Harwich Ferry

[jopsuk]

With speed and gas guzzling, it is noticeable that the massive Stena twins on the Harwich route aren't particularly fast, in common with most north sea, English channel and Irish sea/north channel services. This is perhaps just down to the fairly short crossings (mainly), with the longer ones not needing to be faster as they fit convenient service intervals. a lot of the Med ferries are quite a bit faster, easily doing 28-30knts and generally cruising at at least 25knts, whilst the ferries sering the UK generally have a top speed around 22knts and operate at 18-20knts.

 

[Bald Rick]

The market for such services has all but been killed by the low-cost airlines. Even in an ideal reduced carbon future I don't see any chance of a revival

I genuinely don’t know, but I wonder what the comparative environmental credentails are of a 60,000 tonne ferry pushing its way from Harwich to Hook and an A320neo flying from Luton to, say, Berlin; per passenger journey.

 

[Bletchleyite]

A shame the longer routes over the North Sea no longer exist. The Harwich to Hamburg route was a very nice length, while with the Harwich to Esbjerg route you had long enough to enjoy the bar and (sloping) dancefloor

Harwich-Hamburg was great, particularly the run down the Elbe. Truncating it to Cuxhaven killed it, though it was flaky anyway.

I genuinely don’t know, but I wonder what the comparative environmental credentails are of a 60,000 tonne ferry pushing its way from Harwich to Hook and an A320neo flying from Luton to, say, Berlin; per passenger journey.

I would be absolutely amazed if the aircraft wasn't better, to be honest. Shipping really does need to explore alternative power - including, for long distance freight (but less so ferries), sail.

I guess where ferries potentially win out is the shorter routes like Dover-Calais with rail on either side (or the Tunnel).

 

[BayPaul]

I would be absolutely amazed if the aircraft wasn't better, to be honest. Shipping really does need to explore alternative power - including, for long distance freight (but less so ferries), sail.
I guess where ferries potentially win out is the shorter routes like Dover-Calais with rail on either side (or the Tunnel).

Sail is here - Viking Line and Scandlines both have a Norsepower rotor sail on top of one of their ferries. There is a huge amount of investment in alternative power - Stena Line are some of the leaders for long distance ships. In Norway for the local domestic ferries, they are now phasing OUT LNG, and replacing with battery technology. It isn't quite developped enough for long-distance shipping yet, but Color Line's new Color Hybrid, also operating in Norway can go a good long way on her batteries - basically she does the port transits through sensitive areas on battery then the transit on MGO fuel oil. Calmac introduced a trio of Hybrid short-distance ferries a couple of years ago, but they aren't plug-in hybrids as far as I am aware, so they don't have a huge reduction in consumption yet. Wightlink's new Victoria of Wight is similar.
LNG is now quite common, especially in the Baltic, but also in the UK (Brittany Ferries, Calmac) and in the Med - not perfect, but better than MGO. Stena has done some good trials on Methanol.

If anything, I think the rail industry needs to catch up with ferries for alternative power!

Comparing like for like is difficult for ferries - how do you split the emission per passenger and the emission per tonne of freight to come up with a figure for each. Certainly a large container ship is about the most efficient way you can move cargo (with the possible exception of electric rail, though there is no comparison of the quantities - one ship can move 10000 40 ft containers!) One big advantage that longer routes tend to have for freightis that they tend to replace a much more indirect road link. Foot passengers on a ferry could reasonably be considered free from a CO2 point of view, as they make no difference to the consumption, and the ferry would run with or without them, which isn't true for air.

 

[37201xoIM]

With sea transport, it's about economies of scale - massive economies of scale - in energy-use terms. Also you're up against the basic laws of physics: resistance to moving 1kg through water is very low; an aircraft obviously has to provide lift and thrust to overcome weight and drag. And finally, in CO2 terms, an aircraft produces emissions at high altitude, where their radiative forcing impacts are amplified significantly (factors of 1.5 to 4 are often cited - there is uncertainty / disagreement in the sources) and additional pollutants also relevant to radiative forcing are also emitted in large amounts.

So in short: yes, the ferry is going to be a lot better in all but the most extreme of comparisons. There's a reason for Flygskam...

If anything, I think the rail industry needs to catch up with ferries for alternative power!

That's a little harsh! We've had non-carbon power sources available for rail for over a century... a reasonably mature alternative power technology!

 

[Bald Rick]

[

Foot passengers on a ferry could reasonably be considered free from a CO2 point of view, as they make no difference to the consumption, and the ferry would run with or without them, which isn't true for air.

