View Full Version : [IT letter] Sharp decline in rail freight
Navan Junction
29-03-2006, 07:16
Madam- Much of the blame for this huge loss of rail freight at a time when use of the roads by heavy goods vehicles is increasing dramatically must fall on the Government, which refuses to recognise the environmental, social and safety advantages of encouraging rail transport. Elsewhere in Europe grants are offered for rail freight services and terminals - but not in Ireland.
Instead, the sale of freight yards and the wholesale scrapping of freight locomotives is encouraged. The sceptical observer might say this is to prevent any "open access" operators being able to start up in the Republic.
Since the 2005 figures from the International Union of Railways were published, the loss of freight traffic to the roads has increased further. Oil trains which operated for Esso between the Dublin North Wall terminal and Sligo have now ceased (as have services to Claremorris). Bulk cement transport to the Tegral factory at Athy is now carried by road. All keg trains currently operating for Guinness and other major breweries are to cease shortly and the business will transfer to the roads. The bulk cement trains to Cork will cease shortly due to the sale of the terminal at Horgan's Quay for redevelopment. EU policy on sugar beet production has also meant that the operation of the "beet specials" from Wellington Bridge to Mallow has also now run its course.
Cork, the Republic's second city, will shortly have no rail freight services whatever. Until last summer, it was served by three container trains daily, cement trains and daily keg beer trains. The loss of all this traffic in so short a period is some indictment of both Government and Iarnród Éireann policy. The closure of the freight yards in Cork will also prevent any future private operator who may wish to operate in the domestic market from serving Cork.
With fuel costs rising, road congestion getting worse, and EU legislation reducing working hours for HGV drivers, is it wise for Government policy (or the lack of it) to allow the nationally owned rail network virtually to pull out of freight? I think not - and I would suggest that the Government act now to preserve the viable alternative to HGVs before it is irreversibly lost. - Yours, etc,
TIM CASTERTON,
Leighton Buzzard,
Bedfordshire,
England.
Mark Gleeson
29-03-2006, 08:14
I wish people would actually find out why freight left before making fools of themselves
Bell Lines (containers)
Asahi (some weird chemical, oil)
IFI (ammonia, fertiliser)
Slivermines (barytes)
Ballinacourty (oil, magnasite, dolomite)
Greencore (beet)
All stopped using rail since they either went out of business or the raw material got used up
ACustomer
29-03-2006, 08:27
At the risk of making a fool of myself:
The Irish Times letter was mainly about the loss of Cement, Guinness and container traffic. These businesses continue and the raw materials are not used up (Thank goodness in the case of Guinness!). The demise of Bell was significant in the overall decline of containers, but only in respect of the traffic originating in Waterford. The only area in which the letter is mistaken is Beet where external factors were at work.
The unequal fiscal treatment of trucks and trains with respect to coverage of track costs (never mind fancy "externalities" such as environmental and congestion costs) is huge factor. Other countries take these things into account in framing transport policies: our politicians and civil servants are either too witless of too craven ("there are no votes in rail freight") do so.
Leighton Buzzard.. that's west Cork isnt it? :D
Asahi (some weird chemical, oil)
Isnt that a Japanese beer?
Mark Gleeson
29-03-2006, 08:49
Point is simple the arse fell out of the freight business, there is no scale as a result
Irish Cement have pulled out as its cheaper go by road, Diageo are talking the same story. The wagons on the Sligo Oil train where not compliant with modern safety requirements
The primary reason why freight died was EU rules which forced IE to produce 3 accounts, passenger, freight and infrastructure. At this point the suspect cross subsidisation where money allocated for provision of uneconomic passenger services where syphoned off to bank roll the freight business had to stop.
As a result passenger services show a significant improvement as money was no longer shifted to places it wasn't meant to go. Bell Lines, Asahi, IFI, Slivermines, Ballinacourty and Greencore would almost certainly still be shipping by rail if they hadn't all ceased trading.
Despite all the hype about there being demand no third party operator has gone on record publicly stating an interest, we know of one company which has expressed an interest but they have never operated a revenue earning freight service in the UK.
