Should we reduce railfreight on crowded lines?

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Years ago, who would ever had thought that such a company as Stobart Rail would be an accepted rail fact of life?

 

[Bald Rick]

What about the recent trials into Euston using former Great Western GUVs which seem to be successful.

Indeed, so successful they haven't run again.

 

[GearJammer]

Indeed, so successful they haven't run again.

lol, that's exactly what I thought.


Can somebody just help me with some rough calculations, on a typical HST 2+9 formation, how many passengers can that convey?

On a fully loaded intermodal of the same length (11 wagons) that would be 11 40ft boxes and 11 20ft boxes, that could potentially be moved by road by 17 HGVs.

Now if you look at the amount of road space, congestion and pollution caused by 17 HGVs compared to the number cars if everybody off the HST used there cars then you can start to see where the OP is coming from.

The only flaw is it would need people to leave their cars at home and catch the train, lol, we all know that won't happen because the joe public/car drivers want everyone else to change there ways so they don't have to.

 

[yorksrob]

What would be good would be if the railfreight industry could cough up for a few more loops etc. I read in "Rail Magazine" some freight chappie yet again snidely implying that Felixtowe should sacrifice it's passenger service yet again, which seems a bit of a cheek, considering that railfreight is effectively subsidised, yet seems to attract none of the opprobrium that the regional passenger railway does for this.

 

[Bald Rick]

What would be good would be if the railfreight industry could cough up for a few more loops etc. I read in "Rail Magazine" some freight chappie yet again snidely implying that Felixtowe should sacrifice it's passenger service yet again, which seems a bit of a cheek, considering that railfreight is effectively subsidised, yet seems to attract none of the opprobrium that the regional passenger railway does for this.

It does seem cheeky, but for the railway and for the economy, turning the Felixstowe town service into a peak time only route is definitely the right thing to do. For the cost of what it will take to release extra capacity on the branch for additional freight, you could buy every off peak user a door to door chauffeur driven Bentley.

 

[yorksrob]

It does seem cheeky, but for the railway and for the economy, turning the Felixstowe town service into a peak time only route is definitely the right thing to do. For the cost of what it will take to release extra capacity on the branch for additional freight, you could buy every off peak user a door to door chauffeur driven Bentley.

He said he operated six freight trains each way per day on the line. A loop could increase this by a considerable amount.

 

[Bald Rick]

He said he operated six freight trains each way per day on the line. A loop could increase this by a considerable amount.

Don't know who that was. There's c30 freights a day each way, and unlike most freight paths, they are nearly all used. A long loop retaining the passenger service might increase that to 50, and cost well over £50m. Alternatively make the passenger service 0600-1000 and 1500-2000, and you'd get up to 45 each way, and not spend £50m. Some people would of course be disadvantaged, but proportionally few. And that £50m could be put to better use, eg new stock on the GEML which would benefit far more people.

 

[yorksrob]

Don't know who that was. There's c30 freights a day each way, and unlike most freight paths, they are nearly all used. A long loop retaining the passenger service might increase that to 50, and cost well over £50m. Alternatively make the passenger service 0600-1000 and 1500-2000, and you'd get up to 45 each way, and not spend £50m. Some people would of course be disadvantaged, but proportionally few. And that £50m could be put to better use, eg new stock on the GEML which would benefit far more people.

Or alternatively, use second hand track and components and get the freight company to pay.

 

[edwin_m]

Can somebody just help me with some rough calculations, on a typical HST 2+9 formation, how many passengers can that convey?

On a fully loaded intermodal of the same length (11 wagons) that would be 11 40ft boxes and 11 20ft boxes, that could potentially be moved by road by 17 HGVs.

Now if you look at the amount of road space, congestion and pollution caused by 17 HGVs compared to the number cars if everybody off the HST used there cars then you can start to see where the OP is coming from.

The only flaw is it would need people to leave their cars at home and catch the train, lol, we all know that won't happen because the joe public/car drivers want everyone else to change there ways so they don't have to.

