Norwegian ballast via Lowestoft to Whitemoor - traffic commenced 27/07/2023

[beast66606]

As per the title, a new flow commenced through Eccles Road on Thursday 27/07/2023 - the commodity is imported ballast from Norway and looks to be a substantial traffic, up to 4 trains per week and boats arriving regularly at Lowestoft. Time will, of course, tell.

 

Eccles Road
27/07/2023 (Thursday)
66745 on 6H52, 19:30, Lowestoft RECP. - Whitemoor Yard L.D.C GBRF (22:45) - loaded stone train (20 IOA), imported ballast from Norway, first run

 

66745 on 6H52, 19:30, Lowestoft RECP. - Whitemoor Yard L.D.C GBRF (22:45) - loaded stone train (20 IOA), imported ballast from Norway, first run

[Wickham Green too]

Crikey, can't we even make ballast in this country nowadays ??!? ☹️

[Fat Controller]

1 hour ago, Wickham Green too said:

Crikey, can't we even make ballast in this country nowadays ??!? ☹️

Limited supplies of the 'right sort of granite' perhaps? More confusingly, spent ballast from Norway is being taken to Longport (Staffs) for the construction industry....

[JeffP]

Where does it go from Whitemoor?

[beast66606]

2 minutes ago, JeffP said:

Where does it go from Whitemoor?

 

Presumably where ever it's required, Anglia mainly but could be anywhere

[Steadfast]

Interesting to see the imported ballast start up, there have been shortages off ballast earlier in the year. I don't know if quarries had issues digging it, turning it into product or what, but there were supply issues.

To illustrate an answer for @JeffP, whist I don't know exactly for Whitemoor, each LDC will send ballast out to worksites in their area. The one I am familiar with (Westbury) sends out ballast trains as far west as Cornwall, East to London, up towards Oxford and Gloucestershire and out to South Wales, as well as points in between. Our ballast comes from Stud Farm in Leicestershire. 

 

Jo

[Mark Saunders]

Taking ballast from Norway is probably shorter than bringing from Glensanda to Teesport!

[chris p bacon]

How much ballast is HS2 going to consume ? could it be that future supplies of ballast from UK quarries have already been pre-purchased for HS2.

[Mark Saunders]

Rumor machine is Belford may reopen, a new point has been added to the Up siding with a connection aimed at the Quarry!

[JeffP]

So they bring it from Lowestoft to Whitemoor, then tip it at Whitemoor, to reload it, now a bit dirty, when it's needed?

Also, I wonder why Lowestoft when there's much nearer docks at Boston and Kings Lynn?

Edited July 29, 2023 by JeffP

[uax6]

It'll be difficult to use Lynn docks, the Dock branch has been OOU for about 2 decades, and lots of track is missing. The last time APB asked about having it re-connected the figure was upwards of £5millions, and that must be a decade ago. And that didn't address the issue of the bridge over the Gaywood river, which would need replacing to allow anything other than a Jocko to go over it.....

 

Andy G

[Andy Kirkham]

How is the ballast loaded at Lowestoft? I don't see on Google Maps any evidence of quayside railway tracks

[Steadfast]

2 hours ago, JeffP said:

So they bring it from Lowestoft to Whitemoor, then tip it at Whitemoor, to reload it, now a bit dirty, when it's needed?

Called the Virtual Quarry concept.

 

Most Network Rail LDCs (Whitemoor, Eastleigh, Westbury, Bescot, Carlisle etc) have a VQ, and it allows quicker turnround of wagons and thus a smaller wagon fleet. Prime example of this, we had a train come back from site earlier in the week, and within a few hours the wagons were reloaded and on another working back to the site. If they had to go to the quarry, it'd probably be a couple of days to turn round. Come back today, go on the trip to the quarry tomorrow, return later that day or early the following day.

 

The bulk ballast train between quarry and VQ is formed of Mussels, the big yellow boxes. 

