The challenges of getting more goods off road and on to rail
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- Опубліковано 25 лип 2024
- Tom Heap rides a freight train from Manchester to Crewe and hears about the challenges the industry faces running electric trains and getting more goods off road and onto rails.
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This is what HS2 was designed to do - yet people cannot grasp that a huge increase in rail capacity is what is needed. Higher speed is simply current technology. The UK had redesignated its ports and changed its rail connectivity to increase (dramatically) the movement of freight by rail to and from our ports in particular. After achieving that we now need to move pedestrians away from freight lines and HS2 was designed to start that. It had to start in the South - more ports there - before moving North ASAP. But those who could not grasp HS2 as a concept have simply pushed the North's economy into touch. It truly beggars belief. If only they had remembered the identical situation with motorway development - who other than I remembers the two day car journey from Lancashire to Cornwall (with a ferry too) before Motorways? Yet we had the same misguided criticism over motorways. Do the people of the UK never learn?
No we dont
We do not need a significant increase of rail capacity all the way to Manchester. The capacity constraints were south of Birmingham but even that is not now a problem due to the fall in patronage.
What the UK now needs is a significant increase in road capacity. With no further SMART motorway roll-outs we need to address the capacity constrains with increased investment. Re-assigning railway funds to road investment is the optimal way forward without increasing taxation.
@@WallaseyanTube The 'fall in rail patronage' is now approx 10%, is a variable and at times above pre-pandemic demand. And that's just passenger demand. Demand is also from freight and set to increase further as more Government driven SRFI's come on stream and general economic growth achievement returns.7
Is population growth static? No.
Is demand for road use falling? No - so will need more road space which will be equally opposed and in the face of the failed / abandoned 'smart' Mway experiment intended to provide more capacity on the cheap.
So the likelihood in the next few decades and some, is demand for rail will outstrip pre-pandemic demand, particularly when a more enlightened bunch of politicians are in place who see rail as part of the transport solution, not a hated political football for them to use as yet another of their 'wedge' weapons.
@@gingertom2355 The most recent ORR reports states that the patronage is only just getting past the 80pc figure compared to pre-COVID. That is the figure for the number of trips not passengers. Demand for rail fright is not relevant to the point made. What is happening is that travel patterns have changed to less commuting and more ad-hoc travel on the railways. There is an increased demand for road capacity due to a significant shift towards online retail, while car travel is now resurgent. Rail is also less reliable due to the level of strikes and is not pro-business enough to encourage firms to transition to rail fright.
As a train driver in the Netherlands, I'm baffled to hear diesel is cheaper in the UK than electricity. Here in the Netherlands, it's the other way around.
A bit more complicated than that. The electricity is bought from Network Rail at the spot rate. The price of diesel can be fixed on forward contracts so can sometimes avoid adverse fluctuations in electricity price.
Artificial pricing mechanisms are distorting markets in specific places and sectors while other sources such as the USA will supply at market prices.
@@WallaseyanTubeWho is responsible for artificial pricing?
It's about energy source
@@tomedy_officialDoes anybody know how the energy markets were constructed in the first place? I know that in France and Germany prices are significantly lower, and have been right through the recent ‘energy crisis’. One difference is that the French Government still owns a lot of power stations.
Its a shame a country that invented rail travel is so backwards when it comes to railways.
Hs2 was mishandled badly and misold by the government.
Tunnelling under Buckinghamshire for starters, to keep a few rich people happy,.scuppered the north benefiting from it.
Mis sold and misunderstood by FAR too many politicians who having committed the nation to AT LEAST £50Bn spend to complete phase 1 of HS2, will leave the core problem of insufficient track capacity where needed unresolved and with NO effective replacement strategy of how to address the shortfall as things stand.
HS2 is not a failure. It's the donkey's who waste taxpayers money like it grows on trees as they did during the pandemic, without achieving anything of lasting value!
I live in the South and will get no Benefit from HS2 whatsoever. Other than like Yourself having to pay for it. This Myth that only the North is Losing out is Rubbish South west of London the Line doesn’t come anywhere near Us. Only Thing I see about HS2 is All the Road Closures at Night to Accomodate it. As a HgV Driver HS2 has been nothing but a Pain Closing this road and that Road and they’re not even working on the Road.