The flaw in that argument is that most intermodal trains are a lot longer than 11 wagons, and a longer train doesn't use much more capacity than a short one. Hence you should be considering a train of up to the 750m maximum, which would be about 35 wagons.

 

[tbtc]

Is there scope for a dedicated freight route from the Thames docks to somewhere like Daventry?

Wouldn't need to be a *fast* line, just fairly flat (follow the Stour inland then the Great Ouse) for freight services to maintain a fairly constant speed.

How many trains a day would travel between the two? (roughly)

if you look at the amount of road space, congestion and pollution caused by 17 HGVs compared to the number cars if everybody off the HST used there cars then you can start to see where the OP is coming from

I agree - it's certainly an interesting idea worthy of considering (though I don't know the maths).

Part of the problem with freight on the railway is that the modern railway tends to have clock face services running at the same times/speeds each hour. Accommodating a freight path doesn't just cause passenger services to run in sub-optimal timings at that time, but can also mean sacrificing paths in other hours too.

That's one thing when there's a regular enough freight demand to leave one path an hour for them (e.g. ECML, WCML) or when dealing with regular flows (Mossend - Daventry), but can mean passenger services running in sub-optimal times just to accommodate an infrequent/irregular freight.

That's not to say throwing all freight off the rails (before I get a hysterical reaction), just that there are some areas where there's space for freight trains in the daytime and others where capacity is tighter.

A large number of people still subscribe to the idea that railfreight is worthwhile in an island as small and heavily infrastructured (is that a word?) as Great Britain - whereas in reality the majority of freight was lost in the 60s, leaving only coal and stone as a major flow.

Thus vast sums of public money are expended propping up the profits of private railfreight operators and even larger sums are expended on capacity upgrades required only to allow large scale freight operations, while passenger operations on the line are denied paths for additional trains. (GOBLIN is an obvious example).

If we want to reap the full benefits of 'Sprinterisation' (which is essential for the economic survival of the railway) then I am afraid railfreight will either have to obtain MU levels of acceleration or they will have to get out of the way.
A high intensity passenger service is almost certainly better at reducing environmental damage than dozens of empty freight paths that have to be accommodated to allow maybe one train to run on any given day.

Interesting points - I think I agree.

I've said it before numerous times, and I'll keep repeating myself. Apart from the freight that already goes by rail, what other goods can be economically carried by rail? Just because the inside lane of the M1 is nose to tail with lorries between junctions 28 and 32 (example only), doesn't mean that they all start at the same place, or end up at the same destination

Agreed - the freight market capable of transferring to rail is pretty limited.

The traditional markets (coal from UK coalfields to coal burning power stations) is finite and diminishing) but few obvious big ones to replace it.

Today's freight is often more suited to an HGV, or even a white van...

there a a few paths for the "coal" trains from Crewe to and from Sizewell. So thats nuclear fuel and waste, do you want that in a lorry on the A14?

...but at the same time, should the railway be a dumping ground for things that are "undesirable" on the roads? Especially

It does seem cheeky, but for the railway and for the economy, turning the Felixstowe town service into a peak time only route is definitely the right thing to do. For the cost of what it will take to release extra capacity on the branch for additional freight, you could buy every off peak user a door to door chauffeur driven Bentley.

See also most of Northern Rail?

(but tradition demands that I say something parochial like "a Bently? We used to dream of having a Bently..")

 

[GearJammer]

The flaw in that argument is that most intermodal trains are a lot longer than 11 wagons, and a longer train doesn't use much more capacity than a short one. Hence you should be considering a train of up to the 750m maximum, which would be about 35 wagons.

I was comparing like for like, but ok, have it your way, 35 wagons means roughly 35 40ft boxes, and 35 20ft boxes which can be carried by roughly 55 HGVs, the space on the road taken by 55 HGVs will still be less if everyone from a 2+9 HST used their cars.

