Drax and Peel Ports criticise rail infrastructure in North

[YorkshireBear]

Also rail is uncompetitive over short distances. Containers for Manchester do already arrive at Liverpool, you can see them on the M62 because rail doesn't stand a chance over such short distances. Unless its bulk like coal or biomass.

 

[Elecman]

Also rail is uncompetitive over short distances. Containers for Manchester do already arrive at Liverpool, you can see them on the M62 because rail doesn't stand a chance over such short distances. Unless its bulk like coal or biomass.

And nothing will change that unless a government really upsets the RHA and introduces proper charging for HGVs to cover all thier costs ( damage to highways/ environmental taxation for thier pollution, Road Tolling). But as we know that will never happen.

 

[notlob.divad]

Also rail is uncompetitive over short distances. Containers for Manchester do already arrive at Liverpool, you can see them on the M62 because rail doesn't stand a chance over such short distances. Unless its bulk like coal or biomass.

They do, but not all of them otherwise there would be no trains having to run half the length of the country to deliver them. The above quote was implying all biomass for Drax should come in through Immingham as it is closer.

Irrespective of how its land side transport is conducted, surely the same should be said for any freight. It would probably result in a lot of railway freight drivers out of work, and an even more congested road network, but that was what was being implied.

 

[HSTEd]

And nothing will change that unless a government really upsets the RHA and introduces proper charging for HGVs to cover all thier costs ( damage to highways/ environmental taxation for thier pollution, Road Tolling). But as we know that will never happen.

And this will favour rail how?

Liverpool-Manchester transhipment in such a situation would be dominated by Container-on-Barge.

 

[Elecman]

It levels the playing field, barge transshipment may work for some shipments but is the MSC the answer ?

 

[HSTEd]

It levels the playing field, barge transshipment may work for some shipments but is the MSC the answer ?

A coastal freighter that can fit in the ship canal can still carry 400+ TEU or so, and an unpowered barge (thanks to the huge air draught) can carry 40ft containers stacked 6 wide, 14 long and something like eight high without exceeding the 8.5m draught limit [and that assumes that all the containers are at the maximum gross weight of 30,848kg. In reality you might even get a ninth tier in but we will assume not]

So that is 672 FEU, or 1348 TEU. With only a tug, her crew and a cheap steel box barge. Whilst double locking the tug would take time, since the locks are actually concentrated into a handful of locations you could have a tug assigned permanently to each level of the canal if the service was intensive.

Good luck matching that with any reasonable train service over existing infrastructure.

EDIT:

Energy consumption on inland barge tows is apparently about 200BTU/ton-mile in US experience, which is about 0.04kWh/tonne-km.
Which means moving that entire 20 kiloton barge the 58km between Manchester and Liverpool on the MSC would only take 48MWh, which is about 70kWh per container. Which is not very much at all considering each and every container weighs in above 30t in this situation.

 

[158756]

And nothing will change that unless a government really upsets the RHA and introduces proper charging for HGVs to cover all thier costs ( damage to highways/ environmental taxation for thier pollution, Road Tolling). But as we know that will never happen.

And if rail freight paid it's full costs we'd have more space to run passenger trains.

Even if it were to cost more to use the road, rail would still have a major disadvantage on such a short flow because a lorry will be significantly faster from Liverpool to the final destination, which probably isn't Trafford Park, and the journey from Trafford Park to the destination might be almost as long and expensive as just driving all the way to Liverpool.

 

[Ploughman]

Newton Heath locomotive depot was a proper one in those halcyon days of the late 1950s and early 1960s, with ex-WD 0-8-0's also to be seen there.

That's a new one on me.
I've seen WD 0-6-0s and 2-8-0s but not those.

 

[RichmondCommu]

Newton Heath locomotive depot was a proper one in those halcyon days of the late 1950s and early 1960s, with ex-WD 0-8-0's also to be seen there.

I didn't realise that they used such large tender locos for banking. I assumed it would be a 4F or something similar.

 

[RichmondCommu]

And if rail freight paid it's full costs we'd have more space to run passenger trains.

