Tagging old stock onto freight services

[Mogz]

I believe this happens with shipping.

Here’s the concept:

Allow old rolling stock eg Mk 4s to be tagged onto existing freight services to provide cheap “no frills” long distance travel.

The idea would be that the passenger would pay for a cheap, non-refundable ticket for a specific service and have to make their own way to the freight depot.

The stock would be tagged into the end of the liner train and would be unloaded at the train’s eventual destination and would include a baggage car.

It might be a long trip and no refund would be made available for delays, but a person with time on their hands wanting to make a long journey for a small fare, perhaps with a lot of luggage, might appreciate it.

Perhaps some could be converted to couchettes for no-frills overnight travel?

 

[Starmill]

How would the relevant freight terminals be made available for passenger use?

 

[4141]

Nurse, the screens!

 

[SquireBev]

What possible niche market would this appeal to?

The cheaper-and-slower-than-trains market is already catered for by National Express coaches.

 

[Terry Tait]

Totally unworkable

 

[pdeaves]

This would raise all sorts of regulatory and insurance issues. Not insurmountable by any means but probably not worth the effort to sort out.

 

[Doomotron]

This is a stupid idea, but I'd love to see it.

 

[Mogz]

How would the relevant freight terminals be made available for passenger use?

In the same way that cargo ships allow a handful of fare paying passengers on board, I would have thought.

This is a stupid idea, but I'd love to see it.

Fair enough.

 

[PeterC]

You aren't going to get people travelling out to places like London Gateway for their train and I don't think that the shippers would be really happy about their cargos being held up by the extra stops needed to pick up passengers somewhere even vaguely central like Barking.

Shame, I like the idea but it really doesn't fit with modern logistics.

 

[Dr Hoo]

Looking at it from the freight company’s point of view the economics of intermodal operation are tight enough as it is. Trains have to run at maximum length, hopefully well loaded with boxes. There is usually no ‘spare space’ for passenger coaches.

This is quite apart from other issues like no electric train heating supply, no point locks in terminals, no platforms, no cleaning and tanking facilities, etc.

 

[gazthomas]

6 months since/until 1 April pretty much!

 

[tbtc]

As a practical suggestion, its a non-starter (e.g. given the amount of freight that has a path but doesn't actually run), though certainly not the daftest idea I've seen on the Forum!

Given the popularity of shipping containers for "pop-up" bars and other quirky developments amongst today's twentysomethings it probably won't be long until someone suggests using the empty containers on return journeys for fare paying passengers in some hilariously ironic twist (maybe a buffet car serving full meals but with none of the food on actual plates)? #HipsterRail

What possible niche market would this appeal to?

To be fair, I can imagine Hornby making a train set out of it - the old "combination of coaches and wagons" sets might shift a few units to nostalgic baby boomers who had something similar in their childhoods.

 

[gazthomas]

Maybe we should reintroduce slip coaches?

 

[randyrippley]

I've got a far better idea............a lot of new cars and vans get shipped by rail, for instance Ford up to Liverpool.
Why not sell tickets for the seats in the empty cars? Could be done at minimal cost.
Of course it would only be a one-way route, but you could balance that by riding in Jaguar or Vauxhall going the other way

 

[pdeaves]

I am sure the proposal would be very popular amongst Branch Line Society members and the like as it would 'do' various bits of track not available elsewhere.

Signalling would have to be altered around yards, some loops, etc. to bring it to passenger standards.

 

[Indigo Soup]

In the same way that cargo ships allow a handful of fare paying passengers on board, I would have thought.

Very few do, because it's frankly a bit of a headache. Those that do, it's basically using spare space (legally limited to just 12 passengers, absolute maximum) in the accomodation block, with no extra stops for the passengers' convenience. So the equivalent on the railway would be freight operators selling tickets for the rear cab on the locomotive, from freight terminal to freight terminal. Very niche market for that I should think, to say nothing of the regulatory problems. Especially because it won't work if the loco has to swap ends at any point.

The fact that freight terminals are nowhere near anything that passengers would want to access is also why the passengers-on-cargo-ships thing is practically non-existent. It's just as much of a pain to get to London Gateway to catch a slow train to nowhere in particular as to get to London Gateway to spend a week getting to another port that isn't particularly close to anything.

 

[Harbornite]

No. Not gonna happen.

 

[Ken H]

Remember in the old days there were mixed trains. And they tried tacking some freight wagons on trains to Thurso before it sprinterised.