Cornish Triang Paul Posted October 15, 2013 Share Posted October 15, 2013 As from November, the Long Rock fuel train is replaced by a road service along with all other Firstgroup depots. So two Fridays left for your photos......... . Shame. Does not bode well for St Blazey ?? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted October 15, 2013 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 15, 2013 That reminds me of the staff consultation meeting when the Speedlink network was closed. Great big meeting in Newport with probably around 100 staff reps and, I think, 4 of us on the management side. As usual at such meetings we got the various questions about how such & such traffic would be handled in future but the absolutely gem - apart from shunting the cider at Taunton for which I got a round of applause - was the rather innocent question 'what about the Newlyn trawler fuel?' Many looks of total puzzlement on the management side, the RfD bloke hadn't got a clue and seemed never to have heard of it and neither had I so I was duly despatched to get hold of someone in the Petroleum business and see what he could tell me. Fortunately i got hold of the right man - who was ex Western Region and he knew all about it so back I went with the answer. Addressing the assembled meeting via their Sectional Council reps I explained that as far as could be traced there hadn't been any for at least 15 years, probably longer - great hoots of laughter all round the room and the reps from Cornwall got a right Devonian telling off from the Staff Side Secretary of SC C as he did his best to keep a straight face. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
'CHARD Posted October 15, 2013 Share Posted October 15, 2013 Environmental madness. Another of privatisation's great successes. I suppose it will be all academic when everywhere's wired, with Hitachi trains powered by Hitachi-built nuclear reactors. The end of an era. How very sad. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack00 Posted October 15, 2013 Share Posted October 15, 2013 Good heavens. So 6TTA's down to what...3 fuel tanker lorries? 3 'VOLVO' / MAN / SCANIA lorries Vs. 1x66 = less Co2? Hmm...normally couples to 3 or 4 JIA's at Burngullow too heads BZ. Certainly a shame to see it go Jack Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Gwiwer Posted October 15, 2013 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 15, 2013 More environmental madness is the name of profit-chasing. Quite how it becomes cheaper to operate three dedicated road trips compared with one shared-use rail trip is beyond me. Passenger-only railway west of Burngullow now, then. Engineering operations excepted. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted October 15, 2013 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 15, 2013 Environmental madness. Another of privatisation's great successes. I suppose it will be all academic when everywhere's wired, with Hitachi trains powered by Hitachi-built nuclear reactors. The end of an era. How very sad. The odd thing is Mickey that a lot of the deliveries to depots went over to road back in the BR era with only the largest depots or those with awkward road access continuing to receive fuel by rail. And odd tho' it may sound privytisation saw a reversal of that with deliveries going back to rail haulage for quite a number of depots. The oil companies have long been very careful about delivery costings and, so i was told a long time back, even a difference of 1p per ton on delivery costs can lead them to change their mode; in BR days the shift to road delivery was mainly because BR increased its haulage prices by around 2-3% - could be that the same sort of thing is happening again? And I know it sounds daft - but then to me moving railway engines and vehicles about on lorries is even more daft Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xerces Fobe2 Posted October 15, 2013 Share Posted October 15, 2013 Madness if weather conditions caused blocked roads etc the trains may not have fuel. Another great idea from First - fueling their a shareholders before their trains! XF Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Gwiwer Posted October 16, 2013 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 16, 2013 I believe Long Rock holds enough for more than a few days supply. If roads were blocked ( and the A30 is particularly vulnerable to accident-related closures in the far south-west) there is at least often an alternative route which is not the case with rail. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
81A Oldoak Posted October 16, 2013 Share Posted October 16, 2013 Very sad. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Captain Kernow Posted October 16, 2013 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 16, 2013 I will make enquiries to see if they will keep the rail-served facilities at Long Rock, in case of problems with road deliveries, emergencies etc.... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Ramblin Rich Posted October 17, 2013 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 17, 2013 What a shame, another blow for the rail freight services along with Moorswater going out of use Captain Kernow keeps hinting of other possible traffics, but I guess it's all under negotiation at the moment Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Gwiwer Posted October 17, 2013 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 17, 2013 It's almost criminal. There is freight traffic to be had in Cornwall. Not a lot of it good for trainloads but if the railway wasn't so segmented and fragmented then perhaps vanload business could be run in shared trains. And in the same way the overnight train could be used to convey parcels. Except that's outside the scope of "passenger" operations. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cornish Triang Paul Posted October 17, 2013 Author Share Posted October 17, 2013 One TTA = 35,000 LTs and we get through around one a day. We have mentioned the forthcoming forecasted snow for this winter ! I belive nothing major is happening to the facilities except perhaps a longer pipe ! I shall miss the last train due to rest day but getting this week's. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bubbles2 Posted October 17, 2013 Share Posted October 17, 2013 Where can I find the running times for the last 2 fuel trains please, I may try to get some photos if the weather is favourable. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
winterbournecm Posted October 17, 2013 Share Posted October 17, 2013 You'll be lucky to get the down working in daylight . It arrives at Long Rock at 08.00. The back working is very photgenic as it leaves Long Rock at 09.12 tight behind the 08.44 to London. I have an extensive collection of 6C11 / 6C21 photos - but have them in large format. I have some shrinking software but it's not as good as Microsoft picture editor which I cant get for windows 8. Where shall I put them? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Gwiwer Posted October 17, 2013 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 17, 2013 It's a few years since I last watched it go through but wasn't the down around midday at one time? I remember it crossing Hayle viaduct when I wasn't expecting anything in a midday timetable gap on several occasions. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clay Country Posted October 17, 2013 Share Posted October 17, 2013 Gutted, the Long Rock train is the only freight working within 20 miles of where I live This has been a real bogey train for me as every time I planned to go out to photograph it something would always get in the way. Last week was my first shot (of what I hoped would be many) http://www.flickr.com/photos/88285249@N06/10204254863/ Weather forecast doesn't look good for tomorrow morning so it might well be my last. I also wonder how this will affect the economics of other freight flows in Cornwall. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cornish Triang Paul Posted October 17, 2013 Author Share Posted October 17, 2013 Somebody start a photo thread - im on a dodgey laptop which doesn't like Helston's internet connection when doing something other than writing !! I have shots BUT taken from within the depot so AGAINST the sunlight so I end up with sillohettes ! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted October 17, 2013 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 17, 2013 It's almost criminal. There is freight traffic to be had in Cornwall. Not a lot of it good for trainloads but if the railway wasn't so segmented and fragmented then perhaps vanload business could be run in shared trains. And in the same way the overnight train could be used to convey parcels. Except that's outside the scope of "passenger" operations. As far as I'm aware there's nothing (except capital costs)to prevent an open access operator carrying freight or parcels traffic, there's nothing to prevent DBS doing it, and there's nothing to prevent a passenger franchise holder establishing a parcels service although it would have to watch brand names. The fact that they don't do it suggests to me that they don't think they can do it profitably and it would definitely require investment in facilities at stations and van capacity on trains in the case of passenger operators. But the big revenue in parcels operation was always in the perishables sector - not only stuff such as flowers and veg but the two most perishable commodities of all - mail and newspapers and the facilities and vehicles/van space required for them effectively created capacity for other things as well. And I don't think we're ever going to see a return to rail of either because those who provide the traffic are now totally non-rail minded and let's face both involved overnight traffic, at the very time that NR like to dig up the railway. As far as freight is concerned the situation is simple - it's down almost entirely to cost although there is some use of rail (e.g. by Tesco) in order to achieve 'green' energy saving even tho' it costs them more than equivalent road transport. Rail freight pricing, access charges apart, is no longer manipulated by Govt (even tho' they denied it, but it was) and since privatisation has been a strictly commercial operation, hence 'lost' traffic returning to rail. But if, for example, it can't offer the oil companies competitive costs to carry fuel into Cornwall then the traffic will go to the mode/operator offering the best price. That is what happened in the 1990s with the fuel for a number of BR depots. And sadly the infrastructure for handling some traffics into or out of the far west no longer exists; we can debate the reasons for that 'til the cows come home but that won't re-create those facilities unless money is spent, and then we're back to straightforward investment assessment. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