Even if it were to cost more to use the road, rail would still have a major disadvantage on such a short flow because a lorry will be significantly faster from Liverpool to the final destination, which probably isn't Trafford Park, and the journey from Trafford Park to the destination might be almost as long and expensive as just driving all the way to Liverpool.

Alternatively take more freight off the motorway and then there is more room for cars. That would be great as in my opinion all too often its the lorry that causes delays on the motorways.

 

[Greybeard33]

A coastal freighter that can fit in the ship canal can still carry 400+ TEU or so, and an unpowered barge (thanks to the huge air draught) can carry 40ft containers stacked 6 wide, 14 long and something like eight high without exceeding the 8.5m draught limit [and that assumes that all the containers are at the maximum gross weight of 30,848kg. In reality you might even get a ninth tier in but we will assume not]

So that is 672 FEU, or 1348 TEU. With only a tug, her crew and a cheap steel box barge. Whilst double locking the tug would take time, since the locks are actually concentrated into a handful of locations you could have a tug assigned permanently to each level of the canal if the service was intensive.

Good luck matching that with any reasonable train service over existing infrastructure.

EDIT:

Energy consumption on inland barge tows is apparently about 200BTU/ton-mile in US experience, which is about 0.04kWh/tonne-km.
Which means moving that entire 20 kiloton barge the 58km between Manchester and Liverpool on the MSC would only take 48MWh, which is about 70kWh per container. Which is not very much at all considering each and every container weighs in above 30t in this situation.

Even if Peel succeeds in its ambitious plans for Port Salford (which will require substantial investment in renovation of the decrepit Ship Canal infrastructure) the projected transhipment capacity via the canal will only increase to 100000 teu per annum. The annual capacity of the Port of Liverpool is now 2.1 million teu, so 95% of the boxes will still have to be shifted by road and rail.

I understand towing barges through the weather and tides of the Mersey estuary is problematic, which is why a coastal freighter is currently used.

 

[HSTEd]

Even if Peel succeeds in its ambitious plans for Port Salford (which will require substantial investment in renovation of the decrepit Ship Canal infrastructure) the projected transhipment capacity via the canal will only increase to 100000 teu per annum. The annual capacity of the Port of Liverpool is now 2.1 million teu, so 95% of the boxes will still have to be shifted by road and rail.

Yes, but those estimates are based upon a huge indirect subsidy to road transport and a huge direct subsidy to rail transport.
And yet the coaster is still competitive.

If Road Haulage had to pay its full costs we would see the MSC overshoot those estimates enormously - indeed floating infrastructure to transfer containers directly to barges has been used in places like Hong Kong for years.

I understand towing barges through the weather and tides of the Mersey estuary is problematic, which is why a coastal freighter is currently used.

Indeed, but if a tidal power proposal in the Mersey actually comes to fruition, tides in the upper estuary will become far easier to control.

Or even extension of the canal by boxing in the foreshore to a position further north.

Given how expensive rail infrastructure is, there are many options that would be economic ways to improve canal capacity.

 

[158756]

Yes, but those estimates are based upon a huge indirect subsidy to road transport and a huge direct subsidy to rail transport.
And yet the coaster is still competitive.

If Road Haulage had to pay its full costs we would see the MSC overshoot those estimates enormously - indeed floating infrastructure to transfer containers directly to barges has been used in places like Hong Kong for years.


Indeed, but if a tidal power proposal in the Mersey actually comes to fruition, tides in the upper estuary will become far easier to control.

Or even extension of the canal by boxing in the foreshore to a position further north.

Given how expensive rail infrastructure is, there are many options that would be economic ways to improve canal capacity.

Most containers aren't going to Trafford Park or a unbuilt port near Salford though, so road is going to be used for much of the journey anyway, so you'd have to make the cost difference huge to the point of wrecking the economy to get most of them on rails or ships.