Government has to stump up the cash. It was unacceptable that monies for passenger services for many years where spent elsewhere that situation cannot be tolerated anymore
ACustomer
29-03-2006, 09:23
Mark: At one level what you say is true: EU rules, etc. But there are other rules we have signed up to. One of them is Kyoto, and if you look at recent news reports you will see that (a) greenhouse gas emissions from transport in Ireland have increased at six times the rate for the rest of the EU; (b) the Irish Government (i.e. the taxpayer) faces payment of large fines or costs of pruchasing carbon emission rights as a result of this. In some cases the payment may be made by the industries concerned, but in the case of trucks the payment will not be made by the (FOFF) truckers, but by you and me. So having refused to treat trains and trucks consistently with respect to track costs, they are now going to pay good money for truck emission rights which they could have paid for rail-freight infrasctucture.
Crazy, and if EU rules really force then to do this then EU rules (not for the first time) are crazy too. As for the disposal of freightyard land: this is so dodgy on planning grounds (and personally I smell a very corrupt rat)
Mark Gleeson
29-03-2006, 09:32
Since the EU forced open access for freight Europe wide and since public money is used to subsidse rail services there are rules to follow, note current complaint by private coach operators re Dublin Bus and Bus Eireann its the same thing
The EU position meant that passenger service got every cent they where supposed to get, equally if there was money for freight that would be ring fenced. In the old days it was one single balance sheet so it was lost in the numbers
Its quite fair and open and the passenger has done the very well out it as the money allocated to them is now being used as it was intended.
The key point to note is that freight would actually reduce passenger operating costs as the track maintenance cost would be shared out. Its a win win for both
All stopped using rail since they either went out of business or the raw material got used up
That's no excuse. :D
A Customer, I would like to see more rail freight and less road freight but if what Mark says is true (which i suspect it is) the passenger has beneffited most.
An idea the government could look at, if they had the will, is see what carbon taxes cost per annum and use this money to try to promote rail instead. I can't see this happening though.
Mark Hennessy
29-03-2006, 11:55
Leighton Buzzard.. that's west Cork isnt it?
Yeah its been pretty much off the map since the West Cork was lifted in the 1950's ;)
Thomas J Stamp
29-03-2006, 15:01
The other reason why freight became uneconomic was the ILDA strike. How many potential customers did that put off?
The argument has to be about ecominics so lets think about the following:
If a major road haulage company or two got their act together they could concivably hire entire freight trains to carry containers overnight from say Cork or Galway or Sligo to meet the ferry crossings in and out of Dublin and Rosslare. The idea would be to do so in a way that their drivers do local runs only, from train station in say cork to cork and kerry/tipp ect, and an agent in Dublin port (the port company itself?) does the transfer from the train to the ferry and another agent picks it up in the UK/France or if it is domestic freight a local driver picks it up from the port and delivers it in Dublin ect.
OTOH:
Cost of driver and unit to train station + cost of passage on train, including loading staff, unloading staff + unloading in uk/France + costs of local driver in reciving domestic station and delivery in that area.
Domesticly the same company should have both ends and therefore the ecomionic case basicly is down to the costs of running a truck, including all tolls and runing costs, depreciation, insurance, tax and all of that, against the train.
Internationally it is the costs of one truck, going from Somewhere in Ireland to somewhere overseas, one driver, all of those costs v. the costs of the above arraingement.
Asahi (some weird chemical, oil)
Methyl Acrylate & Acrylonitrile used for the manufacture of synthetic fibres
Thomas J Stamp
06-04-2006, 09:28
Ashai:
also a Japanese Beer which Tesco in Ballymun used to sell in big cans. You probably would need a freight train for it, if you know what I mean....
Mark Gleeson
06-04-2006, 09:42
Well the beer is gone since Diageo got a cheaper deal elsewhere, rail was available but was undercut
End of the day if you can fill a train with containers, ore, beet etc IE will operate it there are very very few possibilities for that now. To make life easy the entire network can take the 9'6" tall containers, most of the UK can't. The option is there problem is finding someone who needs to move 30+ TEU trainloads over long distances on a point to point basis
Thomas J Stamp
07-04-2006, 16:21
The option is there problem is finding someone who needs to move 30+ TEU trainloads over long distances on a point to point basis
that is exactly the point. In the UK there are many big point to point destinations of large scale and size for such an operation, but not here.