winterbournecm Posted October 17, 2013 Share Posted October 17, 2013 It seems strange that the class 57 off the down sleepers could toodle up during the day to collect the tanks and return West, exams permitting. Does the down loco arrival always have an exam during the day Paul? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted October 17, 2013 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 17, 2013 It seems strange that the class 57 off the down sleepers could toodle up during the day to collect the tanks and return West, exams permitting. Does the down loco arrival always have an exam during the day Paul? So the freight operator has to pay a hire charge plus train their Drivers on Class 57s, and get a Driver down to Penzance to collect the loco or FGW charge them for delivering it to SBZ or wherever - is that likely to be more economical than the freight operator using a loco their crews already know which simply works down with loaded tanks and returns with empties, say, a couple of times a week? Somehow I don't think so - unless hire charges have dropped through the floor in recent years (and I used to offer some of the best hire rates in the country back in the late '90s but we're still talking a number of hundred £s per day? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium jjb1970 Posted October 17, 2013 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 17, 2013 I think rail misses a small but potentially lucrative niche. You could take a parcel to rail office, have it put on a train and have somebody basically waiting for the train when it arrived at the other end of the country and time high value packets pretty much to the minute. Not a large market probably but I think there is a potentially niche given it should be possible to do with very little capital spend and some companies would pay a lot of money for that. A lot cheaper than sending staff on the train with packets or hiring a taxi to send a spare part 100's of miles, both of which are things I've done quite regularly in the past. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Piskey Posted October 17, 2013 Share Posted October 17, 2013 I have an extensive collection of 6C11 / 6C21 photos - but have them in large format. I have some shrinking software but it's not as good as Microsoft picture editor which I cant get for windows 8. Have you tried Irfanview? It's a bit basic but very good in what it does do. www.irfanview.com What's more - it's free! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fat Controller Posted October 17, 2013 Share Posted October 17, 2013 I think rail misses a small but potentially lucrative niche. You could take a parcel to rail office, have it put on a train and have somebody basically waiting for the train when it arrived at the other end of the country and time high value packets pretty much to the minute. Not a large market probably but I think there is a potentially niche given it should be possible to do with very little capital spend and some companies would pay a lot of money for that. A lot cheaper than sending staff on the train with packets or hiring a taxi to send a spare part 100's of miles, both of which are things I've done quite regularly in the past. There used to be such a service, known as 'Red Star' from the early 1970s to the mid 1990s. I used to use it a lot when working in time-critical industries as, before the days of satellite-tracking and mobile phones, it was the most effective way of sending high-worth items from one end of the country to another. I used to regularily send high-value components from Bristol to Aberdeen and Blackburn, safe in the knowledge they'd be there for the following day. Whilst it relied on only having to meet the marginal costs of staffing the offices at the various stations, effectively taking the van space on the train for free, it washed its face. Once Sectorisation started, someone worked out (or at least came up with) a figure for how much the service 'cost' in terms of van space and buildings, regardless of the fact that these things were there anyway, then the service was doomed. Firstly, it was sold to Rentokil; then it went over to a road-based service called City Link. We even had a cat sent from Northallerton to Ashford by Red Star in the early 1990s; our friends had him sedated and dropped him off at the station early morning, and I picked him up from Ashford late afternoon. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted October 17, 2013 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 17, 2013 I dunno Mike, First like to do things In House - It used to surprise me that they hadn't already taken the fuel down on one of their trains - Plenty of FGW drivers were (are?) fully freight familiar... It wouldnt be big step to do so I dont think....If they wnted to do The problem is basically the way they buy the fuel Mickey as the oil company are invariably responsible for delivery. If it was delivered in rail tank cars to Laira and FGW had a freight licence then they could move it themselves to Penzance I suppose (assuming they had a spare dieaseal and trained up the Drivers). But presumably all FGW are interested in is getting the fuel at the lowest possible price and it's up to their supplier to do whatever it takes to drive out costs to get the price down below his competitors to get the business. As I've already mentioned the oil companies work on very small price differences per ton (or in this case probably per 1,000 litres) and in the past they were for ever after quotes for new flows (to them) as they bid for business around the country and they were always costing different modes against each other on their major flows in a sort of continuous review process. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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