End of the "golden age" of road haulage could create opportunities for rail?

[notadriver]

Do all loads need an HGV? What about using smaller vehicles that can be driven on a car licence from a rail distribution depot ?

 

[Geoff DC]

Do all loads need an HGV? What about using smaller vehicles that can be driven on a car licence from a rail distribution depot ?

That would create CARnage

 

[chorleyjeff]

Is it me or is there a glaring omission from any news as to why rail freight is not" taking the strain" Does anyone have any authoritative commentary on why rail freight is not the preferred option for long distance delivery ?
Is there any increased demand for rail freight at all ? Could anyone even just explain a simple case of eg Kent to Scotland Why HGV is need for this distance and not rail ? How do other countries compare ?

ciao Ms O

Cost and convenience especially just in time delivery.
By the time additionasl locos, rolling stock , drivers plus constucting sidings and access at convenient places are provided the HGV driver shortage will be a distant memory.

There must be many former rail freight customers now rueing the day they decided to put their distribution entirely in the hands of trunk road hauliers. I'm thinking of Kellogg's at Trafford Park and Pedigree of Melton Mowbray, for example, who each used to despatch two trainloads a day of breakfast cereals and petfoods respectively. They're probably now scratching around desperately for HGV drivers as their warehouses fill up with undespatched products and their orders are going unfulfilled.

A temporary situation like rail routes blocked by accidents , flooding etc etc.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The railway is not set up like it was 60 years ago, to take small loads from ABC to XYZ.
To be economic, it needs bulk loads between a relatively small number of points on the map.
Container routes are also currently tied to particular flows between ports and distribution centres, and our loading gauge is limited on many routes, leading to restricted loads and circuitous routes.
There's no chance of double-deck container trains which work so well in North America over huge distances.
There is also limited capacity (in rail vehicles and on the network) to operate a big increase in freight traffic on our passenger-dominated network.

Just as problematic is that the logistics companies only use the railway to a limited extent anyway.
Tesco might trump that they have a train from Daventry to Scotland, but 99.9% of its business still goes by road, even where their distribution centres are next door to rail freight terminals.
From the customer point of view, you can track your parcel from Amazon at every stage of its journey.
Could you do the same if it came by rail, and can it be delivered in the same timescale and cost?

I think the freight TOCs and the logistics industry do try and find viable business plans for rail freight, but it's a long, slow process to change minds.
It's an even longer process to get freight developments into the Network Rail investment plan.
A number of new freight terminals have come on stream in recent years, but I'm not sure they are creating the business expected of them.
Channel Tunnel freight is another line of rail business that has never come anywhere near the original plans.

 

[DarloRich]

I am sure @Bald Rick has something to say on this!

 

[Robertj21a]

Flexibility and reliability, under the control of the customer, will ensure that, nowadays, trucks invariably win over rail.

 

[furnessvale]

Just as problematic is that the logistics companies only use the railway to a limited extent anyway.
Tesco might trump that they have a train from Daventry to Scotland, but 99.9% of its business still goes by road, even where their distribution centres are next door to rail freight terminals.

I never realised Tesco moved well in excess of 250,000 HGV loads per day, and that is using a very conservative estimate of what they move by rail.

 

[seagull]

I think Alf has forgotten that one trainload equals several lorry loads too.

 

[Robertj21a]

I think Alf has forgotten that one trainload equals several lorry loads too.

How many trains are run for Tesco each day?

 

[wobman]

£60,000 a year 35 hour week, limited route & traction knowledge for train drivers.

£25,000 a year 50 hour week universal route knowledge for HGV drivers who also sheet their loads, fuel & clean their vehicles, do basic maintenance & change their hours at the drop of a hat.

How is that relevant to the question answered ??

Ok 1 train driver v 23 hgv drivers if you want to go on about pay !

Another poor thought out post that doesn't answer the question asked by the poster.

 

[thelem]

£60,000 a year 35 hour week, limited route & traction knowledge for train drivers.

£25,000 a year 50 hour week universal route knowledge for HGV drivers who also sheet their loads, fuel & clean their vehicles, do basic maintenance & change their hours at the drop of a hat.

How many containers are you dividing that £60,000 by? What about the £25,000?

I'm not sure this needs to turn into a lorry driver vs train driver thread, as the juggler says, if there are no drivers what happens when the train load needs to be swapped onto a lorry? It seems even if they paid the lorry drivers 100 grand the conditions for them are abysmal. You would need live in a lorry cab and have to carry a bottle round for the inevitable to earn 100 grand.

If the train has got the container to the right part of the country, then a lorry driver can pick it up and deliver it to its ultimate destination much more quickly than if they have to drive it all they way from Europe. 1 lorry driver could deliver multiple containers per day, rather than taking multiple days to deliver one container. Those multiple containers would all be delivered in their home region, meaning the HGV driver could return home at the end of their shift, rather than spending the night in a lay-by.