Lets x2, 2 trains worth of containers, that's 70 wagons, which can be moved by 110 HGVs, now if everybody from 2x HSTs (2+9 formation) jumped into their cars that could potentially be 750-1000 cars.

Quite simply it doesn't mater how you put it, one train path can remove more cars from the road than it ever can HGVs.

So the OPs point about removing freight trains in favour of passenger trains does have a point.

But like I said 'the flaw' is people won't give up their cars, they expect everyone else to change the way they do things so they don't have to.

 

[DownSouth]

This thread is why the railways of the world laugh at Britain.

What would be good would be if the railfreight industry could cough up for a few more loops etc.

But if the main benefit is for the passenger trains, the passenger train companies should be expected to pay the majority.

considering that railfreight is effectively subsidised

You can make a case that the reverse is true for passenger rail, by way of a portion of the track access fees paid by freight being diverted to pay for maintaining tracks for a speed far greater than any freight train will ever need.

The railroads in the USA have it right - if Amtrak want to run trains on their lines at higher speeds, Amtrak have to pay for the upgrades and for the difference in maintenance costs compared to maintaining it for freight only.

 

[yorksrob]

This thread is why the railways of the world laugh at Britain.


But if the main benefit is for the passenger trains, the passenger train companies should be expected to pay the majority.

You can make a case that the reverse is true for passenger rail, by way of a portion of the track access fees paid by freight being diverted to pay for maintaining tracks for a speed far greater than any freight train will ever need.

The railroads in the USA have it right - if Amtrak want to run trains on their lines at higher speeds, Amtrak have to pay for the upgrades and for the difference in maintenance costs compared to maintaining it for freight only.

Except for the fact that freight's already heavily subsidised by the taxpayer.

Seems like a funny sort of "right" given that the proportion of passengers travelling by rail there is so miniscule. Not a problem if you've got a big empty continent to play with, but a little more of an issue somewhere as densely populated as Europe, particularly England.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

It seems to me that railfreight is just a pretty bad idea. The amount of times I've been delayed on the GEML/NLL/WLL because of freight train problems is high.

Were you aware when you opened this thread that only very same forum, there is another thread running named "Put freight up on the rails".

Quite unusual to have two freight-related threads running concurrently, seemingly acting as the prosecution and the defence in the debate on hand.

 

[DownSouth]

Except for the fact that freight's already heavily subsidised by the taxpayer.

Quite rightly so, because if they can avoid it nobody would want to have their kids in the firing line of heavy trucks or their daily business obstructed by crews repairing the hacked up roads. That's a good use of taxpayer funds to achieve a desirable social outcome for many times less than the total cost of building new motorways which come with their own deleterious effects.

If the access charges properly reflected the cost of providing and maintaining the infrastructure for higher speeds, the "subsidy" for freight operators (which largely exists on paper only) would be far lower because their operational costs would no longer include this cost of cross-subsidising passenger rail.

Seems like a funny sort of "right" given that the proportion of passengers travelling by rail there is so miniscule.

It's a market economy working properly. You want higher speeds, you pay for it.

In the more densely populated areas of the USA, the proportion of passengers using rail is quite competitive on the world scale. You In those places (think the Northeast Corridor and lines coming off it, lines near LA and so on) where there is more demand than occasional services on freight rails can provide, new infrastructure is built or the lines compulsorily purchased by the governments (could be county, state or federal level depending on the scope of the line) and freight operators reduced to paying for access rights.

The track being owned and maintained by whoever benefits from it the most (i.e. vertical integration) is a quite sensible approach, and certainly preferable to the UK approach of providing a job program for bureaucrats.

 

[yorksrob]

Quite rightly so, because if they can avoid it nobody would want to have their kids in the firing line of heavy trucks or their daily business obstructed by crews repairing the hacked up roads. That's a good use of taxpayer funds to achieve a desirable social outcome for many times less than the total cost of building new motorways which come with their own deleterious effects.