Kevin K Kelehan
25-06-2006, 10:45
I'm not so sure that most freight in the UK other than coal and other minerals/aggregates has both it's origin and destination within the EWS zone; a lot of it appears to be coming through the Channel Tunnell or from ports such as Felixstowe or Southampton and then proceeds onwards to major landlocked centres of population such as M4 Corridor/ West London and to a greater extent Birmingham, Manchester or Leeds.
With the importance of container freight as being almost dominent in rail freight one must wonder if the proposed move of Cork port to Ringaskiddy is such a wise one. I certainly agree that it should move out of the City Centre given the value of its existing sites and the opportunity that disposal of same would give to invest in new facilities. There is also a big but in this and that I feel is that all major inter-modal transport hubs should offer the rail alternative.
Section Three: The Port of Cork
The Port of Cork, along with appointed consultants RPS Group, are progressing with their relocation and expansion plans to their lands at Ringaskiddy. As an important economic driver to the Southern Region, the relocation strategy will be of the utmost importance for the Port if it is the continue its development and provide the best available facilities to its market. Masterplans are still under review on the phased development which is expected to cost upwards of €200m to realise. This significant investment will help secure the Port's standing and edge in maritime commercial and leisure activities. The development will begin with work, including extensive drudging, along the Oyster Bank portion of the Ringaskiddy lands - provision will be made here for an extensive new Container Terminal. South of this plan, new provision will be made for a multi-purpose Roll-On/Roll-Off Berth and Storage - both these areas are highlighted in the aerial image below.
Additional expansion efforts will be concentrated on lands to the east of these zones. The scheduling of this move will depend on a number of variables - not least the provision of the new 13km Cork/Ringaskiddy Dual-Carriageway (which is progressing through the planning process), pace of Docklands development and financial flows. It is expected for significant progress to be made in the near future.
The above is courtesy of Lexington on archiseek
It's a combination of factors really.
1) Irish industry has changed drastically over the last 10+ years. We did have a few heavy manufacturing businesses e.g. mines etc that did require bulk freight. These, as has been pointed out further up the board, have disappeared or become insignifigant. The majority of Irish manufactured goods are small, high value and transported in single containers that make more sense by truck.
2) IE's network's not extensive enough to provide direct access to most businesses.
3) Freight by road has become extremely compeditive and truck drivers are being forced to operate to almost ridiculous levels of low cost.
4) Long distance freight's is usually hauled via a ro-ro ferry.
5) IE's internal problems - strikes, costs, etc etc
6) (very important) the fact that businesses expect just-in-time freight deliveries. Rail freight simply isn't that rapid and efficient.
The only way IE could make rail freight more compeditive would be to develop 2 or 3 major and seriously efficient freight hubs capable of moving stuff from trucks to rail in the fastest possible manner.
Alternatively, you'd have to look at perhaps ro-ro rail freight and I dont think the mainline network would have suitable height clearances.
It'd made sense between Dublin-Cork etc..
The other issue is that freight would need to move a lot faster by rail. Some of the existing IE freight operations are very slow.
It'd be nice to see more freight moving by rail, but alas, I don't think it's likely to happen in the near future.
btw: what's to become of the 201 fleet when the new intercity DMUs arrive?!
It seems that we'll have a lot of surplus 201s around if there's no freight to haul.
and if the CDE moves to new powercars, that'll just leave the enterprise!
Derek Wheeler
04-07-2006, 22:55
Mr. Casterton's letter is irrelevent in the scheme of promoting railfreight in Ireland. He is not a resident or tax payer in this country. His opinion is worthless.
At the outset of P11, we requested help from people in relation to Rail freight as our accumalated knowledge was prodominantly based in the passenger area. Mr. Casterton(turbotim) and his associates at Irish Railway News were found "wanting" due to their own "complexes" in relation to P11 and its audacity to actually criticise Irish Rail and/or the WRC amongst other things. Had they reacted differently, then maybe P11 (with their help) could have made a realistic contribution to highlighting railfreight possibilities online and in the media. P11 now operates solely in the passenger sphere as our tag line suggests...National Rail passengers Organisation. However this does not preclude anyone from discussing railfreight on the board.
Furthermore, Mr. Casterton, deliberately refuses to post articles from the local media in Ireland, that feature P11, on the IRN website. While some readers may not see the need or relevence for me saying this, I will conclude by stating, that his opinion and urge to write to an "Irish" newspaper, is counter productive to the rail freight question as it is seen by many as an attempt to influence action, purely on the basis of enthuasiasts whims.