 

[wobman]

It's always been cheaper to move the majority of freight by road since Privatisation of the railways, the whole concept was floored and now we are paying the cost of the latest govt poorly thought and planned changes aswell.

The road transport lobby shouted louder and had more sway with governments, the rail freight industry just couldn't coordinate to keep up. Imagine if we had an integrated transport national plan, then invest in the infrastructure to make rail freight work with road freight.

If we want to go carbon neutral utilising our rail freight infasructure can be a big step in that direction.

 

[GB]

£60,000 a year 35 hour week, limited route & traction knowledge for train drivers.

£25,000 a year 50 hour week universal route knowledge for HGV drivers who also sheet their loads, fuel & clean their vehicles, do basic maintenance & change their hours at the drop of a hat.

Not quite that simplistic is it.

Neither rail nor road is ideal for everything exclusively...both have their strengths and weaknesses which is why they should work together more...That is also why its called "Intermodal".

 

[Bald Rick]

I am sure @Bald Rick has something to say on this!

I’ve said plenty on the subject already!

 

[dan5324]

We will simply have to agree to differ. British railways cannot accommodate the size of road vehicle to which you refer and rebuilding is not an option thus in your scenario the UK is condemned to the eternal misery of HGV clogged roads.

I'll just nip out and tell the major south east ports, who consign the majority of the TONNE/KMS of their deep sea container traffic by rail, that they are wasting their time.


Which is why the discussion is about trunk by rail and last mile delivery by road.

So you’d still need a HGV anyway? A HGV driver who would I presume be on much less hours now, so less pay. So who is gonna drive the HGV’s for a pittance? Who is gonna pay for terminals where we spend hours transferring the freight from train to HGV?
What will it even solve? HGV’s barely cause any congestion on the roads when compared to cars.

 

[A0wen]

It's always been cheaper to move the majority of freight by road since Privatisation of the railways, the whole concept was floored and now we are paying the cost of the latest govt poorly thought and planned changes aswell.

If your statement were correct - which I'm not sure it is - would you care to explain why railfreight volumes have been growing since the mid 90s? (Notwithstanding a downturn around 2008-10 due to the global crash).

If your claim were true, then railfreight would be in decline, not growing.

And road transport was cheaper than rail transport *long* before rail privatisation - try since about the late 1940s when a large number of demobbed soldiers all of whom could drive large vehicles plus sone surplus trucks no longer needed by the army entered the market....

Rail freight in Great Britain - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[Grumbler]

IMO the only way railfreight could be viable for local collection and distribution would be through automation. Wagons would have to be self-powered and capable of navigating themselves to their destination, rather like internet packets. They would join and split as needed at junctions. Speeds on branches would be low but wagons would not be held up by other road vehicles or require expensive drivers.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

I’ve said plenty on the subject already!

. . . . but some people whose minds were rigidly made up already have not paid the slightest attention!

 

[furnessvale]

How many trains are run for Tesco each day?

At least 12 daily but I believe some services are doubling up on a regular basis. More are planned. That does not take into account any use of trains not dedicated to Tesco.

 

[wobman]

If your statement were correct - which I'm not sure it is - would you care to explain why railfreight volumes have been growing since the mid 90s? (Notwithstanding a downturn around 2008-10 due to the global crash).

If your claim were true, then railfreight would be in decline, not growing.

And road transport was cheaper than rail transport *long* before rail privatisation - try since about the late 1940s when a large number of demobbed soldiers all of whom could drive large vehicles plus sone surplus trucks no longer needed by the army entered the market....

Rail freight in Great Britain - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Not on the lines/routes I know hasn't been much growth in freight, only recently have I seen any kind of upturn.

North Wales used to have Rio Tinto work / pen quarry / amlwch tanks / mostyn steels / mostyn sodium / holywell tanks / mold junction depot / Dee marsh depot / Ellesmere port depot / stanlow fuel and bitumen / octel tanks / fiddler ferry coal I can go on and on

 

[A0wen]

Not on the lines/routes I know hasn't been much growth in freight, only recently have I seen any kind of upturn.

North Wales used to have Rio Tinto work / pen quarry / amlwch tanks / mostyn steels / mostyn sodium / holywell tanks / mold junction depot / Dee marsh depot / Ellesmere port depot / stanlow fuel and bitumen / octel tanks / fiddler ferry coal I can go on and on

Well done for picking out the old / obsolete flows.

That shows your ignorance about modern freight flows and just because those flows don't exist doesn't mean the railways are carrying less freight.

 

[yorksrob]

£60,000 a year 35 hour week, limited route & traction knowledge for train drivers.

£25,000 a year 50 hour week universal route knowledge for HGV drivers who also sheet their loads, fuel & clean their vehicles, do basic maintenance & change their hours at the drop of a hat.

