50,000 less containers per year out of Southampton

Carryfast:

Mike-C:

bringbakbiffa:
i dont know why there is this dislike of rail !!! I think there will be lots more intermodal terminals and trucks and trains will be working together more in the future .Rail is a vital part of the landscape and are going to get more important as time goes on !!! .

I couldn’t agree more mate. The alternative seems to be whats happening now, all the way from manufacturer to retailer from abroad by foreign trucks, give me trains anyday.

I’d rather see a foreign truck take the load all the way than let the rail transport industry do the best part of the job leaving British road transport with the dregs at the end of the journey.If the british truck drivers want to do the job which they should be doing then it’s up to them to try to get a job driving one of those foreign wagons.But rail’s idea of trucks and trains working ‘together’ just means good jobs for train drivers and local multi drop work for truck drivers.But it seems very strange to hear a truck driver say that they don’t know why a truck driver should dislike the rail industry when road and rail should be competing against each other not co operating.Unless it’s the government plan to make a transport monopoly.

eh?

Transport is a commodity, when a lot of goods have to be moved from one place to another a train is the most cost effective way of doing it. In the USA & Canada containers only travel very short distances by road, the big transport companies all have big intermodal divisions & a lot of trailers travel part of their journey by rail, it makes sense, when you factor in the huge distances involved over here. It also makes sense in the UK with containers at least, if there are 200 containers on the dock in Southampton that are all going to the West Midlands then 200 lorries will be needed to deliver those boxes, unless you stick them on a train to Birmingham, then you would only need 60 odd lorries to deliver them, each lorry would do 2 or 3 local deliveries from the railhead, fuel costs will be lower, wages will be lower & you’ll need both less in number & less expensive lorries to do the work, shipping companies move containers around the world for one reason, to make money, they’re not in it so that drivers can drive long distances in top of the range lorries :open_mouth:

Completely agree with newmercman. If it is more efficient for goods to be transported in bulk by rail, then that’s how it should be done, regardless of any self-interest we may have.

The whole point of containerisation has always been to move goods in bulk as much as possible and to reduce one-man-operation movements to a minimum. Were it any other way, we would all be driving overland to China to collect all that tat :wink:

newmercman:
Transport is a commodity, when a lot of goods have to be moved from one place to another a train is the most cost effective way of doing it. In the USA & Canada containers only travel very short distances by road, they’re not in it so that drivers can drive long distances in top of the range lorries :open_mouth:

So what are all of those top of the range long haul wagons out there actually doing then? :laughing: :laughing: and if rail is more efficient then surely all freight going long haul over there would be going by container and rail :unamused: ■■.So it looks as though we’ve not only just wrecked our own long haul road transport industry by switching to rail in an afternoon’s discussion on here but the yanks have as well ? :unamused: :laughing: .

Mike-C:

Carryfast:

Mike-C:

bringbakbiffa:
i dont know why there is this dislike of rail !!! I think there will be lots more intermodal terminals and trucks and trains will be working together more in the future .Rail is a vital part of the landscape and are going to get more important as time goes on !!! .

I couldn’t agree more mate. The alternative seems to be whats happening now, all the way from manufacturer to retailer from abroad by foreign trucks, give me trains anyday.

I’d rather see a foreign truck take the load all the way than let the rail transport industry do the best part of the job leaving British road transport with the dregs at the end of the journey.If the british truck drivers want to do the job which they should be doing then it’s up to them to try to get a job driving one of those foreign wagons.But rail’s idea of trucks and trains working ‘together’ just means good jobs for train drivers and local multi drop work for truck drivers.But it seems very strange to hear a truck driver say that they don’t know why a truck driver should dislike the rail industry when road and rail should be competing against each other not co operating.Unless it’s the government plan to make a transport monopoly.

eh?

To put it simply would you prefer to be driving a decent wagon on international work or using a class 1 licence to do local muti drop here with a 44 tonner instead of just driving a taxi cab :unamused: :laughing: ?.

Carryfast:
So what are all of those top of the range long haul wagons out there actually doing then? :laughing: :laughing: and if rail is more efficient then surely all freight going long haul over there would be going by container and rail :unamused: ■■. .

Some movements are more efficient by road, perhaps because the collection point and delivery point are not well rail-connected, or because the goods are time-sensitivem but if you double-deck containers onto a train which is a mile long, this is more efficient and less polluting than having them all individually hauled by trucks.

Maybe

Carryfast:
‘… our own long haul road transport industry …’

…in the terms that you descibe is a relative term.

Meanwhile, when was

Carryfast:
‘…switching to rail in an afternoon’s discussion…’

carried out?

Harry Monk:
Completely agree with newmercman. If it is more efficient for goods to be transported in bulk by rail, then that’s how it should be done, regardless of any self-interest we may have.

The whole point of containerisation has always been to move goods in bulk as much as possible and to reduce one-man-operation movements to a minimum. Were it any other way, we would all be driving overland to China to collect all that tat :wink:

So how were they running freight economically to Asia and the Middle East by road from here in the 1970’s and early 1980’s? and if it was’nt for the high road fuel taxes and transit taxes etc etc we still could.Given the right roads and big enough trucks and the same fuel prices as rail pays yes overland to China why not?.

