Rail Freight Flows and News UK

[Condor7]

The map they provide is a litte confusing. I presume it is not intended to be accurate because it looks like the Liverpool train is going down the WCML and the Hams Hall down the Settle & Carlisle line which with containers is not possible.

 

[Wavertreelad]

The map they provide is a litte confusing. I presume it is not intended to be accurate because it looks like the Liverpool train is going down the WCML and the Hams Hall down the Settle & Carlisle line which with containers is not possible.

I doubt the accuracy of the routes shown on the map are meant to matter to most of the intended market, it's a marketing tool showing the concept only.

 

[furnessvale]

The new Energy from Waste plant at Lostock, Northwich is looking to use rail to take out 165,000 tonnes of ash per year from the site. This would use some of the infrastructure previously used for the limestone traffic from Tunstead to Lostock Works: https://www.northwichguardian.co.uk...=f9a2c12aaef6179bbcfc3782f5050d74&date=250626

I recall that when this plant was first proposed a major suppler was to be Strathclyde Council, sending the waste by ROAD. Is this still the case and if so this would be a prime candidate for conversion to rail.

 

[AndrewE]

I recall that when this plant was first proposed a major suppler was to be Strathclyde Council, sending the waste by ROAD. Is this still the case and if so this would be a prime candidate for conversion to rail.

I would imagine that a daily "binliner" train or two must be far cheaper than a constant stream of lorries on the M6. Even with 2 containers per truck, just think of the wage bill!

 

[JKF]

I would imagine that a daily "binliner" train or two must be far cheaper than a constant stream of lorries on the M6. Even with 2 containers per truck, just think of the wage bill!

I imagine the transport emissions would offset most of the energy generated by incineration if it went by road.

 

[AndrewE]

I imagine the transport emissions would offset most of the energy generated by incineration if it went by road.

Probably that too... I was just thinking that even the most blinkered bean-counter ought to be able to show the rail option paying, let alone complying with public sector decarbonisation objectives.

 

[furnessvale]

I imagine the transport emissions would offset most of the energy generated by incineration if it went by road.

If it is cheaper by road, it will go by road. All the rest is greenwash BS.

 

[Rail Ranger]

The operators of the Lostock plant have said they will use rail to bring in waste for incineration if they gain a contract with a local authority which uses rail. Presumably that will be when an existing contract expires. Merseyside would presumably be a contender.

 

[furnessvale]

The operators of the Lostock plant have said they will use rail to bring in waste for incineration if they gain a contract with a local authority which uses rail. Presumably that will be when an existing contract expires. Merseyside would presumably be a contender.

Stock answer. It is always the man at the other end of the supply chain that has to make the first move towards rail. (With a few notable exceptions of course).

 

[BorderCollie]

Stratchclyde Council was abolished in 1996. You're probably thinking about the policy 'initiative' where the Scottish Government and the Scottish Green Party sought to eliminate black-bag rubbish in landfills to fight climate change. However, lacking enough incinerators to process this waste, they planned to ship up to 100 truckloads a day to England. The plan faced delays and intense criticism and then last summer SEPA announced they were delaying full enforcement of the ban until January 1, 2028, to give the waste industry time to build proper local facilities.

 

[Rail Ranger]

Interesting that the artist's impression of the rail terminal shows an EWS liveried class 66 on a train of blue containers. Just like the Merseyside bin trains!

 

[Adrian Barr]

However, interesting to note on the map that the route is shown via Hams Hall to Mossend, not Coatbridge, which is suggests this will be GBRf operated. I assume the concept would be to operate an existing GBRf train from each port with the Scottish bound boxes on one end and the Hams Hall and/or another destination on the other. The trains could then be split and combined at Hams Hall for the trip to Scotland allowing MSC to only to have to use Freightliner when their own capacity is reached because of course Freightliner now owned by their rival CMA CGM.

The map appears to describe the existing situation, where the Hams Hall to Mossend and return GBRF service offers connections to/from London Gateway and Felixstowe, with containers being transhipped between trains at Hams Hall.

I had a deep dive through the container tracking for the boxes on 4S57 Hams Hall - Mossend GBRF service on 16th June (the container numbers are clearly visible in a good YouTube video titled "Fantastic Freight Action At Lancaster Oxenholme Carlisle Wigan Warrington 16+17th June 2926 WCML" - 4S57 appears at 11:55 into the video).