@user-fz7de4cz4w Im from the south, too.. and won't benefit from it either.
But my point is that a half arsed railway built to Birmingham doesn't benefit anyone apart from those living in London and Birmingham.
If it was going to benefit more people, it should have gone to the north as first planned.. as it's got all the major towns and cities in a small area, plus it would have freed up space on existing lines for freight, which this report was about.
It amazes me how people have such a lack of sense comment.
@@user-fz7de4cz4w On that illogical argument what benefit is the M25 to people living in the Midlands or the North? Indeed what benefit does ANY infrastructure have for those living in another part of the country from where provided? We ALL help pay for infrastructure despite making little personal use of MOST of it. BUT we all benefit from the economic advance major infrastructure provides - and in the case of new railway so will future generations. Just as WE benefit from the foresight of the Victorians.
The tunnelling was undertake to protect the environment country to what was claimed in the video.
I really never considered that hs2 would provide relief on the network for more freight but it makes good sense.
For some reason Britain seems either slow or reluctant to move forward with better rail services.
In France for example the proportion of electrified lines is much higher.
Even worse was a line that existed between Manchester and Sheffield, as late as 1954 the line was electrified and a brand new twin track tunnel was built at Woodhead so the line could carry the overhead wiring.
The whole line was closed in 1981, what a total waste of money.
Last i checked the woodhead route electrification was planned by the man himself gresley.
And by chance he left a really good prototype electric train for it.
@davidty2006 that is correct, I also think BR didn't like the fact it was a 1500V DC system , they converted the GE Shenfield service in 1960 to AC.
The fact is the French who pioneered 25KV have an absolute massive 1500 DC system and still run passenger services at 200 kph on it including the TGV services
They have so many dual voltage locos too.
Electrification of itself does not make a major improvement in the service to customers. On the contrary, once overhead lines are installed railways tend to become less reliable due to the constant failures. For instance there were two major incidents affecting entire regions in the UK this last week.
The UK has been making large investments in it rail network for more than two decades, but HS2 has caused that all to dry-up. The last major project cost more than a billion overall, yet the reliability of the service is now worse than ever due to electrification.
Being the first to invent trains, and having so much competition among railway companies in the 19th century, is coming back to haunt Britain. This means many lines have their own electrification schemes, signaling protocols and train dimensions. Back in Isambard Kingdom Brunel's times, even the track gauges varied widely between lines. Switching between different electrification systems is often so expensive, that it is often more profitable to fall back on using diesel.
Electrification in the UK is pitiful vs the rest of Europe. Even India, who started on a backfoot, is due to completely electrify 65000km at the end of the year, with dedicated double-stack freight corridors. Aside from climate concerns, electric power has always been known to offer way more efficiency. British Rail engineers would hang their heads in shame to see the level of electrification since they started in the 50s.
there's no money to invest cuz the greed heads are hoarding it all
Just need the government/DfT to pull their finger out and authorise some more electrification. Ooh and reinstate HS2 for capacity. But the Prime Miniature seems anti rail and anti environment. BTW: Tesco trains are amazing…. One container train taking nearly 60 Lorrie’s off the long haul.
Apropos which, they are looking at using the undercroft at Waterloo to cut out the M25 re-distribution depot for goods bound for Central London.There will be some interesting cross docking challenges to solve, but in theory it could ease congestion coming into London. (although where there is unmet demand for road capacity, it might not ease congestion, any freed capacity will soon fill up with other traffic).
It was a bad day when the Red Star rail parcel and goods delivery service was axed. We had a small family company at the time it existed and used it frequently. Often it was possible to get orders to customers the same day, and if they ordered very late in the day we could drop off at the local Red Star depot and have it to them overnight, often it was ready for collection before the customer started work! And it was priced very well. It would be an ideal business model to reintroduce, someone should give it serious consideration.
They did re-introduce overnight services but they were unreliable - partly because of maintenance possessions causing operational difficulties - and alternative courier services now offering a better service.
We've cancelled the West Coast Relief Line (aka HS2) so how are we expecting any capacity for containers?
