Stobart rail vs truck

[TGV]

Anyone watching the Eddie stobard program on Five?

They're racing a truck and a train from Rugby to Mossend.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

I take it it's not on literally ATM, quite interesting NTL.

 

[TGV]

I take it it's not on literally ATM, quite interesting NTL.

I dunno when the race happened but the show is on now. Looks like summer on TV.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

1255 off Carlisle, 1 hour plus for a driver change?

 

[TGV]

1255 off Carlisle, 1 hour plus for a driver change?

I reckon they could do it quicker if they wanted to! To be fair though the trucker got caught right behind an accident that closed the M6 for a short while.

I'm guessing the truck is going to win given the nature of the show?!

 

[S19]

Been watching the whole series. Nice insight into the Stobart brand.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

Well, they do have interests in both, not just road.

 

[S19]

It's actually a friend of mine's Brother driving the truck

 

[TGV]

It's actually a friend of mine's Brother driving the truck

Did he win?!

 

[S19]

I have no idea. Didn't ask.

 

[CosherB]

Who won, then?

 

[imagination]

truck won by slightly under 15 minutes

 

[transportphoto]

The Truck by about 15 minutes


EDIT: imagination you beat me too it.

EDIT 2: As the train has to unload at Mossend and then detrain the containers onto lorries, the first lorry made it to the Tesco Depot 15ish mins behind the direct lorry.

I aggree S19, I also have been watching the program every week (apart from the two I watched on 5's YouTube channel ), this is a very interesting insight to the life 'behind the scenes'. Has anyone an idea on how long the series is?

 

[Soft Mick]

Stobbart train stops in Carlisle yard for around 2 hours for no apparent reason. It'd be close otherwise...
also, train would win by the time the 26th truck rolled into mossend euroterminal

 

[rail-britain]

The Truck by about 15 minutes

More than that, the train left Rugby early, and the lorry left about an hour late, and was then further delayed by an accident on the M6
Had they left at the same time, the lorry would have arrived at least 90 minutes ahead of the train
However, the train had two changes of crew, losing it about 2 hours
The net result (journey time only) was the train arrived ahead by about 30 minutes
Typical though road still wins

Equally, scary, the driver had ONE 45 minute break between Rugby and Livingston

 

[GearJammer]

the driver had ONE 45 minute break between Rugby and Livingston

Whats wrong with that?

 

[Darandio]

Equally, scary, the driver had ONE 45 minute break between Rugby and Livingston

Thats just regulation, nothing wrong there. 4.5 hours then 45 minute break.

 

[YorkshireBear]

Still CO2 savings should make even 90 mintues a worthy price to pay

 

[CosherB]

There shouldn't be a 'price to pay'. How the heck can a 50mph limited lorry driving in traffic beat a WCML train? The train should have been there hours before the lorry. Why wasn't it?

Was it 'fixed' for the programme?

 

[90019]

Was it 'fixed' for the programme?

Why would they do that?

 

[Nevasleep]

They did mention the train getting held up, to allow priority to passenger services.

Only good thing about lorries, are that they provide more jobs than the train

 

[rail-britain]

How the heck can a 50mph limited lorry driving in traffic beat a WCML train? The train should have been there hours before the lorry. Why wasn't it?

The train had two crew changes, each taking about one hour
The train has a maximum speed of 75mph

The HGV had one crew, driving continuously with just one break of 45 minutes
The HGV has a maximum speed of 56mph

4S43 06:25 Rugby - Mossend
Typical times
Preston 09:10
Carlisle 10:25
Mossend 15:00

The traffic on the M74 at the Raith Interchange would certainly match that!

 

[The Barlow Boy]

A lorry will often beat a train due to the lorry having one crew member for all of it's journey.
It can collect/deliver door to door.
If there's trouble ahead the driver can easily be notified (by 'phone) divert to another route.
Modern lorries are artificially limited to 56 mph even though their (ABS) braking characteristics are as good as most modern cars.
Where freight trains really score is on shifting bulk loads in and out of purpose built depots.

 

[ivanhoe]

However, the train had two changes of crew, losing it about 2 hours
The net result (journey time only) was the train arrived ahead by about 30 minutes

And that is why railfreight is expensive and most of the nations goods are freighted in lorries.

 

[TGV]

The main problem for me was that it wasn't a proper race. They weren't going to the same place, so it's all open to too many variables. The train got to Mossend before the truck got to Livingstone - so was the race fair?!

Also - watching it, you get the impression that the trucking arm of the business was taking the race very seriously - the driver and controller certainly were, but the rail aspect (DB Schenker), evidently treated it as a normal run - in no hurry to set any records.

So in short, it was massively over dramatised and exaggerated for TV and was essentially meaningless. To make it a true race and representation they should have raced 30 trucks from Rugby to Mossend and let DB Schenker do what they want within regulations to make up time.

However the truck DID and always will win the "point to point" delivery times unless your customer happens to have their own rail yard.

What amuses me is that the whole show looks to dramatise a pretty normal logistics business. Compare to Ice Road Truckers where the drivers there really do risk life and limb to take supplies to remote arctic locations over ice covered mountain passes:

ICE ROAD TRUCKERS:
"Jack is taking a load of 10,000 gallons of highly flammable fuel for 400 miles over the Dalton Highway for the residents of Deadhorse, or they'll lose power. The visibility is near zero, it's dark and he feels the rig slide towards the edge..."

STOBART:
"Mary has a load of cream cakes she must delivery from Rugby to Newbury- a distance of nearly 100 miles. If she fails, the people of Newbury won't have anything to go with afternoon tea tomorrow"

 

[merlodlliw]

See a lot of his tucks in the UKs largest industrial estate here in Wrexham, not a rail line in sight, however I saw a Stobart truck yesterday,on the rear was this banner(below)

Stobart truck, a division of Stobart Road/Rail/Air & sea. Out of interest does he name his trains etc like the trucks with girlie names


M

 

[CosherB]

Why on earth would a short train journey like that require any crew changes, let alone two? It's no wonder road has rail beaten in the freight market.

Rail obviously can't do door to door deliveries to lots of addresses, but any freight flow from one fixed point to another (eg from one food warehouse to another distribution point) should easily be cheaper and quicker by train - less fuel used, and only one driver instead of perhaps 60 drivers for the equivalent road load. But road is cheaper....

I'm beginning to see why. :roll:

 

[jon0844]

ICE ROAD TRUCKERS:
"Jack is taking a load of 10,000 gallons of highly flammable fuel for 400 miles over the Dalton Highway for the residents of Deadhorse, or they'll lose power. The visibility is near zero, it's dark and he feels the rig slide towards the edge..."

STOBART:
"Mary has a load of cream cakes she must delivery from Rugby to Newbury- a distance of nearly 100 miles. If she fails, the people of Newbury won't have anything to go with afternoon tea tomorrow"

--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

If you have the depots at each rail point, and lorries can do much, much shorter journeys then that has to be a good thing - so it's not just having the trains.. you need to build the whole chain.

I would have thought that every day that goes by with fuel getting more costly, duty going up on lorries and so on - would make the train more competitive. Anyone smart enough to realise that would begin investing now, even if it may be 5-10 years before it happens.

Well, unless we allow lorries to get even bigger - which does untold damage to our roads (but, they don't pay for that - the tax payer does).

 

[GB]

Why on earth would a short train journey like that require any crew changes, let alone two?

I wouldn't really call it a short journey. We also do not know what the train drivers diagrams were like and what they needed to do prior to the trains departure and arrival.

 

[The Planner]

The train had two crew changes, each taking about one hour
The train has a maximum speed of 75mph

Why on earth did the crew change take an hour ??