Tracking the containers online using https://www.track-trace.com/container (which links to the MSC website along with numerous other shipping websites) shows some interesting patterns. 4S57 on that date conveyed 28 containers; 11 for Hapag Lloyd and 15 for MSC (plus 2 unidentified or untrackable). Looking at the train on YouTube, 7 containers had Hapag Lloyd branding and 10 had MSC branding. The more subdued branding on the other containers (Florens, Tex, Seaco, CAI, Triton) is for container hire firms, with the containers themselves being hired to either MSC or Hapag Lloyd and trackable on those sites. The odd one out is the green UASC container on the back, in the livery of a company that Wikipedia says was taken over by Hapag Lloyd.

Since the video is from two weeks ago, most of the tracking information shows details of the subsequent export journey from Scotland, but a few containers still show details of the inward movement to Scotland on 4S57 (all movements noted are for loaded containers unless stated otherwise).

Of particular interest, 2 of the MSC containers arrived into London Gateway (from Naples) and were railed to Hams Hall and then onward to Mossend on 4S57. One of the Hapag boxes (from Turkey) appears to have done the same.

Another 3 Hapag boxes sailed from Norfolk, Virginia (after rail movement from Louisville, Kentucky) to Southampton, left Southampton by lorry for delivery, with the empty containers then being railed on 4S57 from Hams Hall.

This is only a small snapshot, but it seems logical that the shipping containers on 4S57 would be a mixture of laden containers from the ports that have arrived into Hams Hall by rail, plus empties from the Midlands being dropped off at Hams Hall for a trunk rail haul to Scotland.

Of the containers which arrived at Mossend on 4S57 on the 16th June, some left Scotland by ship, while others departed by rail. A couple of MSC boxes were railed to Hams Hall and then onward by rail to London Gateway (one for Columbia and the other to Australia via Mauritius). Another MSC container railed on 4M57 to Hams Hall, went forward to Felixstowe by rail, with an eventual destination of Fiji via Sydney! Another MSC box left Scotland by rail on 4M35 to Seaforth, for a transatlantic voyage to Montreal.

Some of the Hapag Lloyd boxes left Scotland by rail. Three went from Coatbridge to London Gateway with Freightliner; 2 for Tokyo via Shanghai and the other for Taiwan. Another box was railed from Coatbridge to Felixstowe, for Burgas (Bulgaria) via Istanbul. One Hapag box departed empty on 4M57 to Hams Hall, then when loaded was trucked to Southampton for a voyage to St John (New Brunswick, Canada) and onward rail movement to Chicago. Another two Hapag boxes appear to have left Scotland by road - one ending up at London Gateway (for Singapore) and the other at Southampton (for Miami).

Several of the MSC containers left Scotland by ship. 5 departed Grangemouth on the "Contship Top" working the Antwerp / Grangemouth shuttle. These made a variety of connections (ports mentioned as "via" are shown as transhipment locations on the tracking):
Turkey via Le Havre and Valencia
Australia via Bremerhaven and Antwerp
South Africa via Bremerhaven and Antwerp
Israel via Bremerhaven and Le Havre
Mexico via Bremerhaven

4 MSC containers left Scotland from Greenock port: (ports mentioned as "via" are shown as transhipment locations on the tracking):
India via Le Havre (x2)
Brazil via Le Havre
South Africa via Antwerp

It's a bit time-consuming to trawl through this information (which is not always 100% clear), but as someone with limited knowledge of the shipping industry, it's fascinating to see the pattern of container movements and the range of destinations where they end up. The container heading from Mossend to Fiji is scheduled to get there on the 24th August!

 

[Wavertreelad]

The map appears to describe the existing situation, where the Hams Hall to Mossend and return GBRF service offers connections to/from London Gateway and Felixstowe, with containers being transhipped between trains at Hams Hall.

I had a deep dive through the container tracking for the boxes on 4S57 Hams Hall - Mossend GBRF service on 16th June (the container numbers are clearly visible in a good YouTube video titled "Fantastic Freight Action At Lancaster Oxenholme Carlisle Wigan Warrington 16+17th June 2926 WCML" - 4S57 appears at 11:55 into the video).