I agree, but one of the suggestions often posted is that there could be more Ferries to deal with passenger flows vice air traffic. Of course the Ferries would have freight / cars / etc, and you’re right, it’s difficult to make a direct comparison.

With sea transport, it's about economies of scale - massive economies of scale - in energy-use terms. Also you're up against the basic laws of physics: resistance to moving 1kg through water is very low; an aircraft obviously has to provide lift and thrust to overcome weight and drag. And finally, in CO2 terms, an aircraft produces emissions at high altitude, where their radiative forcing impacts are amplified significantly (factors of 1.5 to 4 are often cited - there is uncertainty / disagreement in the sources) and additional pollutants also relevant to radiative forcing are also emitted in large amounts.

So in short: yes, the ferry is going to be a lot better in all but the most extreme of comparisons.

Notwithstanding my comment above about actually allocating carbon to a passenger...It’s quite simple. How much fuel does a ferry use to get across the North Sea, and how many passengers could it carry? I’m not sure it’s going to be clear cut.

 

[37201xoIM]

Neither air nor ferry are pure passenger carriers, in the vast majority of cases, including the cases likely to be material here: the ferry largely conveys freight and most passenger aircraft carry belly-loads. For the freight angle, these figures appear to suggest that per unit of freight mass sea is roughly 100 times more energy-efficient.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_efficiency_in_transport#German_environmental_costs - that obviously seems a rather large difference, and I suspect that overall the differential will not be as great in real-world situations such as being discussed here.

 

[BayPaul]

That's a little harsh! We've had non-carbon power sources available for rail for over a century... a reasonably mature alternative power technology!

Fair enough, but many of the solutions talked about as bionic duckweed on rail seem to be progressing OK at sea - battery systems that plug in to charge for each turnaround, wind power, ammonia, methanol. The marine industry is being pretty innovative at present, and things are moving from drawing board to steel quickly, while on rail it feels like it takes a long time for innovation to get off the drawing board. And OH electrification is rather simpler for rail than for sea!

I agree, but one of the suggestions often posted is that there could be more Ferries to deal with passenger flows vice air traffic. Of course the Ferries would have freight / cars / etc, and you’re right, it’s difficult to make a direct comparison.

Notwithstanding my comment above about actually allocating carbon to a passenger...It’s quite simple. How much fuel does a ferry use to get across the North Sea, and how many passengers could it carry? I’m not sure it’s going to be clear cut.

If you only allocate the carbon to the passengers it is very clear cut using that calculation - the plane is much more efficent. This isn't very fair to the ferry that is using 90%+ of its deadweight for carrying cargo. I don't have the figures to hand at present, but as far as I recall if you use a figure of 1 pax = 1 tonne of cargo which is a fairly reasonable allocation (and the one used on the wiki page referenced by 37201xoIM), then the ship is generally much more efficient if the load factor is reasonable.

Neither air nor ferry are pure passenger carriers, in the vast majority of cases, including the cases likely to be material here: the ferry largely conveys freight and most passenger aircraft carry belly-loads. For the freight angle, these figures appear to suggest that per unit of freight mass sea is roughly 100 times more energy-efficient.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_efficiency_in_transport#German_environmental_costs - that obviously seems a rather large difference, and I suspect that overall the differential will not be as great in real-world situations such as being discussed here.

Sea freight on average being 100 times as efficient as air freight sounds about right, if anything I would expect it to be even greater. Those figures show sea freight as being roughly 3 times as efficent as rail freight, which seems about right too. A ferry is going to be on the low end of those numbers, as a much larger % of a ferry is wasted space than on a container or bulk ship.

 

[37201xoIM]

Good points, Paul - I think that makes a lot of sense.

 

[Mikey C]

Fair enough, but many of the solutions talked about as bionic duckweed on rail seem to be progressing OK at sea - battery systems that plug in to charge for each turnaround, wind power, ammonia, methanol. The marine industry is being pretty innovative at present, and things are moving from drawing board to steel quickly, while on rail it feels like it takes a long time for innovation to get off the drawing board. And OH electrification is rather simpler for rail than for sea!


If you only allocate the carbon to the passengers it is very clear cut using that calculation - the plane is much more efficent. This isn't very fair to the ferry that is using 90%+ of its deadweight for carrying cargo. I don't have the figures to hand at present, but as far as I recall if you use a figure of 1 pax = 1 tonne of cargo which is a fairly reasonable allocation (and the one used on the wiki page referenced by 37201xoIM), then the ship is generally much more efficient if the load factor is reasonable.