The class 90, top loco 👍👍👍
Absolutely they were based on the class 87 and I well remember working on building them at Crewe
That freightliner depot looks like heaven 😍
Yet in the country where #diesel was invented, most of the train lines are electrified!
Really good to see freight moving back onto the rails again, despite the state that the rail system might currently be in
The most recent report from the ORR states that rail-freight is down on previous periods (down 6pc on last year) - not increasing - with a marked downward trend. Rail-fright in the UK is yet to recover to pre-pandemic levels.
@@WallaseyanTube More of your made up nonsense;
dataportal.orr.gov.uk/media/hwucszqa/freight-rail-usage-and-performance-jul-sep-2023.pdf
Near me they have just cut up a railway line and removed it and it's bank to build a huge warehouse on it! Madness!
Unfortunately not every port has a rail link the other problem is in the day their are too many passenger train's and at night time the track has to be maintained
This really does show the failure of what was the modernization plan was. Al of the UK's rail networks should have been electrified by the 1970's. But with BR's obsession to get rid of the steam engines, we ended up with a load of half arsed diesels that never worked and now we are facing the consequences of that now. Tis shouldn't have been an issue.
The modernisation plan was done by guess who? the tories!
The UK could not afford electrification in the 1970s, and it cannot afford it now. Electrification provides minimal gains in terms of service. Further, once the lines are electrified they are subject to regular overhead failures (at least two major incidents in the UK in the last week) which are alienating passengers and make the rail services intolerable.
If the ridiculous electricity pricing structure is changed, so that the minimum price isn't pegged to the price of electricity generated from fossil gas, then electricity fuel costs should be about a third of the costs of running on diesel. (This was the cost justification cited in the cost benefit study for electrification of the Gospel Oak to Barking line, which was around 2015).
My lordzzz class 90 cab ride
Totally nuts that HS2 won't run to Crewe, total waste of money.
it only seams to me that your taking lorry's of the road for long haul ie from the pot to the distribution yard as none for our major cities have goods sidings or yards then once it arrives at your yard its back on to lorry's to complete the job i feel we need to reinstate freight distribution hubs at major rail station once again central to the point of delivery
Road taxes + Megaswing cargo wagons, capable of carrying truck trailers. They can be unloaded at almost any train station. That will allow the delivery of containers directly to customers.
Unfortunately the highly restrictive loading gauge in the UK makes the use of trailer carrying wagons difficult.
Love to see a Train deliver to My Local Co-Op 😂😂😂. Trucks will always be needed and that’s a Fact.
@@user-fz7de4cz4w It can be reality if we wanted it to.
Just need a tram line and a branch from set line to the back of the shop
@@user-fz7de4cz4w Is reading comprehension not your strongest skill? I literally wrote that the cargo would be moved by truck trailer. That way a truck can move it from the local station to the destination, like a supermarket. It's just that it would be carried most of the way by train.
I mean hearing that Germany are lowering price on electric so more electric trains can run on the network on specific electrified bits on the line is great so it means no desiel trains under wires. But also, talking about the electric prices for the OHLE in UK, DB have withdrawn the fleet of electric locos called class 90s, the same loco, orangy one but a different operator. This is because Network Rail are increasing energy prices and yet they are trying to cut costs but also something they say is they try to be more environmental friendly. Putting up energy prices isn't helping. DB Schenker/Cargo are one of the biggest company also running trains in Germany. They only run electric locos on the HS1, Channel tunnel (Class 92's) at the moment but not on the UK main network like from Mossend (Scotland) to Daventry (Northamptonshire)
i would hope the class 90's get up to speed faster than the equivalent diesel loco as class 90's are always ran in pairs where as diesel are not as its not required due to diesel having far higher levels of tractive effort
Just think how much more could have been taken off the roads if HS2 had have been built with in mind to carry lorries , coaches and holiday vehicles on a train to Europe , a large loading unloading area to get the vehicles off/on the trains in the north area
Well done Freightliner...
someone should turn their attention to german state owned DB Cargo UK who have abandoned running their electric traction on freight services in the UK outside of HS1 and are now selling off their electric class 90 fleet.
Can't electrify existing track cos they've wasted the money on HS2.
