Freightliner Intermodal forsale

[zwk500]

Doubly impressive in that they have sufficient clearance not to need well wagons.

It's part of specially provisioned Dedicated freight corridors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dedicated_freight_corridors_in_India. Currently 1 is complete and another is underway, of 6 total planned. I don't think (but am not very well across Indian railways news) that the double-stack would be rolled out much further.
India's railways have been seeing lots of investment in recent times, both with metro networks in the cities and things like re-gauging and electrification projects on the wider network. Project unigauge now has 96% of the network on broad gauge, from a starting point of 46%. And their high-speed network (standard gauge, interestingly) is rapidly developing.

 

[sprinterguy]

How many locomotives of which classes are used by the intermodal part? Are there major contracts or routes?

There are 82 class 66s, 14 class 70s and 25 class 90s in Freightliner's Intermodal pools (accurate to November last year - not sure if any class 70s have come out of or gone into storage since then).

Key routes are Felixstowe, Southampton or London Gateway to Daventry, Wentloog (Cardiff), Lawley Street (Birmingham), Basford Hall (Crewe), Trafford Park (Manchester), Garston or Ditton (Merseyside), Leeds and Coatbridge (Glasgow). I think there's still at least a train a day between Felixstowe and Tees Dock (Middlesbrough) as well.

 

[43096]

There are 82 class 66s, 14 class 70s and 25 class 90s in Freightliner's Intermodal pools (accurate to November last year - not sure if any class 70s have come out of or gone into storage since then).

The pool codes are irrelevant - Freightliner have operated their 66s (excluding the 66/6s) and 70s on a common user basis. They are, though, leased to one of the two operational businesses, which may be the basis of any split.

It should also be noted that although the Class 90s are owned by Intermodal, it has been reported elsewhere that they are operated by Heavyhaul (who run the trains for Intemodal), I think due to lower EC4T charges for Heavyhaul.

 

[sprinterguy]

The pool codes are irrelevant - Freightliner have operated their 66s (excluding the 66/6s) and 70s on a common user basis. They are, though, leased to one of the two operational businesses, which may be the basis of any split.

Ah, right - I recall there use to be greater differentiation between Intermodal and Heavy Haul machines, which has caused my confusion. In which case I count 39 class 66/5s and /9s and 12 class 70s allocated to Intermodal duties in 2015, when there seems to have been more definite segregation, though I don't know how that may have shifted in the intervening decade. I would assume, personally, there'd be some increase in the requirement for Intermodal motive power and a decrease in Heavy Haul during that time, given the disappearance of power station coal traffic.

That's an interesting point regarding the 90s.

 

[hwl]

Ah, right - I recall there use to be greater differentiation between Intermodal and Heavy Haul machines, which has caused my confusion. In which case I count 39 class 66/5s and /9s and 12 class 70s allocated to Intermodal duties in 2015, when there seems to have been more definite segregation, though I don't know how that may have shifted in the intervening decade. I would assume, personally, there'd be some increase in the requirement for Intermodal motive power and a decrease in Heavy Haul during that time, giving the disappearance of power station coal traffic.

That's an interesting point regarding the 90s.

And lots of the FL locomotives get used for engineering train at the weekends when intermodal traffic is minimal.

FL Heavyhaul has grown with more construction traffic e.g. the Mendip contract and added 14x Class 59s.

 

[sprinterguy]

FL Heavyhaul has grown with more construction traffic e.g. the Mendip contract and added 14x Class 59s.

True, though I was considering the Mendip operation at least as essentially standalone, in as much as it doesn't require any additional resource from the 66/5 fleet, though I could well be mistaken.

I did notice in my research that the separate Infrastructure pools have completely disappeared now, which must have occurred some years ago, so did briefly wonder how they were resourced these days.

 

[westerndave]

True, though I was considering the Mendip operation at least as essentially standalone, in as much as it doesn't require any additional resource from the 66/5 fleet, though I could well be mistaken.

I did notice in my research that the separate Infrastructure pools have completely disappeared now, which must have occurred some years ago, so did briefly wonder how they were resourced these days.

Loads of 66/5’s diagrams working Mendip trains

 

[sprinterguy]

Loads of 66/5’s diagrams working Mendip trains

Fair play, any idea if that's down to additional traffic demands or unavailability/redeployment of the 59 fleet, out of curiosity?

 

[westerndave]

Fair play, any idea if that's down to additional traffic demands or unavailability/redeployment of the 59 fleet, out of curiosity?

66’s have supplemented the 59’s for many years even when DB had the contract.

 

[Penmorfa]

The UK rail system has suffered from progressive advance of the "standard" dimensions of containers, which started off at 8'0" high, then became 8'6", which needed modification to wagons and some infrastructure, then when that was done 9'0" came along, and now it's 9'6". The road industry has absorbed this much more straightforwardly than rail, with lower lorry decks and smaller wheels.

Double Stack in the USA is very impressive and efficient, but has killed the market for electrification, as the onetime generous headroom structure gauge there has been fully absorbed by them.

Back to Freightliner, and their ownership by G&W is just an intermediate stage, as they in turn are principally owned by Brookfield, an international equity investment organisation who buy and sell companies as commodities.

There are double stack container trains under the wires in India, an example here:

 

[MDB97]

Confirmed internally that FL IM is no longer for sale and will be staying as part of the freightliner group.