Tracking the containers online using https://www.track-trace.com/container (which links to the MSC website along with numerous other shipping websites) shows some interesting patterns. 4S57 on that date conveyed 28 containers; 11 for Hapag Lloyd and 15 for MSC (plus 2 unidentified or untrackable). Looking at the train on YouTube, 7 containers had Hapag Lloyd branding and 10 had MSC branding. The more subdued branding on the other containers (Florens, Tex, Seaco, CAI, Triton) is for container hire firms, with the containers themselves being hired to either MSC or Hapag Lloyd and trackable on those sites. The odd one out is the green UASC container on the back, in the livery of a company that Wikipedia says was taken over by Hapag Lloyd.

Since the video is from two weeks ago, most of the tracking information shows details of the subsequent export journey from Scotland, but a few containers still show details of the inward movement to Scotland on 4S57 (all movements noted are for loaded containers unless stated otherwise).

Of particular interest, 2 of the MSC containers arrived into London Gateway (from Naples) and were railed to Hams Hall and then onward to Mossend on 4S57. One of the Hapag boxes (from Turkey) appears to have done the same.

Another 3 Hapag boxes sailed from Norfolk, Virginia (after rail movement from Louisville, Kentucky) to Southampton, left Southampton by lorry for delivery, with the empty containers then being railed on 4S57 from Hams Hall.

This is only a small snapshot, but it seems logical that the shipping containers on 4S57 would be a mixture of laden containers from the ports that have arrived into Hams Hall by rail, plus empties from the Midlands being dropped off at Hams Hall for a trunk rail haul to Scotland.

Of the containers which arrived at Mossend on 4S57 on the 16th June, some left Scotland by ship, while others departed by rail. A couple of MSC boxes were railed to Hams Hall and then onward by rail to London Gateway (one for Columbia and the other to Australia via Mauritius). Another MSC container railed on 4M57 to Hams Hall, went forward to Felixstowe by rail, with an eventual destination of Fiji via Sydney! Another MSC box left Scotland by rail on 4M35 to Seaforth, for a transatlantic voyage to Montreal.

Some of the Hapag Lloyd boxes left Scotland by rail. Three went from Coatbridge to London Gateway with Freightliner; 2 for Tokyo via Shanghai and the other for Taiwan. Another box was railed from Coatbridge to Felixstowe, for Burgas (Bulgaria) via Istanbul. One Hapag box departed empty on 4M57 to Hams Hall, then when loaded was trucked to Southampton for a voyage to St John (New Brunswick, Canada) and onward rail movement to Chicago. Another two Hapag boxes appear to have left Scotland by road - one ending up at London Gateway (for Singapore) and the other at Southampton (for Miami).

Several of the MSC containers left Scotland by ship. 5 departed Grangemouth on the "Contship Top" working the Antwerp / Grangemouth shuttle. These made a variety of connections (ports mentioned as "via" are shown as transhipment locations on the tracking):
Turkey via Le Havre and Valencia
Australia via Bremerhaven and Antwerp
South Africa via Bremerhaven and Antwerp
Israel via Bremerhaven and Le Havre
Mexico via Bremerhaven

4 MSC containers left Scotland from Greenock port: (ports mentioned as "via" are shown as transhipment locations on the tracking):
India via Le Havre (x2)
Brazil via Le Havre
South Africa via Antwerp

It's a bit time-consuming to trawl through this information (which is not always 100% clear), but as someone with limited knowledge of the shipping industry, it's fascinating to see the pattern of container movements and the range of destinations where they end up. The container heading from Mossend to Fiji is scheduled to get there on the 24th August!

A very interesting analysis but I think it demonstrates a problem that MSC, Hapag and OOCL all historically suffer from, a shortage of empty equipment in Scotland as it's one of the few areas in the country where the export demand exceeds the import movements. My last experience of the problem is about five years ago, but I doubt much will have changed in the meantime as it's always been a problem since containerisation took off.

At this point it's worth considering that for a merchant to deliver a container by road from Felixstowe to Glasgow will likely cost in excess of £2000 as the shipping line will normally require the empty unit returning back to port of arrival. Southampton and London Gateway Port will be almost certainly more expensive. If the shipping line arranges the delivery by road, the actual cost will be considerably cheaper, as they will match the import load with an export load that may ideally may have to move by road to a port in England. Usually these moves will be undertaken by tramp or third party contractors because by the time the driver has collected the container from the terminal or hitched up at the depot, delivered the laden unit and delivered it back to the carriers nominated depot or port it's a three day job due to the limits on driving hours etc..

