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These are the regular Thursday Grangemouth to Derby jet fuel delivery to Rolls Royce Derby Aero engine plant.

I am informed that this Colas service has ceased as of April 7th, anyone confirm.?

Wonder what the reasons are, and how the fuel will be delivered in future.?

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These are the regular Thursday Grangemouth to Derby jet fuel delivery to Rolls Royce Derby Aero engine plant.

I am informed that this Colas service has ceased as of April 7th, anyone confirm.?

Wonder what the reasons are, and how the fuel will be delivered in future.?

Yes Colas ceased running the tanks as it was making a loss.

 

Two rumours going around that 1) Its going by road now and 2) DB-C will will trip the tanks from Doncaster Belmont to Sinfin after coming south from Scotland via a Anglo-Scottish freight....

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As I understand it, Sinfin have changed their supplier in Scotland and the new supplier is using DBC. The tanks will be coming via ECML to Doncaster, but as a separate train, as there aren't any Anglo-Scottish freight services via the ECML. There's a suggestion that the Mossend - Doncaster leg will be electrically hauled, then diesel forward to Sinfin.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Douglas

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nice to find out the news from here!

 

thats one of my regular jobs finished then

You'll have to make do with Jarrow instead Jim! Reopening in the next few weeks with a couple of trains a month to start with, ramping up to 3 trains a week late summer from what I understand. No idea who's got the gig, but rumoured to be Colas...

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What was the loading of this Jim? Looks like six tanks in most of your photos. I can see why 'just' six tanks would be prohibitively expensive to haul from Grangemouth to Derby. I'm amazed that it couldn't come from a closer refinery.

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What was the loading of this Jim? Looks like six tanks in most of your photos. I can see why 'just' six tanks would be prohibitively expensive to haul from Grangemouth to Derby. I'm amazed that it couldn't come from a closer refinery.

I think only Grangemouth supplies Aviation fuel that can be transported by rail. Most major airports receive their fuel by pipeline - which was constructed in WW2 direct from the refinery. The reason for 6 tanks is I think the holding tanks capacity at Rolls Royce is equal to around 6 TEA's worth of fuel. The fuel was at one time transported in TTA 4 wheel tanks in EWS days.

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They must be building a lot of jet engines to need that much fuel for testing

Yes I have always thought its a lot of fuel for just testing.......but I am informed that the testing is rigorous as you might expect, and the engines are run many hours at high throttle settings, massive usage of jet fuel.

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Yes I have always thought its a lot of fuel for just testing.......but I am informed that the testing is rigorous as you might expect, and the engines are run many hours at high throttle settings, massive usage of jet fuel.

 

Nearly all aircraft maintenance and overall is based upon flying hours.

 

Engines and other key components are regularly swapped out, regardless of condition, when overhaul falls due, and then sent away, presumably back to the manufacturers, for more detailed inspection and replacement of key components.

 

Perhaps Rolls Royce has plenty of overhaul work as well as building new engines.

 

With modern jet engines, they say your average newly trained pilot can expect to go through a whole career of flying and never once experience an engine failure.

 

So reliable that twin engined aircraft are now the norm transatlantic and ETOPS has been extended to nearly two hundred miles from the nearest dry land and divert airport.

 

To think, I remember one of those class 50s, on the one remaining, via High Wycombe, Paddington- Birmingham service, that couldn't make it beyond Leamington without covering the front carriage in oil.

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So reliable that twin engined aircraft are now the norm transatlantic and ETOPS has been extended to nearly two hundred miles from the nearest dry land and divert airport.

It's much more than that infact. ETOPS is rated in minutes away from the nearest diversion airport. The norm is ETOPS 240, that is four hours from any airport which will equate to about 2000 miles. The Boeing 777 and 787 are rated ETOPS 330, which is five and a half hours from an airport. And the Airbus A350XWB is rated ETOPS 370! That could be over three THOUSAND miles from an airport. As you say engine failures are incredibly rare now, allowing such long flights over water.

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It's much more than that infact. ETOPS is rated in minutes away from the nearest diversion airport. The norm is ETOPS 240, that is four hours from any airport which will equate to about 2000 miles. The Boeing 777 and 787 are rated ETOPS 330, which is five and a half hours from an airport. And the Airbus A350XWB is rated ETOPS 370! That could be over three THOUSAND miles from an airport. As you say engine failures are incredibly rare now, allowing such long flights over water.

 

I'm obviously a little out of touch then.

 

I know ETOPS is always being continuously uprated but based on those figures it now seems four engine aircraft (which are still being operated) offer no speed advantage whatsoever transatlantic.

 

In 2014 I made the effort to book a KLM transatlantic flight (Birmingham - Chicago via Amsterdam and Montreal) in order to fly their last commercial tri-jet route MD-11 (used to be called the DC10).

 

However four engines are still going to be available, as they are now using the A380 on some routes and, for now, the older 747 and A340 are still around, though getting scarce.

 

Before they extended the runway it was great fun flying from Birmingham to Newark, on the daily direct flight, United Airlines Boeing 757. There wasn't much runway left by the time that got in the air, normally a full load, just two engines and tanks full to the brim, right on the limit.

 

I became convinced we were going to finish our take off on the M42.

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With modern ETOPS the only routes that can't be run are Australia to South America I think. The real advantage of four engines is that they can lift a much bigger aircraft off the ground. Also in hot and high airports two engine aircraft can be severely weight limited so four engines offer an advantage there. Iberia have quite a few four engine aircraft for South American routes.

I think transatlantic a lot of airlines now use smaller aircraft such as the 777 and offer more flights a day. I think BA do something like six a day LHR-JFK. Although the 777 is hardly small now. It's latest iteration offers as many seats as the original 747.

If you like four engine aircraft then Emirates is the airline for you. They have 142 A380s on order, with 75 so far delivered!

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