If the access charges properly reflected the cost of providing and maintaining the infrastructure for higher speeds, the "subsidy" for freight operators (which largely exists on paper only) would be far lower because their operational costs would no longer include this cost of cross-subsidising passenger rail.

Oh, I have no problem subsidising freight, so long as it is properly accounted for and doesn't end up as a hidden burden on the passenger railway, however I don't agree with it at the expense of the passenger. The idea about paying for higher speeds might work if railfreight owned and maintained the railway primarily for freight as you would be paying the operator to do something out of what he keeps the railway for, but that isn't the case. The railway is owned and maintained by the state, primarily for the passenger railway.

I also dispute the fact that speed is the main factor affecting maintenance. We have a railway which travels North from Leeds then splits with one line continuing North to Carlisle and the other turning West to Lancaster. Both carry passenger trains, but only the line to Carlisle carries freight. In this case, the freight carrying line to Carlisle has to be maintained to a much higher standard than the Lancaster route, primarily to deal with the heavy freight trains, rather than passenger trains which run at regional railways speeds anyway. Surely in this case, it is freight that should pay more because the Carlisle route has to have much more money spent on it because of freight than the Lancaster route.

It's a market economy working properly. You want higher speeds, you pay for it.

In the more densely populated areas of the USA, the proportion of passengers using rail is quite competitive on the world scale. You In those places (think the Northeast Corridor and lines coming off it, lines near LA and so on) where there is more demand than occasional services on freight rails can provide, new infrastructure is built or the lines compulsorily purchased by the governments (could be county, state or federal level depending on the scope of the line) and freight operators reduced to paying for access rights.

The track being owned and maintained by whoever benefits from it the most (i.e. vertical integration) is a quite sensible approach, and certainly preferable to the UK approach of providing a job program for bureaucrats.

I have no problem with vertical integration, infact, I would prefer it to the system we have here, however, here the railway is owned and maintained primarily for the passenger. It's not a market economy and hasn't been since the common carrier commitment was established in Victorian times.

 

[455driver]

Wasnt the NLL built to carry freight around London with the passenger service a secondary consideration?

 

[RichmondCommu]

What about the recent trials into Euston using former Great Western GUVs which seem to be successful.

It's worth noting here that there were two separate trials using the GUV's but there have been no follow on services.

 

[Ash Bridge]

What about the recent trials into Euston using former Great Western GUVs which seem to be successful.

It's worth noting here that there were two separate trials using the GUV's but there have been no follow on services.

I remember those, was it last year they operated or the year before? Also what sort of goods were they conveying?

 

[NLC1072]

For this very reason: HS2, leave the classic lines for more freight and take the faster expresses off and put them on to HS2.

 

[yorksrob]

Wasnt the NLL built to carry freight around London with the passenger service a secondary consideration?

That's a fair point, in that a lot of our railways were originally built primarily for freight, however, the NLL like most, is now primarily a passenger railway.

 

[RichmondCommu]

I remember those, was it last year they operated or the year before? Also what sort of goods were they conveying?

I think one of the trials was for Tesco and one of those trials took place this year. As to what was carried I'm not sure but I doubt that they were chilled products.

 

[Ash Bridge]

I think one of the trials was for Tesco and one of those trials took place this year. As to what was carried I'm not sure but I doubt that they were chilled products.

Ah, you must have read my mind! It's the bit at end I was thinking about.

 

[RichmondCommu]

If we want to reap the full benefits of 'Sprinterisation' (which is essential for the economic survival of the railway) then I am afraid railfreight will either have to obtain MU levels of acceleration or they will have to get out of the way.
A high intensity passenger service is almost certainly better at reducing environmental damage than dozens of empty freight paths that have to be accommodated to allow maybe one train to run on any given day.

But surely this is one of the main reasons for building HS2 to free up more capacity for freight?

 

[455driver]

But surely this is one of the main reasons for building HS2 to free up more capacity for freight?

It is but all the wally point scorers want to concentrate on the saving of 5 minutes to get to Birmingham, but hey why let the truth get into some point scoring exercise!