Every global shipping line offers Grangemouth as a destination port serving it either a direct feeder from Rotterdam, and/or via London Gateway/Felixstowe using third party operators (Peel Ports BG Freight Line, DP World's Unifeeder, Samskip which I think is part of Cldn to the UK) or Antwerp - MSC only using their own feeder. Typical capacity is usually 868 to 1000 teu, but MSC occassionally upset the applecart and berth a 1200 teu unit all at least once a week which results in about six or seven feeders a week into the port. CMA CGM uses a 1400 teu unit as part of it's service from Rotterdam/Dunkirk to Liverpool T1 which then calls at Greenock before returning to Europe collecting imports from Spain and Portugal discharged at Liverpool on the way. This does change as the Portuguse ship may cover the Greenock call but again these are are units usually from 868 to 1200 teu. BG Freight Line deploy 868 feeder calling Liverpool, Greenock, Belfast, Dublin Liverpool, whilst X-Press Container Line, Samskip and Unifeeder may make inducement calls at Greenock usually in cooperation with BG Freight Line. MSC operates it own feeder service which from last month has a rotation of Antwerp, Le Havre, Liverpool (T2), Greenock, Le Havre and Antwerp which currently deploys a 4500 teu unit and a 1900 teu in order to maintain a weekly service which is managed according to demand. This allows MSC to load surplus empties at Liverpool for discharge at Greenock, whilst in the event of a missing or delayed sailing, MSC can induce a call by 1200 teu
vessel deployed on the Dublin service which normally does not call the UK.

Hapag LLoyd and OOCL have served Scotland from the early days of containerisation in the 1970's so have longstanding ties to the major exporters whilst MSC is started a little later picking up business from all the players including OCL, respectively P&O, PO&NL and Maersk but it was OOCL who many years ago, well before they became part of Cosco, signed an agreement with Freightlner to operate their own dedicated trains from Southampton to Leeds, Trafford Park and Coatbridge. This is normally the only way that OOCL will move boxes between Southampton and Coatbridge, with the only exceptions being containers that cannot be carried by rail, such as reefers, certain hazards and out of gauge loads. Hapag also used Freightliner as well as Maritime Transport, and various other hauliers including Scottish and Liverpool based drivers who shuttled btween Scotland and Liverpool to catch Hapags sailing to North Amercia to and from Liverpool. I believe this is popular run for those involved as it is largely congestion free whilst the Scottish whisky shippers liked security of delivering their laden boxes to a port, which automatically discharged their duty/vat liability much quicker than routing by rail to Southern ports. MSC by offering feeders from both Greenock and Grangemouth which connect seamlessly to the global network have over the years grown their market share by offering the flexibility of the feeder operation or the rail option, In order to help feed this export growth, which produces more revenue to the UK cost centre than an import container, both Hapag and MSC used to offer incentive rates for rail/road delivery options from Southern based UK ports so they can then control the empty unit movement.

Once the import container is reloaded all the lines will route the booking usually by the cheapest and fastest route to literally anywhere in the world, hence why you see so many different locations on the tracking systems. For MSC this is likely to mean that some USEC/Canadian East Coast bookings will be routed via Liverpool or Greenock to Le Havre which features as the last European port call on some services, of via Grangemouth to Antwerp for services which have Bremerhaven as the last European port of call in order to deliver the fastest transit time. For the rest of world the routing may be via Felixstowe or London Gateway to hence the Hams Hall hub or via either of the feeders depending on the European port rotations.

I suspect the ultimate intention of the policy is to build up the volumes to allow MSC to operate the trains exclusively, and thus make life a little harder for their competitors. It is of course a little different in England and Wales there the import volumes vastly exceed the export volumes. MSC is not a big user in it's own right through Southampton but it does take space on Premier Alliance (ONE, Yang Ming and HMM) services to and from Asia and it operates it's own dedicated feeder which usually calls Antwerp, Montoir, Southampton, Portbury and back to Antwerp and or variants of it, supplemented occasionaly by the Dublin feeder making a call at Portbury call the Dublin. I suspect the South West, South Wales and all poinst west and south of Hams Hall and perhaps 60-80 miles around it will be covered by vehicles rotating around Hams Hall, Portbury and Southampton in the lack of direct rail services for other UK ports. The rest of the Midlands and most of the North of England will uptimately handled by ILPN (replacing Garston/Ditton and Trafford Park) and Doncaster, whistl Teesport will handle the volumes out of the North East all either direct from the southern ports or via the Hams Hall gateway. The difference here is that because of the imbalnce of import empty boxes can be returned to Liverpool T2 where MSC can position vessels of up to about 18000 teu to load them for empty return to areas of demand like China and possibly India. Currently MSC Clorinda 15016 is on T2 doing eactly this and is due to sail at 2300hrs tonight with a next stop of Port Kelang in Malaysia. Although we will probably never know, I suspect the level of empty MSC boxes moving by rail in the UK is probably going to be lowest percentage of all the global lines especially given the fact that MSC have an estimated 21.4% of global trade share .