Harry Monk:

Carryfast:
So what are all of those top of the range long haul wagons out there actually doing then? :laughing: :laughing: and if rail is more efficient then surely all freight going long haul over there would be going by container and rail :unamused: ■■. .

Some movements are more efficient by road, perhaps because the collection point and delivery point are not well rail-connected, or because the goods are time-sensitivem but if you double-deck containers onto a train which is a mile long, this is more efficient and less polluting than having them all individually hauled by trucks.

Not if you double or triple the capacity of the trucks which is why the ozzies did’nt bother building railways all over Australia they just couple more trailers onto each truck.That’s one area where the yanks got left behind years ago.But you don’t get something for nothing a mile long train needs plenty of power and fuel and if it’s so fuel efficient then it could afford to pay £5 per gallon for diesel like road transport here pays??.

Carryfast:
Not if you double or triple the capacity of the trucks which is why the ozzies did’nt bother building railways all over Australia they just couple more trailers onto each truck.

But Australia is entirely different to the USA. It is a far less populated country. It makes more economic sense to move containers with roadtrains than to build railways.

The point is that containers will always be moved in the most efficient way possible.

Happy Keith:
Maybe

Carryfast:
‘… our own long haul road transport industry …’

…in the terms that you descibe is a relative term.

Meanwhile, when was

Carryfast:
‘…switching to rail in an afternoon’s discussion…’

carried out?

When British and Ex Pat (long distance?) truck drivers on here made a majority decision to follow the government line that rail is the most efficient way of moving freight over long distances? :laughing: .That just leaves the East European ones now to follow suit :unamused: :laughing: :laughing:

Harry Monk:

Carryfast:
Not if you double or triple the capacity of the trucks which is why the ozzies did’nt bother building railways all over Australia they just couple more trailers onto each truck.

But Australia is entirely different to the USA. It is a far less populated country. It makes more economic sense to move containers with roadtrains than to build railways.

The point is that containers will always be moved in the most efficient way possible.

That sounds like a contradiction to me.No OZ is just like the States and Canada and Asia and most of Europe with most of it’s population living in certain places with miles of relatively empty country between and if long distance rail transport is supposed to be more efficient than road then the argument would hold true wherever in the world.

Carryfast, you just don’t seem to understand how transport works.

You carry 28 tonnes of goods on your trailer because that makes more sense that getting 28 van drivers to do it.

They put 30,000 containers on a container ship because that makes more sense than getting 30,000 truck drivers to move them.

200 containers on a train is more efficient than 200 lorries and drivers.

This Wiki page explains containerisation fairly well…

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Containerization

Carryfast:
if long distance rail transport is supposed to be more efficient than road then the argument would hold true wherever in the world.

No, that’s my whole point, it depends entirely on local circumstances.

Harry Monk:

Carryfast:
if long distance rail transport is supposed to be more efficient than road then the argument would hold true wherever in the world.

No, that’s my whole point, it depends entirely on local circumstances.

So what’s the big difference between a road train running long distance in OZ, North America,or Europe.

Harry Monk:
Carryfast, you just don’t seem to understand how transport works.

You carry 28 tonnes of goods on your trailer because that makes more sense that getting 28 van drivers to do it.

They put 30,000 containers on a container ship because that makes more sense than getting 30,000 truck drivers to move them.

200 containers on a train is more efficient than 200 lorries and drivers.

This Wiki page explains containerisation fairly well…

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Containerization

But putting 50 tonnes+ of payload on a 72 tonner gross eight wheeler drawbar outfit or an 84 tonner gross double artic would beat the fuel efficiency of a freight train.But wiki won’t tell you that because it does’nt exist and the government does’nt want it to.

Cities in Australia are thousands of miles apart. In the UK they are on average probably 50 miles apart.

It made economic sense to build railways here in the 1800s and it can still, under limited circumstances, make economic sense to use them now. It wouldn’t make economic sense for Australia to build 6000 miles of railway to replace 20 roadtrains a week.

Carryfast:
‘… So what’s the big difference between a road train running long distance in OZ, North America,or Europe…’

Er, population density?

Harry Monk:
Cities in Australia are thousands of miles apart. In the UK they are on average probably 50 miles apart.

It made economic sense to build railways here in the 1800s and it can still, under limited circumstances, make economic sense to use them now. It wouldn’t make economic sense for Australia to build 6000 miles of railway to replace 20 roadtrains a week.

Who’s talking about uk work only but it’s a lot further than 50 mile runs which those container trains are running here in the uk or it would’nt make any sense at all to bother putting them on the rail network at that distance.Sothampton to Glasgow,Manchester,Leeds etc rail versus road using 72 tonners or 84 tonners tax free fuel and no road tax for the trucks bring it on let’s see who wins out :laughing: :laughing:

Happy Keith:

Carryfast:
‘… So what’s the big difference between a road train running long distance in OZ, North America,or Europe…’

Er, population density?

Like New York City versus Nevada,New Mexico etc etc.Or France through to Italy versus central London.But no one is going to run a road train through New York City or central London just as the ozzies don’t run them through Sydney :laughing: :laughing: