British Railway Operations

[Murphy Siding]

I've seen an entire ship load (< that phrase sounds almost naughty![}:)) of 2x4 studs from Germany on the dock at Duluth. These are the same brand we've had in our yard from time to time. They are wrapped, but not containerised. I'm just trying to get a clearer picture of freight operations in Britain.
Thanks

[Anonymous]

I have noticed that many commodities that normally move by bulk transportation methods here in NA (logs, lumber, liquids, etc) move by containerization in Europe. I guess if Murphy wants to ship a load of lumber to the U.K. he should load it on one of those flatbed containers with the stanchions and ship it intermodal.

[Hugh Jampton]

yes they are shorter, 750 metres maximum (2460' 7.5") but most are a lot shorter than this.

[Murphy Siding]

440cuin : I think from other comments made earlier that their freight trains are much smaller than what you and I see rolling by.

[TH&B]

Easy ???! It might not be so easy to unload a train load of lumber if a lumber yard doesn't have a very big or many sidings. Not too easy either if the train has to be unloaded at some railyard with about 50 round trips by truck or more.

How big is a train load like this in England ? I suppose it can vary.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by 440cuin

What is the language used by train crews / engineers through the Channel Tunnel? What about on through trains from England to France or Belgium? Does one have to be bilingual to be an engineer ?

french & yes

[Hugh Jampton]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Murphy Siding

I never thought of myself as a timber merchant. That sounds quite regal! ( I sell lumber for a living.) So you mean to tell me that with all the rail lines, there aren't that many dedicated or industrial sidings? Would the shipment go to a train yard, and then be transloaded to trucks for delivery to a timber merchant?

Thanks

Not any more,, 2 things happened, a lot of the sidings were ripped up, and a lot of businesses re-located to premesis near the motorways.
Your carload of timber would probably never even see a train, it would come direct from the supplier on a truck. Carload freight is virtually non-existant, however, if you wanted a trainload of 4x2s,, well,, we could easily arrange that.

[Murphy Siding]

I never thought of myself as a timber merchant. That sounds quite regal! ( I sell lumber for a living.) So you mean to tell me that with all the rail lines, there aren't that many dedicated or industrial sidings? Would the shipment go to a train yard, and then be transloaded to trucks for delivery to a timber merchant?

Thanks

[Hugh Jampton]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Murphy Siding

Can i order a carload of 2x4's from Germany for delivery to a siding near my British lumber yard?

Thanks

Yes you can,, however your carload of timber will be delivered by truck.

[owlsroost]

By the time of privatisation, 'parcels' traffic had shrunk down Royal Mail postal business only. Even this disappeared a year or so ago, but a small amount of it returned to rail recently and also EWS runs some Birmingham - Scotland trains for other parcel carriers.

QUOTE: Can i order a carload of 2x4's from Germany for delivery to a siding near my British lumber yard?

As I don't work in the business I don't know the answer - but your first problem would be finding a Briti***imber merchant with a rail siding nearby.......

Tony

[Murphy Siding]

owlsroost: Thanks for the clarification. Could I equate Parcel as similar to RPO of years gone by. What about loose car railroading? Can i order a carload of 2x4's from Germany for delivery to a siding near my British lumber yard?

Thanks

[owlsroost]

QUOTE: Are there any bi-modal operations in the U.K. or through to the continent?

If you mean RoadRailer/TrailerTrain type equipment - there have been various trials over years, but I don't think anything is running at the moment in the UK.

QUOTE: What's the difference between freight and parcels?

Parcel = small package i.e. the sort of stuff that UPS and FedEx handle (in fact 'UPS' is an abbreviation for 'United Parcel Service'). In UK railway terms this implies freight carried in passenger style equipment at high speeds (75 - 100mph).

Tony

[Anonymous]

All Briti***rains currently use either Westinghouse air brakes or use electro-pneumatic brakes such as those used subways, with Westinghouse used on all freight trains. There was talk about widening clearances from the Channel Tunnel to the Midlands, this did not happen except for the Channel Tunnel Rail Link which is designed to in to host freight trains, but currently does not, is build to continental clearances. This was only done because it was a requirement to receive European Union Funds for the project.

[martin.knoepfel]

I'd like to add two questions. Do the British Railways still run with vacuum-brakes? In older days, freight- and passenger-cars for the continent had to have double braking-equipment (vaccum and Westinghouse). There are some container-carrying cars with lowered center specially built for trains to Britain.

There has been a project - some years ago - to widen clearances on some little traveled branches to build a freight line with continental clearences from the Channel Tunnel to the Midlands? Did this ever happen?

[Anonymous]

Are there any bi-modal operations in the U.K. or through to the continent?

[Murphy Siding]

Tulyar15, cogload and owlsroost: Thank You for the info. I find this very interesting, but have a few questions ( as always). What's the difference between freight and parcels? ( This might be just a language thing. I have trouble translating sometimes owing to the fact that we speak english, and you guys speak the other english)[:)]. Does the Inter City Passenger business sector make a profit as expected?as it appears that inter city rail travel is very popular.

Thanks

[owlsroost]

QUOTE: Is most freight bulk commodities, how about single cars? Are there a lot of British boxcars around?

It's mostly 'block' trains carrying a single type of freight e.g. coal, crushed rock (for the construction and steel industries), iron ore, oil products, containers etc.

There is some 'loose car' freight (particularly international) but the short distances - e.g. channel tunnel to Glasgow is less than 500 miles - and high switching costs mean it's difficult to make money at this. British Rail came close to abandoning this type of traffic completely 20 years or so ago.

And no, there aren't that many boxcars around (we would call them 'vans') - the sort of general freight they carry has mostly migrated to highway trucks or into containers/swap bodies carried on container flats (clearances in the UK and the rest of Europe aren't generally large enough for TOFC trains like you have in the US).

Tony

[Anonymous]

Everything is timetabled and pathed. Dead simple.

In theory......

[Tulyar15]

In Britain there are both commuter passenger trains and long distance high speed trains. As a rough guide, in the 1980's British Rail re-organised its management into business sectors, namely:-

1) Freight
2) Parcels
3) Inter City Passenger
4) London and SE England Commuter services ("Network South East")
5) Other Provincial Passenger services (ie passenger services which did not come under (4) or (5) (later renamed "Regional Railways")

The first three business sectors were expected to make a profit; the others would receive subsidy as they operated socially necessary commuter services and rural branch lines. When BR was privatised the new Passenger TOC's were based on the divisions of each business sector. So for instance Inter City was split in to TOC's based on its existingh divisions which were:-

a) West Coast ( London Euston - Birmingham - Manchester - Glasgow)
b) East Coast (Lond Kings Cross - Leeds - Edinburgh - Aberdeen)
c) Great Western (London Paddington - SW England + S. Wales)
d) Midland Mainline (London St. Pancras - Derby - Sheffield)
e) Cross Country (direct services from the south coast to northern England and Scotland via Birmingham - an X shaped network covering the spine of Britain)
e) Anglia (London Liverpool St - Norwicjh)
f) Gatwick Express (London Victoria - Gatwick Airport).

BR's policy had been to favour fixed formation trains. By the 1980's most diesel inter city trains were formed by the diesel High Speed Trains with a streamlined locomotive at each end. On the electrified East and West Coast Main lines the electric locos would work in push pull mode with a streamlined baggage car with driving controls at the opposite end. Most commuter services were and are operated by diesel or electric multiple units.

Since privitisation the trend towards fixed formation trains has continued. Virgin, which got the West Coast Main Line and the Cross Country services has invested in electric fixed formation trains for the former and diesel ones for the latter.

As for freight, BR's freight and parcels operations were sold to the Wisconsin Central, except for the Freightliner container trains which were losing too much money for Ed Burkhardt to want to take on. The government was desparate to sell Freightliner so eventually it accepted a management buyout after promising to wipe out its debts. Since then Freightliner has poached traffic away from EWS (WC's British subsidiary).