 

[Roger B]

A very interesting analysis but I think it demonstrates a problem that MSC, Hapag and OOCL all historically suffer from, a shortage of empty equipment in Scotland as it's one of the few areas in the country where the export demand exceeds the import movements. My last experience of the problem is about five years ago, but I doubt much will have changed in the meantime as it's always been a problem since containerisation took off.

At this point it's worth considering that for a merchant to deliver a container by road from Felixstowe to Glasgow will likely cost in excess of £2000 as the shipping line will normally require the empty unit returning back to port of arrival. Southampton and London Gateway Port will be almost certainly more expensive. If the shipping arranges the delivery by road, the actual cost will be considerably cheaper, as they will match the import load with an export load that may ideally may have to move by road to a port in England. Usually these moves will be undertaken by tramp or third party contractors because by the time the driver has collected the container from the terminal or hitched up at the depot, delivered the laden unit and delivered it back to the carriers nominated depot or port it's a three day job due to the limits on driving hours etc..

Every global shipping line offers Grangemouth as a destination port serving it either a direct feeder from Rotterdam, and/or via London Gateway/Felixstowe using third party operators (Peel Ports BG Freight Line, DP World's Unifeeder, Samskip which I think is part of Cldn to the UK) or Antwerp - MSC only using their own feeder. Typical capacity is usually 868 to 1000 teu, but MSC occassionally upset the applecart and berth a 1200 teu unit all at least once a week which results in about six or seven feeders a week into the port. CMA CGM uses a 1400 teu unit as part of it's service from Rotterdam/Dunkirk to Liverpool T1 which then calls at Greenock before returning to Europe collecting imports from Spain and Portugal discharged at Liverpool on the way. This does change as the Portuguse ship may cover the Greenock call but again these are are units usually from 868 to 1200 teu. BG Freight Line deploy 868 feeder calling Liverpool, Greenock, Belfast, Dublin Liverpool, whilst X-Press Container Line, Samskip and Unifeeder may make inducement calls at Greenock usually in cooperation with BG Freight Line. MSC operates it own feeder service which from last month has a rotation of Antwerp, Le Havre, Liverpool (T2), Greenock, Le Havre and Antwerp which currently deploys a 4500 teu unit and a 1900 teu in order to maintain a weekly service which is managed according to demand. This allows MSC to load surplus empties at Liverpool for discharge at Greenock, whilst in the event of a missing or delayed sailing, MSC can induce a call by 1200 teu
vessel deployed on the Dublin service which normally does not call the UK.

Hapag LLoyd and OOCL have served Scotland from the early days of containerisation in the 1970's so have longstanding ties to the major exporters whilst MSC is started a little later picking up business from all the players including OCL, respectively P&O, PO&NL and Maersk but it was OOCL who many years ago, well before they became part of Cosco, signed an agreement with Freightlner to operate their own dedicated trains from Southampton to Leeds, Trafford Park and Coatbridge. This is normally the only way that OOCL will move boxes between Southampton and Coatbridge, with the only exceptions being containers that cannot be carried by rail, such as reefers, certain hazards and out of gauge loads. Hapag also used Freightliner as well as Maritime Transport, and various other hauliers including Scottish and Liverpool based drivers who shuttled btween Scotland and Liverpool to catch Hapags sailing to North Amercia to and from Liverpool. I believe this is popular run for those involved as it is largely congestion free whilst the Scottish whisky shippers liked security of delivering their laden boxes to a port, which automatically discharged their duty/vat liability much quicker than routing by rail to Southern ports. MSC by offering feeders from both Greenock and Grangemouth which connect seamlessly to the global network have over the years grown their market share by offering the flexibility of the feeder operation or the rail option, In order to help feed this export growth, which produces more revenue to the UK cost centre than an import container, both Hapag and MSC used to offer incentive rates for rail/road delivery options from Southern based UK ports so they can then control the empty unit movement.

