shipping lines with some of the them having Maritime implants working in their offices.

With Maersk set to use Liverpool from next month, and MSC already using the port extensively, albeit largely by road, it will be interesting to see what if anything Stobbarts do in the longer term. However, it is Maritime that could offer the best hope of running intermodal trains at least initially, even if they are not full length because of their wider customer base with the shipping lines and wider distribution system.

Notwithstanding the above, there will still be a need for trains to run to other ports, because for various reasons Shippers, Receivers and the shipping lines will need the option. However, having three railheads in such a relatively small area may prove to be inefficient in the long run so it will be interesting to see how they also survive.

 

[Altfish]

Is this the one being built adjacent to Junction six of the M56? I doubt it very much. Although it is physically close to both the Manchester Airport spur and the Skelton Jnc - Northwich line at Ashley (about 1 mile and 2 miles respectively), both would require construction of a brand new line at significant cost. One would have to be through open countryside and the other underneath the main airport terminals and apron.

It will be handy for HS2 and if it ever got build the Airport western extension to Mobberley

 

[DarloRich]

rail is only efficient for freight if you have well loaded trains on a regular basis

Could Amazon do that? Do they not offer mainly small products ( books/DVD's etc) rather than big bulky items? How many copies of James Bond do you need to fill a shipping container?

 

[thenorthern]

Very few warehouses and business parks have rail access, I think the largest one in Europe to have rail access is Birch Coppice in Dordon, North Warwickshire.

 

[northwichcat]

How many copies of James Bond do you need to fill a shipping container?

Normally or using the oversized boxes Amazon like using?