Sea freight on average being 100 times as efficient as air freight sounds about right, if anything I would expect it to be even greater. Those figures show sea freight as being roughly 3 times as efficent as rail freight, which seems about right too. A ferry is going to be on the low end of those numbers, as a much larger % of a ferry is wasted space than on a container or bulk ship.

Yes, a lot of space on ferries is taken up by carrying lorries - the tractor and trailer - which the container ship does without, though clearly it makes for much improved overall end to end speed for the cargo

 

[BayPaul]

Yes, a lot of space on ferries is taken up by carrying lorries - the tractor and trailer - which the container ship does without, though clearly it makes for much improved overall end to end speed for the cargo

Also the space required to manoeuvre (in particular down to the lower deck), between the lorry wheels, the headroom between the lorry and the deckhead, the thickness of the deck itself are all spaces that don't need to exist on a container ship. As you say though, the rapid turnaround time, and zero time to change mode outweighs that, especially on routes of <24 hours. And if freight ferries waste a lot of space, train ferries make them look superb - a large train ferry can only carry an almost pathetic amount of cargo!

 

[37201xoIM]

And if freight ferries waste a lot of space, train ferries make them look superb - a large train ferry can only carry an almost pathetic amount of cargo!

That's an interesting point - is that correct? While clear not as good as containers (let alone a bulk carrier of course!), I would have thought that if it were full, at least theoretically a train ferry could possibly make better use of deck space by eliminating or reducing some of the factors you flag: room for tractors (no locos on the train ferry of course), room for lorries to manoeuvre (the wagons would be couple together meaning less gap between units of payload in length terms, and in width terms you'd only need such width as required for any on-foot inspection / securing by staff? Don't get me wrong: I'm not claiming any special knowledge - it's just that you raise an interesting point, albeit one that is perhaps theoretical now as there aren't a lot of train-ferries around and those that are around are likely not to have such efficient load factors!

 

[Gloster]

And if freight ferries waste a lot of space, train ferries make them look superb - a large train ferry can only carry an almost pathetic amount of cargo!

From travelling on Danish train ferries in the days when they were more relaxed about passengers being on the car-deck, I would say that they use space a bit less efficiently than freight ones, but not to a pathetic level. Lengthwise I would reckon that the buffing and coupling gear would take up approximately the same amount of space as tractors, but transversally wagons are slightly further apart, although not necessarily enough to fit in another line of lorries. You might be able to fit a few more vehicles where the tracks come together at bow or stern.

 

[BayPaul]

That's an interesting point - is that correct? While clear not as good as containers (let alone a bulk carrier of course!), I would have thought that if it were full, at least theoretically a train ferry could possibly make better use of deck space by eliminating or reducing some of the factors you flag: room for tractors (no locos on the train ferry of course), room for lorries to manoeuvre (the wagons would be couple together meaning less gap between units of payload in length terms, and in width terms you'd only need such width as required for any on-foot inspection / securing by staff? Don't get me wrong: I'm not claiming any special knowledge - it's just that you raise an interesting point, albeit one that is perhaps theoretical now as there aren't a lot of train-ferries around and those that are around are likely not to have such efficient load factors!

Trains actually need a lot more space for these things than trucks - you can park trailers within about an inch of each other in a block stow - the tractors often don't travel with the ferry, so the trailers are put as close as possible, as this avoids shifting. By parking in order it is possible to put in the securing chains and gear on one trailer, then block in in with the next - there is not normally room for a person to pass between them. Trains need to be further apart, as they need to move on the same line that they are stowed in and can't corner as tightly. Experienced tugmaster drivers can fit a trailer into the tightest possible space, especially around the bow and stern, where a curved track would be needed so trains can't be stowed. Also, there is often enough variation in length of trucks to allow each lane to be stowed full, whilst trains need to come on in order, wasting space at bow and stern. But most importantly, a roadfreight ferry can load 4 decks of freight, and load them all efficiently. Railfreight is basically limited to a single deck, though there have been a few very complex systems to allow an entire train to be lifted to the deck above. Skane - a large trainferry running from Sweden to Germany carries 1100 metres of rail freight or 3300 metres of road freight.

 

[BigCj34]

Yes, the journey could do with being a couple of hours longer

A shame the longer routes over the North Sea no longer exist. The Harwich to Hamburg route was a very nice length, while with the Harwich to Esbjerg route you had long enough to enjoy the bar and (sloping) dancefloor

If you did not get woken up 90 minutes before arrival so Stena could upsell their £10 breakfast that would be a start!