Once the import container is reloaded all the lines will route the booking usually by the cheapest and fastest route to literally anywhere in the world, hence why you see so many different locations on the tracking systems. For MSC this is likely to mean that some USEC/Canadian East Coast bookings will be routed via Liverpool or Greenock to Le Havre which features as the last European port call on some services, of via Grangemouth to Antwerp for services which have Bremerhaven as the last European port of call in order to deliver the fastest transit time. For the rest of world the routing may be via Felixstowe or London Gateway to hence the Hams Hall hub or via either of the feeders depending on the European port rotations.

I suspect the ultimate intention of the policy is to build up the volumes to allow MSC to operate the trains exclusively, and thus make life a little harder for their competitors. It is of course a little different in England and Wales there the import volumes vastly exceed the export volumes. MSC is not a big user in it's own right through Southampton but it does take space on Premier Alliance (ONE, Yang Ming and HMM) services to and from Asia and it operates it's own dedicated feeder which usually calls Antwerp, Montoir, Southampton, Portbury and back to Antwerp and or variants of it, supplemented occasionaly by the Dublin feeder making a call at Portbury call the Dublin. I suspect the South West, South Wales and all poinst west and south of Hams Hall and perhaps 60-80 miles around it will be covered by vehicles rotating around Hams Hall, Portbury and Southampton in the lack of direct rail services for other UK ports. The rest of the Midlands and most of the North of England will uptimately handled by ILPN (replacing Garston/Ditton and Trafford Park) and Doncaster, whistl Teesport will handle the volumes out of the North East all either direct from the southern ports or via the Hams Hall gateway. The difference here is that because of the imbalnce of import empty boxes can be returned to Liverpool T2 where MSC can position vessels of up to about 18000 teu to load them for empty return to areas of demand like China and possibly India. Currently MSC Clorinda 15016 is on T2 doing eactly this and is due to sail at 2300hrs tonight with a next stop of Port Kelang in Malaysia. Although we will probably never know, I suspect the level of empty MSC boxes moving by rail in the UK is probably going to be lowest percentage of all the global lines especially given the fact that MSC have an estimated 21.4% of global trade share .

 

[EastWest]

Penyffordd trains temporarily stopped in January (and switched to Ketton) due to equipment failure at the site, although if anyone can confirm there's been trackwork taking place, it'd be interesting to see.

The Penyfford to Avonmouth cement trains have now started running again.

 

[matt99001]

Did I hear that there is planned engineering works near Swindon for the next few weeks so a lot of freight trains that travel through Bristol Parkway towards Didcot/Reading will divert through Bath Spa instead...

 

[Chingy]

Did I hear that there is planned engineering works near Swindon for the next few weeks so a lot of freight trains that travel through Bristol Parkway towards Didcot/Reading will divert through Bath Spa instead...

The Badminton line is closed until early August so all trains that usually go direct from Swindon - Bristol Parkway and vice versa will now divert via the Rhubarb & Bath/Box.

There’s not a great deal of freight that is booked via Hullavington anyway. Gone are the days of the Avonmouth/Didcot coal traffic that used to frequent this route. Of the top of my head there’s normally only around half a dozen freights a day that take this route, on average, during daylight hours, on a typical weekday.

These freights, like the IET’s, will go via Bath, yes.

 

[Freightmaster]

Did I hear that there is planned engineering works near Swindon for the next few weeks so a lot of freight trains that travel through Bristol Parkway towards Didcot/Reading will divert through Bath Spa instead...

Some are diverted via Bath, a few via Stroud/Gloucester/Chepstow and one (Machen to Lawley Street) will run
via the Welsh Marches! Diversions like this are something that I cover in detail in the Freightmaster timetables.

 

[stantheman]

First run today of 4E73 Mossend Down Yard to Madborough FD completely empty container flats . DBS 66 let’s hope it’s successful as we need more freight up here

 

[eastwestdivide]

First run today of 4E73 Mossend Down Yard to Madborough FD completely empty container flats . DBS 66 let’s hope it’s successful as we need more freight up here

Was that in fact yesterday (7th)? as in this one:

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:R51869/2026-07-07/detailed

4E76 1152 Mossend Down Yard to Masborough F.D.​

Departing on 7th July 2026​

I can see a return working,

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:H00537/2026-07-09/detailed

4S73 0007 Masborough F.D. to Mossend Down Yard
Departing on 9th July 2026​

 

[FrodshamJnct]

Is there any truth to the rumour that Colas will be taking over the Clitheroe cement traffic?