Not really touched on there, but had line closures not been so excessive in previous years, I feel freight trains would be even more common. There's no use for freight trains outside of the rail infrastructure, and whilst I think it's common knowledge lorries will have to take up the local journey's from depots to warehouses, lorries are also the only solution right now in longer journeys where rail used to exist, as its cheaper and more direct that way. Same logic for trains and busses in regards to passengers, trains are effective at long distance commuter travel, whilst buses work better in shorter more local routes.
What I do not get is why the system has passenger trains or freight trains but no combination trains? What is stopping anyone from slapping a couple of freight cars on the back of passenger trains? They say there is capacity issues so surely one can figure out that trains can do both passenger and freight which would increase freight capacity.
Over the last few years, I have had endless delays and cancellations because of overhead lines not staying overhead. None of our main political parties will spend big on infrastructure unless it benefits London.
These electric prime movers will mainly be used to take containers from overnight proven, profitable Japanese SC maglev trains to the customer the very next morning especially as connecting Sydney to Melbourne can earn $12b p/a with HVDC cables from Snowy 2 in the tunnel.
Sky saw Geoff Marshals video and said can we copy that
Is the' elephant in the room' or 'the sacred cow' the right of railroad employees to engage in industrial action as part of free collective. bargaining? In the 1950's was it not a strike by ASLEF that drove much of BR's freight business to private road transport?
A far as I know it. never got it. back..
the biggest challenge is that every penny of profit goes to fund other countries rail networks
Where are those 60 miles of overhead infill to be?
Felixstowe, London Gateway and Lawley Street.
Meaning Nuneaton to Proof House Junction Birmingham, with overhead wires into the Maersk intermodal terminal at Hams Hall and the Freightliner terminal at Birmingham Lawley St, both most easily accessed from the Nuneaton direction. Ipswich (Westerfield Junction) to Trimley (Felixstowe) also needs doubling. Felixstowe Port has declined for decades to pay for and carry out this work although it would benefit greatly from doing it.
@@marksullivan6400 so no London Gateway or Lawley Street?
neoliberalism has got rid of all infrastructural aspirations of the UK
Electric lines aren't more reliable. One little infrastructure issue and everything comes to a stop. Here in Canada there is virtually 0 chance of a train stopping due to an engine failure, unless the grade is steep enough to stall the remaining locomotives.
Or the US for that matter.
Evergreen now where have I seen that before? Wonder how many bodies are in those.......
No idea why we're demonising Diesel when most electricity is still generated from Fossil Fuels.
these days we are now using green sources to get electricity using wind and rain and we have nuclear option.
Let's make all transport electric.
Let's postpone all transport logistics because electricity is too expensive
All this talk is nice but the fact is that cargo interests are driven by price and by time. Rail will always find it difficult to compete for road transport in Britain due to its geography. There is very little rail traffic in containers on the continent, or elsewhere for the distances that people normally think about.
UK have probably the worse trains service in Europe this is typically India styles trains
Well, that would be insulting to Indian Railways, they've been steadily improving service for several years now, despite some setbacks.
The movement of freight by rail around the UK is still impacted by the 4,500 miles of track closed by the Conservative government in the 1960's
Sky News and Sports should use the train service when reporting and broadcasting matches. It would be great to see them struggling with all the equipment and not use the road system!
Not just the media but the government too
@@Ontheedgeofglory the king has used more trains than the primeminister.
I guess electric trains are not as good
HGVs deliver the boxes to the rail
Yard … and then deliver boxes from the rail yard …. So it’s hardly taking Lorry’s of the road is it .
There will always be trucks but rail freight substantially reduces the amount of long distance road haulage, it could be more but the reasons why not were expressed in the vid.
'Hardly taking lorries off the roads'?
That one train is taking upwards of 40 containers over 250 miles. That train alone is removing ~10,000 miles of lorry traffic off the roads which would be taken by 40 lorries. That is just ONE freight train
@@SlowLineTrainspotting your missing my point , 40 Lorry’s would have had to deliver the container to the rail yard and ultimately 40 trucks would been there to take them off at the other end so in theory that’s 80 trucks and a train doing the work of 40 trucks, just my opinion be it right or wrong.trucks will always be involved in everything uk consumers want/need.