 

[Alfie1014]

Fair enough, but many of the solutions talked about as bionic duckweed on rail seem to be progressing OK at sea - battery systems that plug in to charge for each turnaround, wind power, ammonia, methanol. The marine industry is being pretty innovative at present, and things are moving from drawing board to steel quickly, while on rail it feels like it takes a long time for innovation to get off the drawing board. And OH electrification is rather simpler for rail than for sea!


If you only allocate the carbon to the passengers it is very clear cut using that calculation - the plane is much more efficent. This isn't very fair to the ferry that is using 90%+ of its deadweight for carrying cargo. I don't have the figures to hand at present, but as far as I recall if you use a figure of 1 pax = 1 tonne of cargo which is a fairly reasonable allocation (and the one used on the wiki page referenced by 37201xoIM), then the ship is generally much more efficient if the load factor is reasonable.


Sea freight on average being 100 times as efficient as air freight sounds about right, if anything I would expect it to be even greater. Those figures show sea freight as being roughly 3 times as efficent as rail freight, which seems about right too. A ferry is going to be on the low end of those numbers, as a much larger % of a ferry is wasted space than on a container or bulk ship.

Interestingly after reading this thread earlier I had a look to see what I could find on line. It's very complicated and confusing to say the least with very few direct comparisons that said the always reliable Man in Seat 61 https://www.seat61.com/CO2flights.htm has this table. Though the sources may now be somewhat out of date, but even substituting a 15% reduction in co2 for the aircraft figure for using a neo airbus the carbon footprint of the Amsterdam journey the train/ferry is still estimated to be about 75% less than flying. Ferry pax at 22.5g/km against 110g/km (direct) + 120g/km (indirect) for short haul aviation. Of course there are many variables, not least load factor of the vehicles/vessels, engine efficency, generation source for electric power for both rail (and road) etc...

That said another source quotes that taking a HGV through the channel tunnel is 1/20th of the carbon footprint of taking it across on a ferry!

 

[Gloster]

#44 With the Danish ones it always seemed that the road tractor went onboard with the trailer (proper ro-ro?); I never saw any use of tugmasters. The shunters at the various terminals seemed to be very efficient at preparing rakes of wagons of just the right length to fit on the train-decks.

 

[BayPaul]

With speed and gas guzzling, it is noticeable that the massive Stena twins on the Harwich route aren't particularly fast, in common with most north sea, English channel and Irish sea/north channel services. This is perhaps just down to the fairly short crossings (mainly), with the longer ones not needing to be faster as they fit convenient service intervals. a lot of the Med ferries are quite a bit faster, easily doing 28-30knts and generally cruising at at least 25knts, whilst the ferries sering the UK generally have a top speed around 22knts and operate at 18-20knts.

Part of the reason for this is the water depth - the North Sea is pretty shallow, which has a considerable impact on ship speed - it makes a displacement vessel going very fast much less efficent, don't ask me why, but I guess the bow wave interacts with the bottom and absorbs a lot of energy. Superfast did run with their high speed vessels from Rosyth to Zeebrugge however, so it can be made to work. More importantly, speed is taylored to the route. If there is no particular reason to go faster, they won't. So Brittany Ferries runs at high speed down to Spain to achieve a 24h crossing time which improves vessel utilisation. Color Line run at 28 knots from Denmark to Norway as it allowed them to replace 3 overnight ferries with 2 day ferries. Townsend Thoresen ran the Spirit Class from Dover to Calais at 24 knots to get a 5th crossing in per day, and the Superfast type ferries in Greece run that fast to maintain a 48h round trip from Ancona to Patras, or to allow a day crossing to the islands that would previously have been an overnight.

#44 With the Danish ones it always seemed that the road tractor went onboard with the trailer (proper ro-ro?); I never saw any use of tugmasters. The shunters at the various terminals seemed to be very efficient at preparing rakes of wagons of just the right length to fit on the train-decks.

Shorter routes tend to be the full truck driven on, longer routes are tugmasters, but it doesn't hugely impact capacity - a tractor with trailer is 16.5m, a trailer is 13.5m. It often impacts whether the ferry is deisgned as drive-through or just stern loading. If loading just the trailers stern loading is much faster, as the stern door is so much wider, and the tugmaster can reverse the trailer on, dump it, and come straight out. If carrying the whole truck then drive-through is quicker, as there is no need for reversing. It is still possible to get a block stow of trailers on a drive through ferry, but you need to keep one lane for proper drive-through traffic, and strangely you load from the open door to the opposite end of the ship. Get it wrong and a tugmaster is taking a free trip to france, and the loading officer is getting tea without biscuits. Actually not even tea!