Perhaps that's the key. Road freight haulage appears a good deal on many flows because it's based on a method of labour exploration that's been shown to be fundamentally unsustainable.

 

[A0wen]

Perhaps that's the key. Road freight haulage appears a good deal on many flows because it's based on a method of labour exploration that's been shown to be fundamentally unsustainable.

I think you meant to say exploitation not exploration. Notwithstanding that - there's a thing about supply and demand and the flexibility within the industry.

Rail has high barriers to entry - there are many fewer jobs, fewer employers - in many ways something of a closed shop. Whereas the road freight industry is a much more open industry - you've got everything from the large players like Stobart or Wincanton down to owner drivers. But your claim that labour has been "exploited" is somewhat wide of the mark. And the big question - are you happy to see a wholesale rise in prices to cover the additional transport costs? Or are you going to demand more from your employer to offset that? And if the latter, then in all seriousness what are you going to do which improves your employer's position to offset that cost? Or are you going to take the glib view "it'll only affect the bosses / shareholders" ?

 

[yorksrob]

I think you meant to say exploitation not exploration. Notwithstanding that - there's a thing about supply and demand and the flexibility within the industry.

Rail has high barriers to entry - there are many fewer jobs, fewer employers - in many ways something of a closed shop. Whereas the road freight industry is a much more open industry - you've got everything from the large players like Stobart or Wincanton down to owner drivers. But your claim that labour has been "exploited" is somewhat wide of the mark. And the big question - are you happy to see a wholesale rise in prices to cover the additional transport costs? Or are you going to demand more from your employer to offset that? And if the latter, then in all seriousness what are you going to do which improves your employer's position to offset that cost? Or are you going to take the glib view "it'll only affect the bosses / shareholders" ?

Yes. Blame auto-text.

 

[Greybeard33]

Some data to inform this debate:

Supermarket shelves kept stocked thanks to growth in rail freight

This week, figures were released by the Office of Road and Rail which have showed a 36.5% increase in the amount of freight carried by rail between April and June when compared to the same period in 2020.

www.railadvent.co.uk

A typical freight train carries the equivalent of 76 HGV’s and this increase shows that rail freight operators are stepping in to help transport goods while the HGV driver shortage is causing havoc in the supply chains.

Each year, around 7 million lorry loads of freight are moved by rail, helping to cut traffic jams and pollution. 16% of domestic greenhouse gas emissions came from HGVs in 2019.

The data also showed that the transport of intermodal freight by rail, for example food, toys and clothes, rose by 22.5% over the same quarter. One in four containers moving to/from a port is now carried by rail.

Per Tesco, "every little helps"!

 

[stuu]

Some data to inform this debate:

Supermarket shelves kept stocked thanks to growth in rail freight

This week, figures were released by the Office of Road and Rail which have showed a 36.5% increase in the amount of freight carried by rail between April and June when compared to the same period in 2020.

www.railadvent.co.uk

Per Tesco, "every little helps"!

I'd be interested to see the comparison between this year's figures and 2019, a big rise compared with 2020 is pretty meaningless, given half the economy was closed down

 

[Dr Hoo]

I'd be interested to see the comparison between this year's figures and 2019, a big rise compared with 2020 is pretty meaningless, given half the economy was closed down

The ORR release does include comparisons for both years.

 

[stuu]

The ORR release does include comparisons for both years.

Thanks... and that paints a much less rosy picture. Freight up by 1.3%, intermodal actually down by 3.8%

 

[furnessvale]

Thanks... and that paints a much less rosy picture. Freight up by 1.3%, intermodal actually down by 3.8%

But to get a more rounded picture, there is a need to compare to figures for other means of transport, ie road haulage, and the performance of the economy as a whole during the same periods, something I haven't done.

 

[tbtc]

A typical freight train carries the equivalent of 76 HGV’s

I'm a bit uneasy about comparisons like this (taken from Greybeard33's quote)

Rail freight can obviously be a great way of carrying several lorryloads at once, but the suggestion that the average freight train is removing seventy six lorries from the roads feels a bit overhyped (especially as the average length is no more than a couple of dozen wagons, and surely the vast majority of rail freight flows are uni-directional - e.g. Hope Valley Cement or Buxton stone heads south full but the return journey is empty, whereas the likes of XPO/ Wincanton/Stobart are able to interwork flows so that a lorry from Southampton Docks to the Midlands is then carrying something from the Midlands to the south)?

I get the point that it's trying to make, and I'll probably be shot down as a heretic for saying something negative about the railway, but there's a difference between "certain rail wagons can carry the equivalent of three lorry loads, so a rake of twenty five trucks can sometimes carry the same as seventy five lorries" and "the average freight train carries the same as seventy something lorries"

(if there are lots of rakes of seventy six wagons behind a single 66 then I stand corrected, but I don't see such things in this neck of the woods!)