Do Intermodal container trains from uk ports run on Sundays and bank holidays?

[Glorious NSE]

Changing the subject, just been to do some 'research' beside the Oxford-Banbury line. First train on arrival was an FL 66 on containers. The wagons were all standard height 60ft flats and the boxes were all 40footers. However, there was a mix of mostly standard height and some high-cubes. I didn't think there was route clearance for high-cubes on standard wagons to Southampton? or has that changed recently?

 

Southampton to the WCML was gauge cleared from 2011 IIRC - some trains going beyond the WCML (Leeds?) will still have low-deck wagons though.

 

 

Also, not looked at any actual figures, but if the US is 117 times bigger and their rail network is more aimed at freight than ours is then it's not inconceivable that they move the same each year as we have since Queen Victoria. it's hard to picture, but when thinking of the size and scope of US freight operations do they move the same amount in 1 day as we do in 100? From watching the Fostoria Camera when that was running i find it believable!

 

Sorry I was a bit unclear with how I wrote that. I make the US about 40 times the size of the UK - but it's rail freight (according to the Wikepedia) is about 117 times the size.

 

So you could argue that for area the US has about 3 times the railfreight tonnage the UK has.

[Satan's Goldfish]

Did you see that pdf I linked to in my post, above? Interesting bit on their new container transfer facility complete with reversing loop. Someone will model it.  See "The Rossville Loop".

 

Some great photos of double-stacks too.

 

Best, Pete.

MGR Intermodal, interesting idea! I feel they're wasting a trick though by saying the train can enter the yard, go around theloop, then split it's train into to and shunt the front half onto a different line. Surely the quicker option would be to pull into the yard, drop the rear half of the train, then pull the rest around the loop and into another empty road. Only shunting needed then is to put the train back together on departure.

[Satan's Goldfish]

Southampton to the WCML was gauge cleared from 2011 IIRC - some trains going beyond the WCML (Leeds?) will still have low-deck wagons though.

 

 

 

Sorry I was a bit unclear with how I wrote that. I make the US about 40 times the size of the UK - but it's rail freight (according to the Wikepedia) is about 117 times the size.

 

So you could argue that for area the US has about 3 times the railfreight tonnage the UK has.

Shows how out of touch i am with routes are cleared for what! Thanks for the info.

 

Well then the whole argument could be started that per square land mile they have 3 times the railfreight movement that the UK does, but per member of population or business how much more of their 'goods' is handled by rail rather than Truck? And not forgetting they still move a lot via boat and barge on the larger rivers and great lakes compared to the UK... I'd guess there's a lot more manufacturing and retail moves over there than there is over here.

[definate maybe]

I would suggest the difference is mainly down to size and scale and its probably makes more sense if you dont take the USA as a country but almost as a continent.

For example- it was said earlier in this post that the US passenger service is secondary whereas ours is thriving. In the US internal flights are very popular. To me thats the same as us deciding whether to fly to spain or take the train. Flying makes more sense to most people and is of a similar distance to alot of everyday US flights. With freight, and in large quantities the train will easily be able to compete over the higher mileages. Would the likes of ford motors want to send 50 - 100 lorries a week between the UK and Italy or would 1 or 2 trains make more sense - normally it will.  The other thing you have to take into account is the vast scale of things in the US. A major UK crop field would look like an americans back yard on a lot of occasions. Once you get that volume of produce/ product the train can again compete, even over a shorter distance. We see it on a couple of occassions in the UK - the South Wales steel trade for example but in the US this scale of production is the norm rather than the exception.

[mcowgill]

All good stuff, thanks guys.

 

On the US side of it, i can remember watching the Fostoria cam when that was up a couple of years ago and being amazed at the length of the intermodal trains. The 750m trains they're planning out of the new Felixstow terminal really don't compare to sitting with the kids counting 140 double stacked wagons passing on the cam (roughly work that out as over 2km of train?!)

 

Getting longer trains out of Felixstowe is causing problems elsewhere. 

 

The Felixstowe to Lawley Street I see every lunchtime past work was lengthened to take advantage of the class 70 allocated to it, this means it's too long to fit in the yard at Ipswich and the loops further down the Great Eastern towards London.  As a result it has to be given a clear run all the way off the Felixstowe branch, East Suffolk line and all the way down to Stratford, fitting it in between all the fast passenger trains on the main line.   Last year it was rescheduled to run an hour earlier after a failure caused chaos on the main line and impacted the peak hour services in/out of Liverpool Street.  

 

The solution to this is the 'Bacon Factory Curve' which is now getting underway at Ipswich to make a triangular junction between the GEML and East Suffolk Line, allowing more of the freights to head cross-country towards Ely where their capacity to upset commuters is lessened.

 

Martin

[Satan's Goldfish]

In the case of the class 70 then, have the uk railways ordered something more powerful (and ugly) than they can actually handle? or have i missed the real point of the 70?

[Eggesford box]

Might be partly to do with getting trains back up to speed after being looped/stopped. Another thing to consider in the UK scenario with having to squeeze freights in between a frequent passenger service is that the longer a freight the longer it takes to get inside clear into loops over (often)15mph turnouts and onto speed restricted lines. We have one train at Banbury, 6X65, which invariably is not able to maintain its booked times for this reason and that would be considered a tiddler compared to American standards. 

[The Stationmaster]

In the case of the class 70 then, have the uk railways ordered something more powerful (and ugly) than they can actually handle? or have i missed the real point of the 70?

I don't think solely power necessarily comes into it, although it is of course very relevant.  The biggest problem with the long and heavy freights (which hardly includes Freightliners in my book to be honest) is getting them up to speed and keeping them there.  The speed differential between many long freights, especially those only grossing about 1,500 - 2,000 tonnes, and stopping passenger trains is such that the freight will easily run away from the stopper - until it catches the one in front and then gets a succession of signal checks from which it has to recover.

 

That recovery means a need for accelerative power but also - critically - a need for some really good compressor capacity to blow the brakes off on a long train.  In fact although our trains are nowhere near US lengths I think there might be some sense on a crowded railway in using 'end-of-train' monitoring just to make sure the brakes off and allow better acceleration with lower risk.  That was the problem which knackered the Yeoman 12,000 tonne test test train - brake release propagation being difficult to judge, even with a mid-train helper, resulting in a serious snatch - and I'd even asked if the EMD folk could procure some sort of EOT device!  

 

I find it incredible that 15mph is still being used for loop entry/exit on a railway which was allegedly 'modernised' only a few years back - on the Western we tried to get 40 mph wherever possible although in some places site geometry kept us down to 25 mph (which is still a big constraint); ideally the loop entry and exit speeds should be around 60 mph or at least on the braking/acceleration curve although I think NR's disconnect from train operations in many areas might leave that idea floundering a bit nowadays as costs rule.

 

All a very interesting area and one where I can remember opening a few eyes at a symposium on high horsepower (i.e. Class 59) locos held at the IMechE a good few years ago where it was clear that the US designers didn't appreciate the need for speed and acceleration in order to operate on a mixed traffic railway and tended to concentrate very much on enough grunt to shift the tonnage.

[Rugd1022]

There are quite a few loops about Mike with 40mph entry and exit speeds, the trouble is by it's nature, going into a loop means coming up against a red 'un at the far end... and in the case of my particular employer's Professional Driving Policy, we have to ensure we're doing no more than 10mph over the AWS magnet on approach to that red signal. Woe betide anyone who gets downloaded having passed over the ramp at 11mph! A lot of signalman don't realise this and are quite surprised when we tell them about it. The Down Loop at Bromsgrove, right after the station, has an entrance speed of 50mph, but you have to be on the brake quite smartly to stop at the red at Stoke Works Junction, some distance away.

 

Bizarrely, some existing loops have had their max. speed dropped overnight which means it takes even longer to get inside clear... the Down Reception line at Washwwod Heath used to be 15mph but recently was changed to 5mph!

 

By far the most painful on my route card is Hatton Goods Loop... bearing in mind you're already on a rising gradient when you get the two yellows / single yellow, then you crawl up to the red hoping it comes off main line, alas no, off comes the No.1 route indicator and it's a slow 10mph crawl into the loop to the top of the bank, resulting in whatever is following you being checked and giving an often 'non polite' retort on the horn!

[Eggesford box]

There you go,

the entrance into Fenny Compton down loop even though it was extended at the entrance end and (obviously) new pointwork installed but still 15mph.

I thought I heard at the time that the extension was to give more braking distance rather than to increase the capacity of the loop but whether that is right or not I do not know. Not being a driver I am not in a position to have an opinion on the distances. Perhaps Nigel could give his view.

Fenny SA.pdf

Also the Sectional Appendix entry.

When the facing crossover was put in and the down loop bi-directionally signalled some of the Leamington signallers tried regulating up trains that where to long for the up loop in the down loop. The signalling is so restrictive, however, that it soon became obvious that less delay would be caused by running the train to Banbury.

A few snatched shots at Fenny Compton today

66 516 with 70 020 behind in the down loop on 4M28 0932 Southampton - Ditton

66 566 4O49 1030 Birch Coppice - Southampton. I figured it was another Freightliner before it appeared around the corner owing to the series of horn acknowledgements between the two drivers!

I do not know what the plans are for the resignalling at Banbury but at the moment the entrances to both loops are 15mph.Then again it would not be to prudent to put high speed turnouts into the entances to permissive loops!

 

 Further edit,

talking to someone a few minutes ago it might be a case that it was intended to raise the speed into the down loop at Fenny to 40mph but someone screwed up somewhere along the line but thats only heresay.

[Glorious NSE]

Bizarrely, some existing loops have had their max. speed dropped overnight which means it takes even longer to get inside clear... the Down Reception line at Washwwod Heath used to be 15mph but recently was changed to 5mph!

 

That isn't the location where they keep having intermodals fall off is it?

[Rugd1022]

That isn't the location where they keep having intermodals fall off is it?

 

That sounds like the old 'Down and Up Lawley Street' goods line over on the up side Martyn.... since Washwood Heath Sdgs No.1 box was demolished recently, they've also taken out the severe 15mph 'kink' that ran behind it, which (so I've heard) was the cause of many a slip up. Having said that though, you might also be thinking of the 'Down Through' line which has had a set of hand points at the western end scotched and clipped for lord knows how long, causing all sorts of havoc in recent months. The Railgrinder man I was conducting last night said there was 'a bit of a faux pa' there a few weeks ago when the clips were correctly removed and the points set for the movement but the wooden scotch was left in place by mistake and a 'grinder nearly lifted itself off the rail head...!

 

EB - Fenny Loop.... interesting that it may have been planned to be a 40mph job, I didn't know anything about that.... frankly it'd be a waste of time, fuel and brake blocks as entering the loop you get a single yellow and No.1 feather, leading straight onto the red signal half way along the loop which stays on until you pass over the AWS magnet, when it comes off it's a short, slow crawl to the next signal at the far end. Factor in the '10mph over the magnet' ruling (ie: both magnets) and you can see there's no point raising the speed at all! In pre-download days it would have been very easy to chase the signals going into loops just to clear the mainline as quick as possible, but that often ended in tears and these days it's just not worth risking our jobs for, even though it inevitably causes delays to the passenger men creeping up behind us... ;-)

[Glorious NSE]

That sounds like the old 'Down and Up Lawley Street' goods line over on the up side Martyn

 

Not sure, was just a thought! I've seen at least 2 RAIB reports on freight derailments in that general area and I wondered - whilst both had 'other factors' it was still a place where they were climbing over superelevation to go between lines...

 

(going OT!) To be honest i'm not even 100% sure of Up and Down in that vicinity (I can look it up later!) - i'd go with Up being South as a generalisation, but it's ex Midland, is it Up to London via Derby?

[Edwin_m]

From Temple Meads to Derby it is up all the way.  The ex-Midland part is also mileposted from a zero at Derby. 

[Rugd1022]

...and some of the signal numbers down towards Gloucester correspond with the mileage from Derby! Very handy when looking for the right spot on a ballast job in the dead of night ;-)

 

Martyn - next time I bump into my colleagues at Lawley Street I'll ask about those 'earth faults'.... there's been quite a lot of layout reconfiguration along that stretch just recently ;-)

[Edwin_m]

next time I bump into my colleagues at Lawley Street

Not literally I hope...

[Fat Controller]

Not sure, was just a thought! I've seen at least 2 RAIB reports on freight derailments in that general area and I wondered - whilst both had 'other factors' it was still a place where they were climbing over superelevation to go between lines...

 

(going OT!) To be honest i'm not even 100% sure of Up and Down in that vicinity (I can look it up later!) - i'd go with Up being South as a generalisation, but it's ex Midland, is it Up to London via Derby?

It's UP to Derby.. (London doesn't get a look in) The two derailments were a Freightliner one at Duddeston Junction and an EWS one at the western end of Washwood Heath, about a mile further east. Both involved several factors (the Freightliner one was an unevenly loaded wagon, the other insufficent lubrication on the pivot areas of the bogies), but one common feature was 'twist' at about the maximum tolerances. There was another derailment, partially attributable to twist, of scrap wagons near Moor Street, in about the same time-frame.

[Swifty11]

I think so? There is the Trafford park-Felixstowe mhich usually runs?

[Gridiron]

The Ports of Felixstowe and Thamesport all close to landside traffic (including rail transfers) at 1500hrs on Saturday and reopen late Sunday in the case of Felixstowe and 0600hrs Monday in Thamesport, except Bank Holidays because the railheads are operated by the port authorities (Hutchison Ports). The Port of Tilbury remains open 24/7 because of the large number of reefer containers handled by port, but few of these move by rail and as far as I know there are no scheduled intermodal trains into the port after about midday Saturday. Southampton is also open 24/7 but again there are no scheduled intermodal trains after 1200hrs on a Saturday. The Port of Liverpool currently has no scheduled intermodal services directly out of the Liverpool Seaforth Terminal as Freightliner truck the containers to Trafford Park for delivery to Coatbridge, this however is likely to change from 2015 when the new riverside container terminal is commissioned Liverpool2 which will be able to handle vessels of 14000 teu (twenty foot equivalent units). Seaforth also closes for landside operations at 1500hrs on a Saturday, reopening for 2200hrs on a Sunday if required allowing road hauliers sufficient time to deliver laden containers to 60% of the UK (ie within 200 miles) first thing Monday morning so enabling the port to compete with southern UK ports. As previous posts have indicated the lack of weekend rail activity is due to a number of reasons including a lack of demand, maintenance schedules of the network, but also due to fact that the shipping lines which are the biggest users of intermodal service do not work over the weekend except for those members of staff involved with the physical arrival or departure of the vessels. This is because nowadays all export containers have to be physically on the terminal and customs cleared usually 24 hours before the vessel is due to load, except for certain hazardous cargo which moves by road anyway. With import containers, the shipping lines usually require the container to be cleared customs and all the outstanding charges paid, before the container leaves the terminal and therefore tend to cut off for Monday deliveries on a Thursday enabling them to cover any early Monday morning deliveries by road. There are two other important considerations which account for this situation in the UK, one the EU working time directive which limit the number of hours lorry drivers can work during the working week which means a driver working on a Sunday might not be available later in the week when the haulier would be busier. This combined with the inevitable problems if something goes wrong makes Sunday working for a hauler very expensive and hence is usually only viable for those hazardous containers and reefer containers destined for supermarket distribution depots. In should also be remembered that most empty containers are stored in UK depots away from the port, which tend to only open at best till midday Saturday, so unless the haulier has their own lifting facilities, they cannot lift off or lift on an empty unit outside these "normal working hours." The other growing consideration is the use by most shipping lines of feedering containers directly into smaller UK ports. Teesport, Newcastle, Grangemouth, Hull and Immingham all handle cargo transhipped from the Continent mainly using vessels of up to 900 teu, Portbury (Bristol) handles a weekly vessel of about 1500 teu, whilst Liverpool now has at least five vessels a week ranging from 500 teu up to 2500 teu, one shuttling between Southampton and Liverpool. Whilst the transhipment results in a slightly longer transit time, it is for many customers the cost and green credentials especially for lower value cargo that this mode provides and of course one of the main reasons why intermodal traffic does not move via the Channel Tunnel. This use of feeders by the shipping companies offers their customers additional flexibility whilst offering the shipping line a relatively low cost solution of returning empty containers via their European hub ports to areas of demand such as China and the Far East, as sadly import containers from this part of the world continue to out number export containers by anything from 3 or 5 to 1. The added bonus being is that the main UK ports for these trades remain congestion free.        

[Satan's Goldfish]

Fantastic Info, thanks Gridiron.

 

The originally mentioned 'Research' trip has now been re-scheduled for a Monday and Tuesday.

[beast66606]

Use this link to get an idea of traffic

 

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/advanced?location=Appleford&date=26%2F4%2F2013&tocs=All&timespan=3&show_schedules=11&schedule_type=0&show_wtt=1&show_var=1&show_stp=1

 

Change the date and time of course ! (and the location potentially - I've chosen Appleford)

 

It takes some interpreting as not everything will run but it does give a good pointer and on the day you can use it to check for trains heading your way.

[Fat Controller]

On the subject of Intermodal facilities, this month's Modern Railways has articles on the new facilities at Felixstowe North and Thames Gateway, including trackplans.

[Glorious NSE]

Felixstowe North is fun - it features a loco release traverser!

[Fat Controller]

Felixstowe North is fun - it features a loco release traverser!

It's one of those ideas that you wonder hasn't been used before. It saves a lot of space, and allows them to put an incoming train on any empty road.

I've still got a late-1960s Modern Railways that has an article about the direct route been built to allow access the then-new Felixstowe South terminal. It's grown a bit since then..