Rail infrastructure may be ridiculously expensive, but a tidal barrage on the Mersey was estimated at £3.5bn 6 years ago, and isn't going to be built any time soon or probably ever. The massive earthworks required in the middle of the river to extend the canal would probably also have eight or nine zeros on the price tag as well.

 

[HSTEd]

Most containers aren't going to Trafford Park or a unbuilt port near Salford though, so road is going to be used for much of the journey anyway, so you'd have to make the cost difference huge to the point of wrecking the economy to get most of them on rails or ships.

That depends, the cost of a container 'lift' has been falling for years, and since unpaid externalities on HGV transport are considering to be somewhere between 40p-£1/km, it wouldn't take much to make transhipment via the MSC cheaper for locations in Manchester and further East.
Certainly considering the very low line-haul cost of barges.

Certainly not enough to "wreck the economy"

Rail infrastructure may be ridiculously expensive, but a tidal barrage on the Mersey was estimated at £3.5bn 6 years ago, and isn't going to be built any time soon or probably ever.

Such a scheme has the advantage that it also produces power, whereas any of the rail proposals floated to improve links moving east from Liverpool will only allow Peel Ports and (apparently) Drax Power to suck subsidy money out of taxpayer's pockets more efficiently.

The massive earthworks required in the middle of the river to extend the canal would probably also have eight or nine zeros on the price tag as well.

So you think building what amounts to a concrete breakwater in the Mersey a few kilometres long is going to cost many billions of pounds? Perhaps a few billion at a stretch but certainly not more than ten.
They build such structures all the time, and it would not involve very large scale 'earthworks' at all.
It would be built of concrete sections floated in place and filled with suitable ballast.

EDIT:

Container Transhipment in Turkey apparently cost something like $80/FEU, and whilst I would expect the UK to be higher, I don't see it being that much higher given how heavily automated it is all becoming.
Especially if floating offloaders or mid stream operation were adopted, you could unload from far larger container ships than the 13000TEU ones acceptable at Liverpool2.

EDIT #2:

An LNG terminal in Mexico had a 650m breakwater in 28.5m of water constructed for it, cost of $170m (part of the $875m project).
So the cost of breakwaters of this nature are clearly much much less than a billion dollars per kilometre.

We don't need to extend the constant level part of the canal, all we have to do is provide shielding from the tidal currents and some of the wave effects.

 

[xotGD]

Good idea, and by extansion, lets scrap the container trains that run from the south coast to trafford park, as it would make more sense to land them at Liverpool.

On the other hand, the biomass is shipped in from Canada I believe which means either more ships squeezing through the English Channel or the pretty treacherous and barely reliable North of Scotland route.

My understanding was the biomass terminal was built with the intention of serving F-Ferry not Drax. However national desicion to focus electricity production away from FF. Peel found another customer for their facilities which gives multiple entry points for a source of our national energy supply. Irrespective of the economics/environmental impacts of it for a moment, that resiliamce is surely a good thing, and stream lining the flow would be hugely benefitial for the country.

My recollection is that the biomass facility at Liverpool was originally there to supply fuel to Ironbridge, which then shut down. I am not aware of Fiddlers Ferry having plans to convert to biomass.

As an aside, transporting biomass fuel from Liverpool to an existing power station in Yorkshire is sensible compared to transporting refuse from Merseyside to a new purpose-built waste-to-energy plant on Teesside.

All good news for the rail freight sector, however, and a partial replacement for the loss of coal traffic.

 

[158756]

That depends, the cost of a container 'lift' has been falling for years, and since unpaid externalities on HGV transport are considering to be somewhere between 40p-£1/km, it wouldn't take much to make transhipment via the MSC cheaper for locations in Manchester and further East.
Certainly considering the very low line-haul cost of barges.

Certainly not enough to "wreck the economy"

There are reasons why the canal is all but redundant. Trying to force goods to be transported by a much more expensive and much slower means of transport, on a canal which between the locks, size and lack of port facilities, is very far from ideal for shipping on such a scale, isn't going to help anyone but Peel.