 

[Freightmaster]

Is there any truth to the rumour that Colas will be taking over the Clitheroe cement traffic?

Supposedly, yes.

 

[BorderCollie]

Hadn't realised until today that the new DB 4E76 1152 Mossend Down Yard to Masborough F.D. runs in the same path of the former 4E04 GBRf to Doncaster iPort. Anyone seen it to report on loadings? (Return is 4S73 overnight).

 

[Freightmaster]

Anyone seen it to report on loadings?

Looking at photos on Flickr, loadings have been getting steadily better since it started
(the first southbound run was completely empty!)

Here is Monday's 4E76:

66116

4E76 Mossend Down Yard to Masborough F.D. passing Colton, 13th July 2026.

www.flickr.com

...and Tuesday's:

66021 4E76

DB Cargo`s 66021 passes Henwick Hall with 4E76 the 11.52 Mossend down yard to Masborough F.D. 14/07/2026. Nice to see something new in the Selby area. Pole Shot.

www.flickr.com

Note that it runs via the Selby 'avoider', presumably for pathing reasons.

 

[BorderCollie]

Superb. Thanks Mark.

I suspect they'll have the momentum now, so FL's 4E31 may never materialise?

 

[stantheman]

Is Masborough just an intermodal terminal ?

 

[Trainman40083]

Is Masborough just an intermodal terminal ?

At one time, they loaded some steel there.

 

[Adrian Barr]

Is Masborough just an intermodal terminal ?

Apart from the container terminal for Newell & Wright, the sidings are also used to load scrap metal for despatch to 7Steel (formerly Celsa) at Cardiff Tidal.

There were also trains of "steelphalt" (slag from the electic arc furnace at Tremorfa for use as an aggregate in road surfacing) in 2-axle MEA wagons from Cardiff Tidal to Rotherham Masborough, but those stopped running a few years ago.

Rotherham Masborough was known in the past as Rotherham Steel Terminal - I think the most recent inward steel traffic was reinforcing bar on BDA wagons from Cardiff Tidal, but that stopped running a while back. Before that though, I think it opened as a Freightliner terminal, so it has reverted to its former use...

Coil trains from Immingham call in or recess there, but the coil all goes forward to Wolverhampton Steel Terminal. DB sometimes use these services to move wagons between Immingham and Rotherham, and in the recent past Rotherham was the location where coils from Hull to Wolverhampton joined up with coils from Immingham, but I haven't noticed any import coil traffic run from Hull for some time now.

 

[Solweytracker]

Looking at photos on Flickr, loadings have been getting steadily better since it started
(the first southbound run was completely empty!)

Here is Monday's 4E76:

66116

4E76 Mossend Down Yard to Masborough F.D. passing Colton, 13th July 2026.

www.flickr.com

...and Tuesday's:

66021 4E76

DB Cargo`s 66021 passes Henwick Hall with 4E76 the 11.52 Mossend down yard to Masborough F.D. 14/07/2026. Nice to see something new in the Selby area. Pole Shot.

www.flickr.com

This YouTube short of 4E76 also dated 14th shows consist of mostly HapagLLoyd containers:
Looks like 4S73/4E76 link in to Masborough - Felixstowe 4L73/4E83 services. In the past 2 weeks these Felixstowe services typically have ran only when there was a Mossend service.

4E76 1152 Mossend Down Yard to Masborough F.D. DB Loco 66021 departing Newcastle - YouTube

 

[Freightmaster]

Here's a mystery for Mr Barr to get his teeth into...


Nothing has run to or from "Tilbury 2" (which usually sees two daily departures to Daventry)
for the past two weeks.

The 4M77/4L48 and 4M07/4L27 services are still running, but have been diverted to run to/from
"Seabrook reception sidings" at Tilbury Docks.

I always get confused between Tilbury LCT, Tilbury RCT and Seabrook sidings, but I thought the
latter was just a set of run round roads where trains reverse to get to Tilbury Docks 'proper',
so I presume that the DRS trains are not actually being loaded there?

Anyone know what is going on with these DRS workings and why Tilbury 2 is out of use?