 

What is frustrating is that if you have wagons (say autoballasters for arguments sake) that need loading but not in a rush, you can't send them direct to the quarry vice some of the Mussel box wagons and reduce double handling. The bulk ballast train of Mussels has to offload onto the local VQ pile, and any wagons for the weekend loaded off that, forcing double handling. It used to happen, and you'd often see maybe 10 Mussels and 10 autoballasters on a bulk ballast trip, but not anymore.

 

Jo

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

22 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

Crikey, can't we even make ballast in this country nowadays ?

Factors such as environmental concerns, production capacity, price and access from source to the virtual quarry site are all possibles influencing this sourcing.

[beast66606]

4 hours ago, Andy Kirkham said:

How is the ballast loaded at Lowestoft? I don't see on Google Maps any evidence of quayside railway tracks

 

Using a grab from the ship to the wagon I think but at the moment there's a stock pile so ground via a grab to the wagon, there's 2 further ships waiting apparently

 

 

[beast66606]

Day 2

 

Eccles Road
28/07/2023 (Friday)
66775 / F231, HMS Argyll, on 6P52, 12:13, Whitemoor Yard L.D.C GBRF - Lowestoft RECP. (14:35) - empty stone (20 IOA, Mussel Sided)

 

66775 / F231, HMS Argyll, on 6H52, 19:30, Lowestoft RECP. - Whitemoor Yard L.D.C GBRF (22:45) - loaded stone (20 IOA, Mussel Sided)

[beast66606]

Day 3

 

Eccles Road
04/08/2023 (Friday)
66753, EMD Roberts Road, on 6P52, 12:13, Whitemoor Yard L.D.C GBRF - Lowestoft RECP. (14:35) - empty stone (20 IOA)

 

The loaded working got an early run out of Norwich (not sure why it's booked to sit at Norwich for 34 minutes, it could easily leave early, even if it then waits at Ely)
66753, EMD Roberts Road, on 6H52, 19:30, Lowestoft RECP. - Whitemoor Yard L.D.C GBRF (22:45) - loaded stone (20 IOA)

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

Great to see such a variety of stock on the current rail network!!

 

Mike.

[david.hill64]

On 29/07/2023 at 04:23, chris p bacon said:

How much ballast is HS2 going to consume ? could it be that future supplies of ballast from UK quarries have already been pre-purchased for HS2.

Most of HS2 is slab track, so ballast requirements will not be huge.

[Wickham Green too]

The slabs will require huge quantities of a different sort of aggregate.

[david.hill64]

16 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

The slabs will require huge quantities of a different sort of aggregate.

Power station fly ash was the preferred stuff, but with the absence of large scale coal fired stations, that is going to be hard to come by. I did read that although contractors declared that they had used the designated fly ash in the slabs used on China's HSR system, the tonnage used exceeded the output from all of China's vast number of coal burning stations. The implication was that the slabs would not last their design life.

[Wickham Green too]

... and by implication, the not exactly vast number of coal-burning power stations in the UK might have consequences on the design life of HS2 slabs ............... maybe someone will have to start mining the infilled brick pits or wherever flyash used to be dumped !!?!

[Fat Controller]

36 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

... and by implication, the not exactly vast number of coal-burning power stations in the UK might have consequences on the design life of HS2 slabs ............... maybe someone will have to start mining the infilled brick pits or wherever flyash used to be dumped !!?!

I believe this has already started; Appleford?

[Steadfast]

4 hours ago, Fat Controller said:

I believe this has already started; Appleford?

Flyash to Appleford is for Forterra building block manufacture, goes to Thatcham by road.

 

Jo

Edited August 10, 2023 by Steadfast

[ruggedpeak]

Found this. From a modelling perspective the second half of the video shows the relatively random loading of the wagons and lack of uniformity of the piles of ballast. Just need this on Train Simulator as I have the route already!

 

 

Edited August 10, 2023 by ruggedpeak