As well as running freight and parcels trains, EWS also provides locomotives for excursion trains. A number of TOC's retain suitable cars for these trains, a few of which are also used on weekday commuter services. The new class 67 diesel parcels locos have Electric Train Heat facility and can run at speeds of up to 125mph.

There are quite a few places where you can see freight and passenger trains together. Only last week when I took the train from Bath to Bristol for an evening out there I saw a Freightliner class 66 diesel loco work a train throught Bath then at Bristol I saw an EWS 66 on an oil tanker train. All this on a line that has a passenger train every 15 minutes. (Two High Speed Trains to London Paddington per hour and two 'Regional' trains to Portsmouth, plus the odd commuter train between Bristol and Westbury.

[Murphy Siding]

Help us visualize this please. Most of us have never seen a real honest to goodness passenger train. If we live away from a metro area, we probably never see commuter trains. Are most of the passenger trains there city to city, or daily commute? How do the freight and passenger trains interact with each other? For example, do the TOC's specialize in one or the other? Is most freight bulk commodities, how about single cars? Are there a lot of British boxcars around?

Thanks

[owlsroost]

QUOTE: So, most of the freight is run at night? Or,is that just in the busy metro area?

There's probably a bit more overnight, but generally it's spread throughout the day (and some lines are closed overnight anyway, either to keep costs down or for maintenance).

Running freight trains on a predominately passenger railway just means timetabling and scheduling them in the same way as passenger trains. This doesn't mean they always actually run, but that the timetable slots exist for them - and (as Cogload points out) these train paths are timed for a specific level of train performance e.g. 75mph intermodal or 45mph coal trains. Think running frequent freight trains on the NEC or the LIRR for a US analogy.

Tony

[daveklepper]

What are the amenties on these trains now? In 1962 I did ride a London - Glascow sleeper, and I remember there was a Pub car where some people spent just about the entire trip. I did use my compartment. Up to Aberdeen and Inverness, I would think there might even be dining car serving dinner and breakfast. If there is a cutback, I could see combining both these services into one overnight train, with the sleepers set out at Edinbough and others continuing on to Aberdeen and Inverness. During the summer there might even be a through car continuing past Glascow to Tindrum or other Scotish west coast vacation spots. Maybe money loosing services could be made profitable by improving the amenaties and raising the prices.

[Tulyar15]

Well do it while you can. Even the French railways are thinking about abandoning their sleeper services. I suspect the Spanish will do likewise when the new High Speed Line from Barcelona to the French border opens. As this line is being built to 4' 8.5" (Most Spanish railways are 5' 6" gauge) it will enable thru running Paris - Madrid.

Getting back on topic, I think when the current British sleeper cars become life expired in about 10-15 years time I doubt they'll be replaced. When the present cars were built British Rail could not justify building enough to replace all the older cars so a lot of sleeper routes were axed atr that time. Since then demand has continued to fall and other routes have been axed. Some cars were sold to the Danish Railways but those have now returned to Britain. Most have been sold off to preserved lines who use them as volunteer accomodation.

[Murphy Siding]

Then that's where I'm heading, as soon as I win the lottery!

[Anonymous]

They are a mix of sleeper and regular passenger coach.

[Murphy Siding]

By overnight, are you talking sleeper cars? Or am I just dreaming?

[Anonymous]

Yes there are three round trips overnight passenger trains in Britian. One between Paddington terminal in London to Penzance on the southwest cost of England. The other two start at Euston terminal in London travel north to Scotland with one dividing and ending in Edinburgh and Glasglow, the other divides and goes to Aberdeen, Fort William, and Inverness. There has been some talk of ending them as they are constant money loosers.

[Anonymous]

Murphy brings up a good point. As an adjunct to his question, are there any overnight passenger trains in the UK?

[Murphy Siding]

So, most of the freight is run at night? Or,is that just in the busy metro area?

[Anonymous]

The brand new TGV spec Channel Tunnel Rail Link uses the French TGV cab signalling system (TVM 430) which, by the way, displays the safe speed for the next block in kilometers per hour, it furthermore uses block lenths defined in meters.