@@dannyedwards8454 Well at Felixstowe Port, the containers are loaded directly onto ships without the need to transport it via roads, and those first lorries out of the centre of Manchester would be travelling a tiny fraction of the distance of travelling down to Suffolk.
End to end rail transport is not really possible as it would involve covering cities in thousands of miles of railways lines to serve every factory and warehouse.
They won't be all over the M1 or M6 instead they'll be scattered about more locally doing shorter jobs.
We should use the rail ways more to keep the Lorrie’s off our roads . It s a night mare on motorways seeing all these Lorrie’s .bring back the railways
Last i checked HGV drivers don't want to do long haul trips as much anymore as well. So using rail to move stuff quickly over long distance which a round trip to scotland and back is 8-10 hours so pretty much everyone is mostly happy they can be at home every night.
🤣🤣🤣 Was wondering how long it would take for me to see such an idiotic comment. Wasn't long at all!
It is completely mad that diesel-electric traction is cheaper than electric traction. That’s a profound failure of institutions and markets.
The government needs to be replaced by a competent one.
Our government is costing us too much to run.
Reintroduce Labour political power. It is much cheaper than Tory power.
Heaven help us. I dealt with rail deliveries back in the late 50s and they couldn't deliver then with tons of food arriving late and mouldy.
It was the 50s, nowadays battery pack of the same size that can power a container fridge are available for home use
Breaking news: technology from mid 20th century is worse than the technology of the 21st century. What a truly baffling revelation.
Waste of money I still have to pick the containers up onto my truck and deliver it to customs
Unfortunately due to the constant stream of union actions the railways are just not reliable enough.
Where's your video claiming Palestinians are using a "baby doll"???
Media: trains take trucks off the road.
Me: trucks reduce the train cost, genius.
Trains are for rich people. That's why oligarchs love it. And train operators want government subsidies. (From tax payers).
I think what a lot of people forget is that the railways are not a toy train-set but rather are supposed to be a functional and reliable service to the public. There are far too many in the industry that are obsessed with HS2 to the detriment of actually providing the service that tax-payers are paying for.
Listen to what the man said - HS2 would have given them the ability to run more services more reliably. Freightliner sees HS2 as a business opportunity, so there is clearly demand for more railfreight that the freight operators simply cannot fulfill on the current network. HS2 is *how* they were going to offer better service. More railfreight means cheaper goods, less congestion, and less pollution for everybody.
@@doorhanger9317 I have listened to what was said. Further I have followed the claims made and read the documentation as the project went from conception to implementation. It is correct that HS2 was intended to provide more capacity, however they have not been able to deliver the project to budget and thus it has become a failure. I also agree that new infrastructure does provide business opportunities, however an increase in demand does not automatically follow. As it is, demand for rail freight is in steady decline according to the ORR. This in part is due to the unreliability of the railways arising from the tendency to militancy from the unions. As to the criticism of the delivery that still stands - take a look t what has got on.
@WallaseyanTube blaming the unions for unreliability is just completely unfounded. Unreliability is a consequence of running the railways down to the bone, we have maxed out capacity and cut and cut maintenance and staffing to the point where there simply aren't enough staff to run an operational railway. The unions are striking against these cuts because they want stable employment and less overworking, things that make the railway more reliable, and the exact opposite of what the openly anti-rail government is doing to make the railways less functional. Some unions do not exist just to sign off on bosses and keep the rank and file in line, they actually protect their membership.
Also, the HS2 cancellation has nothing to do with budgets - it's very obviously an internal party political decision from Sunak and his allies. There was no set budget line which was crossed
@@doorhanger9317 The problems with the railways are the unions. We have invested a fortune in the railways over several decades yet the reliability is still not back to its previous peak because of the actions of the unions.
I think it's cool but as a trainspotter don't agree to it as it puts truck drivers out of jobs
How does it? When it gets to the destination everything transported on the trains has to come off and put onto a truck to it's final destination? So either way a truck still needs to deliver every container on these trains and ships ? Sure some of them don't have to travel as far but still goes on a truck and always will...
Fantastic. My favourite. The -Clown- Climate Show. Today Tom is playing Casey Jones.
Wonder why my comment was deleted? Anyone else suffer the same fate?