 

[Mikey C]

Off topic, but really glad I've managed to take a train ferry (Sassnitz to Trelleborg) many years ago as they are an endangered species and an unforgettable experience!

 

[DanielB]

As has been pointed out, though, the own-goal of the HvH Metro conversion has made many journeys more difficult - Schiedam lacks through services in some directions, and the Metro ingeniously doesn't serve Rotterdam CS, which has them all! And no through-ticketing e.g. to Germany (unless this has changed since I last attempted the journey?).

For almost any direction one can travel to from Rotterdam Central only one change is required coming from Hoek van Holland: Schiedam Centrum is served by the IC services towards Amsterdam and Vlissingen, at Rotterdam Alexander one can change for the IC services towards Utrecht.
Exceptions are journeys to Belgium and towards North-Brabant province.

There is also Alexander which is the quickest option for eastbound NS interchanges, but it takes 50 minutes to get to. It is a long time to spend on a metro, it is like taking the Piccadilly line to Heathrow.

However, it's not much slower than when Hoek van Holland was still served by trains: the train journey to Rotterdam Central took 32 minutes, a 12 minute change and 8 minutes travel time to Rotterdam Alexander: that adds up to 50 minutes as well.

Does anyone know how long the Intercity train did take to get to Rotterdam CS?

Pulled some old timetables from my bookshelf: in the 2003 timetable there were two direct trains from Hoek van Holland to Rotterdam Central: Int 452 departed at 15.58 to arrive in Rotterdam at 16.24, which is 6 minutes faster than the Sprinter. Sneltrein 1406 departing at 0.29 and arriving at 0.52 completed the journey 3 minutes faster.
In the other direction journey times were shorter: the Int 453 "London Express" (Sundays only) departed 14.37 from Rotterdam to arrive at 14.55 on Hoek van Holland Haven, on weekdays departure was at 15.07 (as Int 455) and the journey time also just 18 minutes.

The difference probably had something to do with the Rotterdam - Maassluis West Sprinter that was ahead of the London Express. Due to the track layout that train was more in way for the journey towards Rotterdam as it was in the other direction.

 

[BayPaul]

Does anyone know how long the Intercity train did take to get to Rotterdam CS?

And what the frequencies were for IC / are for the metro. If it now takes 50 minutes, but they run every 10 minutes, compared to a 30 min journey every hour, I'd take the time on the warm metro over the cold platform*

*other platform temperatures are available, but it always seems to be chilly whenever I've been in Rotterdam early in the morning!

 

[DanielB]

The Intercity services were only running once a day, offering a direct connection onto the HSS. When the high speed ferry was taken out of service, only an half hourly service by Sprinter taking 32 minutes remained.

Now with metro B the frequency increased to every 20 minutes and a journey towards Rotterdam Central takes 40 minutes (changing to the train at Schiedam Centrum). However passengers travelling to other destinations than Rotterdamm Central can change trains at either Schiedam Centrum or Rotterdam Alexander without any additional journey time. And metro B also takes you directly to the heart of Rotterdam's city center (at Beurs station), which is actually faster than previously by train as you don't need to walk into the city center.

 

[37201xoIM]

If you did not get woken up 90 minutes before arrival so Stena could upsell their £10 breakfast that would be a start!

Too bleedin' true!!!

Thanks for the very interesting inside info above, Bay Paul: I've learnt a lot!

 

[BayPaul]

Too bleedin' true!!!

Thanks for the very interesting inside info above, Bay Paul: I've learnt a lot!

Thanks, and a pleasure. I like learning all about railways on here (and a little crayoning), but I'm a shipping person, so its nice to be able to share something factual for once!

 

[kylemore]

Harwich-Hamburg was great, particularly the run down the Elbe. Truncating it to Cuxhaven killed it, though it was flaky anyway.

Yes the run up to Hamburg was superb - I did it on the Winston Churchill from North Shields - it was a lovely summer's morning, a memory not soon forgotten.

 

[LSWR Cavalier]

I think one problem was the journey being so long, there was too little layover (3-4 h?) in Hamburg or Harwich, too little reserve for delays
It was my favourite too. One time I booked to Hamburg but the sailing was cut short to Cuxhaven, each passenger got GBP 30 as compensation. No problem for me, getting out of Cuxhaven onto the Autobahn was much easier then getting out of Hamburg