Using Technology for Future Railfreight Movements

[Masbroughlad]

As technology advances, would this open opportunities for rail freight movement in the future?

Today, the huge marshaling yards like Tinsley could have been managed by intelligent technology.

Could freight yards and smaller depots for onward road transport.be made to work? It would need blue sky thinking and huge investment, but it could work?

Or are lorries on the roads the only way to go?

 

[JamesT]

As technology advances, would this open opportunities for rail freight movement in the future?

Today, the huge marshaling yards like Tinsley could have been managed by intelligent technology.

Could freight yards and smaller depots for onward road transport.be made to work? It would need blue sky thinking and huge investment, but it could work?

Or are lorries on the roads the only way to go?

It would need massive subsidy to make it at all competitive with lorries. Shifting it between modes adds costs every time you do it. You’re adding delay as the cargo has to wait for a trainload to form up and a slot to become available. Are there even the paths available any more? Our railways are intensively used by passenger trains today.

 

[The Planner]

How much freight actually needs marshalling yards now anyway?

 

[SynthD]

What is intelligent technology, what can it do to containers that we can’t do already?

Sub-container sized loads are rare, see the Varamis project at Liverpool St for the exception that proves the rule. If that is successful enough to be expanded, I haven’t heard about it.

As a fantasy, I wonder what it would be like to have multiple mini containers per freight wagon, that are only as long as regular containers are wide. These could then be lifted onto small flatbeds, milk float sized.

 

[CMS1]

Parallel Systems in the US would be an example
www.moveparallel.com
www.railtechnologymagazine.com/articles/autonomous-battery-powered-wagons-begin-testing-usa?utm_source=rail_technology_magazine&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=weekly_newsletter&dm_i=IJS,8DGQK,6W1SOL,YIVU6,1

 

[Class15]

Sub-container sized loads are rare, see the Varamis project at Liverpool St for the exception that proves the rule. If that is successful enough to be expanded, I haven’t heard about it.

It hasn’t been successful enough to even run on a revenue-earning basis.

 

[HSTEd]

I've often thought about this a lot.

I think if you were going to make a serious attempt at what was once called "wagonload freight", it would either be an embrace of rolling highways (loading gauge says no!) or containerisation.

A "marshalling yard" would be a shed with automated straddle cranes where freight multiple units would be loaded and unloaded, with containers also being lifted to contracted road trailers for local delivery. Say a network of fifteen yards would have fourteen rail roads and the freight loading/unloading roads. Trains run either on schedule or when full.

Lifting the container is considerably less tedious than attempting to shunt the trains, with technology developed for container ports it would likely be possible to operate the facility with minimal staffing.

I doubt it is going to be economic in any case, though - but it might at least be less hopelessly uneconomic.