On the local news tonight there was a piece about the proposed trans-pennine tunnel from Mottram > Sheffield thats currently in the planning faze. As usual (although perhaps understandably due to the multi-billion cost), there are opponents and it didn’t take long for some local official to trot out the “we need to get freight on the railways” line.
Why are people so ill-informed about transport constantly given a platform to spout their BS? Or am I missing something here?
The vast majority of HGV traffic on Woodhead & passing through the villages during the day are out & about making deliveries and collections direct from shops & businesses, so how is rail infrastructure really going to solve that? There is a place for rail infrastructure for moving goods from one side of the country to another (ie. with containers), but it’s usefulness is surely massively impeded by the fact the whole process of transferring goods in & out of freight terminals and then on & off the train massively increases the time it takes to move the load? Not much good for domestic work in todays ‘next day delivery’ society.
So how do we get freight off the roads? The inconvenient truth to the car brigade is to a large degree in my opinion is… we can’t!!
If we get more freight on the tracks that means more rail jobs and some people on here keep banging on about how being a train driver is the best job in the world.
Spot on mate, you just can’t. We’re a necessary evil. And all you do by transferring to rail, is save diesel. The train only saves the journey by road, along motorways and trunk roads. The urban side of the delivery is still by road. Unless these cretins want a rail sidings at the end of every street
So IF they build a tunnel, no doubt it will be a toll tunnel.
So I doubt hauliers will consider using it, & drivers will continue to use the old routes
peirre:
So IF they build a tunnel, no doubt it will be a toll tunnel.
So I doubt hauliers will consider using it, & drivers will continue to use the old routes
DJC:
The railway isn’t an unlimited capacity, as far as I know it’s pretty much maxed as it is.
Very much agree with that, and as far as I can see the future investment will be to increase passenger services, getting people out of their cars and onto trains is where the big environmental savings are. And less cars on the road is a good thing. With 90+% of all mainland transport of goods, the railway just can not compete with the truck.
the way would be to have roll on roll off trains that you drive the HGV onto, put on break and drive off at the destonation. like they have in switzerland
People forget that even in the days of branchlines when virtually every station had at least one goods siding, goods still had to make that last few miles of its’ journey by road. People forget or don’t realise that goods trains stopping at every station to drop off or pick up wagons was a loss maker. The only earner regarding freight were long distance trains carrying fuels, aggregates, containers etc.
I do think however that all large cities should have a container depot.
chrisdalott:
the way would be to have roll on roll off trains that you drive the HGV onto, put on break and drive off at the destonation. like they have in switzerland
The local news was quoting comparisons with the worlds longest road tunnel in Norway
There is nothing wrong with Freight on rails.
It’s ridiculous and backwards to truck containers from ports in the south and east of the country, all the way to the north west and Scotland.
If I mind correctly to send a container from Middlesborough to Eurocentral in Mossend by rail, it needs to go via Coventry as the tunnels are to low for any container (the corners won’t fit)
Truck transport should be the final mile(s) to the destination.
It works in other countries, Germany put a lot of freight onto river boats and railway, and have container terminals in most cities.
The Netherlands put freight on canal boats, and even smaller places can handle containers.
Why not, more and more drivers want a familie life, being more home, so why racing around across the country, and crossing over with empty trucks?
That doesn’t help our economic grow.
Have a look on the M6 for a day and count how many trucks drive there empty or partially loaded?
What a waste of time and money.
I am not against moving forward and bring Britain back to the train leading nation, it was once.
And no train will never do fine distribution, no multi drop, but it will cover the useless long distance waste of time and space.
Britain is a long country, roughly the length from Amsterdam to Bologna in Italy, have a look how much freight goes daily on the train from Rotterdam to Italy, Spain, Austria, Germany etc.
And there is still plenty work for HGV drivers.
What is not to want there?
Joe Public are ignorant in all aspects of road haulage, to them lorries are inconvenient to them holding them up on their boring and mundane daily commute .
The smallest mistake we make, you get the horn blarring and offer Gareth Hunts finest coffee beans .
In Italy, you can take the lorry on a long journey to Austria, drivers sleep in a carriage and not in the cab .It is on a train .
DJC:
The railway isn’t an unlimited capacity, as far as I know it’s pretty much maxed as it is.
Somewhat randomly, one of my dentist’s other customers is a train engineer and his words are, to take 5% of transport off the road, would require a doubling of the rail freight network. That’s a big undertaking. For long containerised journeys, it makes a lot of sense. However, I think a lot of the great general public seem to think that the railways can magically sort out pretty much all freight so they can have empty roads to pootle around on.
Further afield, the freight train service that had recently started between Calais and the French Pyrenees has been cancelled due to migrant activity.
Its a laugh aint it, so Wednesday, I get a box for a delivery to Chapeltown Sheffield, from Freightliner Doncaster, after that I have to load the same Container in Chadderton on Thursday morning, returning it to Freightliner Donny. So which way am I going to go, obviously Woodhead. Though this container has done the majority of its journey and did its subsequent return journey(to port) by rail, I still would have been counted as part of the problem, by those whom perceive rail freight as the answer yet it was the ideal intermodal job(Sea Rail Road-Road Rail Sea), these people need to realise that they don’t know what journey the truck they’re seeing is doing
chrisdalott:
the way would be to have roll on roll off trains that you drive the HGV onto, put on break and drive off at the destonation. like they have in switzerland
The local news was quoting comparisons with the worlds longest road tunnel in Norway
The Hupac system is very slow, uncomfortable and is very stop start, but I agree with basing lorries at terminals and let the train take the strain. I used to work out of a rail terminal in Italy and the vehicle and I earned decent money.
dieseldog999:
surely time for c/f to ■■■■ in and derail the rail thread about now?
The original post is almost Carryfast inspired. The classic lines of BS and " the inconvenient truth" .
The nearest we had to a platform by every village was pre Dr Beeching. Lorries required to move things to and from the goods yards. So it’s a case of choose where you want the same amount of lorries. At goods yard bottle necks in every town, village or spread around the UK? Still the same amount of tonne age needing moving. Rail opportunists ignore this detail.
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