Such a scheme has the advantage that it also produces power, whereas any of the rail proposals floated to improve links moving east from Liverpool will only allow Peel Ports and (apparently) Drax Power to suck subsidy money out of taxpayer's pockets more efficiently.

No doubt such a scheme would involve Peel being paid an inflated price for their electricity a la Hinkley Point, so I don't know how that's a better deal than paying for Drax's electricity. Environmental concerns might give a different view, but I'm not at all convinced if we need renewable energy a Mersey barrage would be the best place to invest.

EDIT #2:

An LNG terminal in Mexico had a 650m breakwater in 28.5m of water constructed for it, cost of $170m (part of the $875m project).
So the cost of breakwaters of this nature are clearly much less than $1/m.

We don't need to extend the constant level part of the canal, all we have to do is provide shielding from the tidal currents and some of the wave effects.

With the way money disappears in the UK I wouldn't bet against the cost of the 'few kilometres' you suggested being over £1bn. Certainly hundreds of millions, well into the lower end of my guess.

Personally I say the 'problem' doesn't need solving. Drax is getting it's fuel, if it's too expensive to haul it from Liverpool it can go somewhere else instead. Moving freight by rail to Manchester is a non starter, and Manchester as a significant port is history.

If Peel want stuff, they can pay for it. Note the complete lack of tidal barrage and minimal activity at Port Salford for evidence of how viable such schemes are.

 

[InTheEastMids]

My recollection is that the biomass facility at Liverpool was originally there to supply fuel to Ironbridge, which then shut down. I am not aware of Fiddlers Ferry having plans to convert to biomass.

Ironbridge was always opted out of the LCPD, so would always have closed in 2015. The biomass conversion wasn't done until 2012, so I struggle to believe that Peel would have built the whole business case for 3 years.

 

[HSTEd]

There are reasons why the canal is all but redundant. Trying to force goods to be transported by a much more expensive and much slower means of transport, on a canal which between the locks, size and lack of port facilities, is very far from ideal for shipping on such a scale, isn't going to help anyone but Peel.

By line haulcosts the only form of shipping that beats barges is deep sea shipping.
It is only kept uncompetitive at the current time by huge piles of public money poured into motorway maintenance and subsidies to the railway.
If freight had to pay its way the canal would have the lionshare of Manchester-Liverpool traffic.

No doubt such a scheme would involve Peel being paid an inflated price for their electricity a la Hinkley Point, so I don't know how that's a better deal than paying for Drax's electricity. Environmental concerns might give a different view, but I'm not at all convinced if we need renewable energy a Mersey barrage would be the best place to invest.

The obvious owner for a barrage in a sane world would be the Port Authority, but of course this is modern Britain....
And it certainly beats solar panels for useful electricity per £ of subsidy spent.

With the way money disappears in the UK I wouldn't bet against the cost of the 'few kilometres' you suggested being over £1bn. Certainly hundreds of millions, well into the lower end of my guess.

Hundreds of millions have seven zeroes though. It certainly wouldn't reach nine zeroes.

If Peel want stuff, they can pay for it. Note the complete lack of tidal barrage and minimal activity at Port Salford for evidence of how viable such schemes are.

This situation only exists because of titanic market distortions however.
and if we are going to have a 'free market' economy then we should actually have one.
Also if not being built was evidence of a project not being viable... we would never build anything.

This is also leaving aside the fact that road haulage has a personnel crisis that gets worse every year and is unsustainable in the long run, especially once brexit closes off the supply of East European lorry drivers.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Hundreds of millions have seven zeroes though. It certainly wouldn't reach nine zeroes.

1,000,000 (1 million) has 6 zeroes
10,000,000 ( 10 million) has 7 zeroes
100,000,000 ( 100 million) has 8 zeroes

 

[Wavertreelad]

A coastal freighter that can fit in the ship canal can still carry 400+ TEU or so, and an unpowered barge (thanks to the huge air draught) can carry 40ft containers stacked 6 wide, 14 long and something like eight high without exceeding the 8.5m draught limit [and that assumes that all the containers are at the maximum gross weight of 30,848kg. In reality you might even get a ninth tier in but we will assume not]

So that is 672 FEU, or 1348 TEU. With only a tug, her crew and a cheap steel box barge. Whilst double locking the tug would take time, since the locks are actually concentrated into a handful of locations you could have a tug assigned permanently to each level of the canal if the service was intensive.

Good luck matching that with any reasonable train service over existing infrastructure.

EDIT:

Energy consumption on inland barge tows is apparently about 200BTU/ton-mile in US experience, which is about 0.04kWh/tonne-km.
Which means moving that entire 20 kiloton barge the 58km between Manchester and Liverpool on the MSC would only take 48MWh, which is about 70kWh per container. Which is not very much at all considering each and every container weighs in above 30t in this situation.

I think you are probably being a little optimistic on the capacity of barges which as has been pointed out since were found to be unsuitable for the trip to and from Seaforth and Irlam because of the strong tides in the Mersey. Peel have replaced the barge service with two feeder vessels each of about 360 teu which also serve Dublin and Cork. I suspect the maximum capacity of any vessel that could be used on this service is no more than 500 teu due mainly to the draft and beam restrictions of the canal, but also due the need to be able to turn the vessel around at Port Salford in sufficient time for ship to maintain schedule around the tides. Older members will remember Manchester Liners vessels transiting the canal from 1968 initially using a couple of converted general cargo vessels which were around 500 teu. By the time they had ordered their third generation of containership in the late 1970's they were deemed too large for the canal at 794 teu and operated out of Liverpool Seaforth instead.

The Manchester Ship Canal as a means of distribution of containers is really only suitable for organisations based on or around the canal itself who have large volumes and thus be in a position to negotiate the special rates that make the service competitive. This is because the extra time it takes to move the containers from Seaforth and eventually Liverpool2 up the canal, unload and return empty to Liverpool which at best is probably going to take at least three days if not more. For the majority of shippers and receivers they usually want their containers delivered to their premises within 24 hours of their availability for imports or when the production is available for despatch.

Up to now with the exception of the ACL and St Lawrence Service operated by Hapag, OOCL and MSC services the majority of services calling at Liverpool are designed to serve the North West of England and Wales markets. This is because the likes of MSC, CMA-CGM and even Maersk all service the North of England east coast ports with feeder services from Antwerp and Rotterdam. Whilst Teesport, South Shields and Immingham all feature, but they tend to only serve their respective local markets with the majority of shipments still moving by rail to and from Leeds, Doncaster etc for Felixstowe, London Gateway and Southampton.

 

[IanXC]

Peel is likely to make an investment in the rail infrastructure with an announcement due probably in the new year. Proposals are I believe already with the Peel board awaiting approval and are probably linked to Granada story which is a follow on from a story from two weeks ago that Peel were involved in.

https://inews.co.uk/essentials/news/uk/takes-ten-hours-move-freight-across-northern-england-train/

This is a very odd line, they make it sound like they're talking about the rail, as quite clearly, many formations are Victorian:

“Some railway tracks in the area are still the same ones that the Victorians laid in the nineteenth century. Over 100 years of use by both passengers and freight trains has taken its toll.”

I find it hard to take an article with such a dubious line seriously in any way shape or form.

 

[Holly]

So basically, they want the Chat Moss 4 tracking in its entirety. Man Vic restored to its former glory. Reopen the Collyhurst Loop and 4 tracks at least across the Pennines. Sounds a winner, if a tad expensive and unrealistic

Yes, that would be the best, and would benefit much more than Liverpool and Drax.
Not really unrealistic, just a matter of needing multiple sources of funds to cooperate. The problem of course is that cooperation is politically unpopular in an age of competitive rat racing.

 

[HSTEd]

1,000,000 (1 million) has 6 zeroes
10,000,000 ( 10 million) has 7 zeroes
100,000,000 ( 100 million) has 8 zeroes

Oops.
Moving swiftly on *whistles and walks off*

 

[Bevan Price]

Newton Heath locomotive depot was a proper one in those halcyon days of the late 1950s and early 1960s, with ex-WD 0-8-0's also to be seen there.

I think you mean WD 2-8-0s, not 0-8-0s.

And until the early 1960s, the Miles Platting bankers were mostly L&YR Aspinall 0-6-0s (Class 3F) - although Patricroft sometimes supplied Fowler 2P 4-4-0s to bank passenger trains from Manchester Exchange.... However, at Manchester Victoria, there is now no suitable siding where bankers can be stabled.

As for the main problem, refurbished Class 60 - or some Class 70 would be able to take loaded trains out of Liverpool Docks and up Miles Platting bank.

An Class 66 can just about get a loaded train out of Liverpool Docks -- in ideal weather conditions - but normally they need to be banked to Tuebrook (or to Edge Hill Down Yard when trains are routed via Runcorn (e.g., when the Chat Moss route is affected by engineering woek.)

 

[notlob.divad]

My recollection is that the biomass facility at Liverpool was originally there to supply fuel to Ironbridge, which then shut down. I am not aware of Fiddlers Ferry having plans to convert to biomass..

That may have been it, i knew there was something about an original plant and then shifting the customer. I guessed FF as it is the closest.

As an aside, transporting biomass fuel from Liverpool to an existing power station in Yorkshire is sensible compared to transporting refuse from Merseyside to a new purpose-built waste-to-energy plant on Teesside.

All good news for the rail freight sector, however, and a partial replacement for the loss of coal traffic.

Agreed. It is stupid. I was one of the few anti-nimbys who campaigned for the waste to energy plant to be built in Merseyside, not just in my town but visible from my window. It probably uses almost as much energy burning diesel to drag it to Teeside as it produces. Crazy, crazy country.

 

[HSTEd]

I think you are probably being a little optimistic on the capacity of barges which as has been pointed out since were found to be unsuitable for the trip to and from Seaforth and Irlam because of the strong tides in the Mersey.

Indeed, that is a barge that would be the maximum that could transit the canal itself.
That is why I mentioned the possibility of building a breakwater/canal hybrid north from the current terminus of the canal to shield the barge floats from the tides in the estuary.
You could extend it at least as far as the Rock Ferry or even the West Float without much technical (if not economic) difficulty, which cuts the transit time across the mouth of the estuary to Seaforth rather drastically - it might (although more studies would be necessary here) be feasible to move barges back and forth during slack tides.

Is the connection between Sandon Half-tide Lock and Seaforth dock, via all the other docks, large and still present? [Maps seem a little confused from what I can find]

The alternative would be to simply dredge the Mersey and construct a Post Panamax scale container dock at Hooton - which would probably cap the cost of the scheme at about a billion pounds, if we assume it would be built in the river but otherwise be similar to Liverpool2.

Otherwise that history is actually really rather interesting, thanks - its hard to find information about the operation of the canal beyond the wiki article.

In essence, if the artificial distortion of the market caused by the indirect subsidies for road transport are removed then i think the increase in line haul costs for road would overwhelm the 'stickiness' factor caused by the cost of transhipment and containers would start moving between modes of transport far more often during their journey.
And if soome improvements are made the MSC could grab a slice of the pie.

 

[Wavertreelad]

My recollection is that the biomass facility at Liverpool was originally there to supply fuel to Ironbridge, which then shut down. I am not aware of Fiddlers Ferry having plans to convert to biomass.

I'd agree as I know the Fiddlers Ferry never had any plans to convert biomass and of course unless another coal burning plant could be found Peel would have been left with no traffic for the Liverpool Bulk Terminal (LBT). I believe they looked at converting the LBT to biomass but eventually decided to build a purpose built facility on the basis of the long term contract from Drax.

This is a very odd line, they make it sound like they're talking about the rail, as quite clearly, many formations are Victorian:

I find it hard to take an article with such a dubious line seriously in any way shape or form.

I suspect the line being taken was to generate public support in view of recent announcements on electrification etc. Peel have been looking at rail since before they committed to Liverpool2 and were concerned about the capacity issue then. Speaking at a seminar a couple of months ago Peel confirmed this again and also confirmed they have development plans going before the board for approval, presumably once outline plans for the North of England rail network appear in the public domain. Whilst there is sufficient capacity for their current needs, in the longer term there will have to capacity increases to allow the ability of the freight train operators to deliver those containers to their destination in a timely manner in order for it compete with road haulage. If only the southern ports have the infrastructure to deliver containers on a next day basis which is an industry requirement, there is not going to be modal shift in for traffic moving through the Port of Liverpool.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

If that is the case why do most(all?) the empties return via Victoria or Piccadilly? That isn't keeping them out of the way of Ordsall Chord or electrification. I rather think that traction has a lot more to do with it. I'm not suggesting any return to 25s or 31s banking, just a review of what's on the head end now.Would a 60 get the train out of the docks and up Miles Platting unassisted?

A quick check of what actually happened on Tuesday 22nd (yesterday) is at first a little confusing. 5 eastbound loaded services ran of which 4, all daytime runs, went via Northwich and 1 via Manchester, passing Piccadilly at 0310. This ties in with avoiding Miles Platting Bank but could also be about avoiding the congested routes through Manchester. Westbound saw 4 empties with one via Piccadilly at 0323 with the rest running via Victoria. Note that all the trains through Victoria were at times when the station is running normally with "overnight" runs avoiding possible engineering closures by routeing through Piccadilly. Then consider that for eastbound trains running via Chat Moss the only opportunity to regulate/loop services is at Eccles where most passengers services are running at some speed making the use of the loop a little problematic. On the other hand westbound services, provided they run via the Calder Valley route can be looped between Thorpes Bridge Jn and Brewery Jn with much less risk of interfering with passenger services as well as allowing for quicker acceleration due to running down Miles Platting Bank almost immediately after re-starting. The one train which came via Diggle and Victoria passed the station at 2218 when regulation is unlikely to be needed. So I would suggest that pathing is still the greater factor in the routeing of these trains.

Good idea, and by extansion, lets scrap the container trains that run from the south coast to trafford park, as it would make more sense to land them at Liverpool.

On the other hand, the biomass is shipped in from Canada I believe which means either more ships squeezing through the English Channel or the pretty treacherous and barely reliable North of Scotland route.

They do, but not all of them otherwise there would be no trains having to run half the length of the country to deliver them. The above quote was implying all biomass for Drax should come in through Immingham as it is closer.

Irrespective of how its land side transport is conducted, surely the same should be said for any freight. It would probably result in a lot of railway freight drivers out of work, and an even more congested road network, but that was what was being implied.

There has been a similar discussion in the more general Liverpool Port thread. Containers landed at southern ports come mostly from Asia on mega-ships which serve European ports on a "multi-drop" basis as they are too big to be filled by demand to a single port. So after calling at one of Southampton/London Gateway/Felixstowe they will continue to some combination from Antwerp/Rotterdam/Bremerhaven/Hamburg (there may be other ports too). It would make absolutely no sense for the shipping lines to send such vessels to a west coast port. This makes the provision of container trains from those southern ports to northern terminals almost inevitable as long as we continue to import goods from the Far East.

For Transatlantic shipping west coast ports can make much more sense with the dock facilities themselves having been the most limiting factor. OTOH if it was possible for biomass deliveries to be made directly to the jetty near Drax, thus eliminating the need for any rail transport, it's likely that the overall shipping cost would be cheaper even if the sailing time is a little longer.

The suggestion that as inherent supporters of railways we should automatically expect freight to travel by train as much as possible simply doesn't have much credibility in the real world unless you have a command economy. But equally the points that have been made about fairer distribution of costs have been well made.

 

[Ships]

Use re-built class 60s in place of puny 66s to get the trains up Miles Platting so they don't have to go all round the houses in South Manchester and Cheshire. Cheap(er) option.Maybe that's the plan?

That's due to a lack of paths more than anything

 

[Elecman]

Weren't they using a class 59 to pull the trains up out of the docks to a Edge Hill?