Mr. Casterton has absolutely no right to debate the issue of railfreight in The Republic of Ireland. His agenda should be questioned as he had the chance to offer "knowledge" to a "local" organisation and refused to take it up.
His "letter" is nothing more than a pathetic "plea" from the safety net of a computer and not someone who sees the network on a daily basis.
I know you guys have alot on your plate just dealing with the passenger side of things but is it possible to have a rail freight group within (or associated with) P11 in the same way that NRG or Meath on track are affiliated to P11.
Would there be many people in P11 interested, willing and with the knowledge to just outline the possabilities etc of rail freight in ireland at the present?
I dont really have any knowledge of this area but would love to see a revival in rail freight as alot of you would too.
I guess what I'm asking is what can we do as a group for rail freight?
Thomas J Stamp
05-07-2006, 09:40
Another point, but Derek is too diplomatic to point it out (!) is that a lot of what is presented as concern for railfrieght is actually fear of trainspotters becoming extinct due to the withdrawal of specific types of locomotives and freight wagons. If you dont belive me, look at IRN, you'll see it for yourselves.
You will also notice the rightous indignation expressed at the residents of North Wall and Sligo hotel owners who are a bit miffed with ancient trains running all night outside their doors all night because they are so clapped out that if they are switched off they may never get restarted. Rather helpfully it is pointed out that steam trains were just as noisy. So thats all right then.
As for the 201's MrX, believe me when I state that in the eyes of IRN they are the spawn of Satan himself and if they were pulling every freight train in the country our mates would from what I've seen of them lose all interest in freight.
That said, IE's freight policy is hard to fathom. One the one hand you hear grandiouse plans for a major container yard near the M50/Park West area then you dont then you find that CIE sells land which is vital for freight in the port areas.
As Derek said above we dont do freight as we dont have the expertise due in no small way to the history posted above.
Mark Gleeson
05-07-2006, 09:49
The problem is simple IE are by the ministers requirements required to run a profitable freight business
You don't want to take on the road haulage representitives, imagine their reaction if IE was given large grants to get freight moving.
For reference CIE has not sold a single acre in Spencer Dock Dublin, they still own the 41 acres and still have a dockside container yard in Dublin, same applies in Cork
From what I can see the IRN boys just want to take photos, they won't be happy if the trains are plain, hopefully by 2008 they will be extinct
I guess what I'm asking is what can we do as a group for rail freight?
Platform 11 have no interest in lobbying for rail frieght. If you wanted to start a group lobbying for frieght we would deal with you (something like MoT) but we (the committee) have enough going on without doing what we consider flogging a dead horse. :)
If you are intested in starting a group and would like some help send Derek a mail about it.
ok
thanks for the feedback guys :D
Kinda got the impression from IRN alright that they mostly dont care about service but just prefer to take pictures.
If you think the people on IRN don't like 201's here's what they've got to say about railcars
Basically there is no future for loco hauled trains, no thanks to our imported management
Doesn'nt matter that thousands travel on them daily not knowing or caring about whats up front (or not)
Kinda got the impression from IRN alright that they mostly dodnt care about service but just prefer to take pictures.
You're spot on there Colmoc.
They just want freight for photos not for any commercial or economic reason even empty boxes or wagons will do as long as theres a loco (not 201) pulling it around for no good reason.
Mark Gleeson
05-07-2006, 12:06
What we want is a boringly reliable railway which just works, thats completely against the I photo something different mantra
To be fair to Irish Rail they run a decent fleet, the 29K is putting in 50,000 miles per failure thats not far off the DART and easily 3 to 5 times the best the UK can manage even with kit with the same engines, the 29K is possibly the most reliable DMU in the world.
they mostly dodnt care about service but just prefer to take pictures.
Ah yes but what beautiful, powerful, glorious photos...you can almost feel the throbbing...
(sorry nearly got carried away there. You know what I'm like about locomotive-hauled freight trains.)
Thomas J Stamp
05-07-2006, 14:47
As you may have noticed the committee is unaminous about freight - it's great but its not a part of the P11 remit - passengers are.
That dosnt mean in the slightest that freight cannot be discussed here on the message board in fact I would personaly encourage realistic debate on it (no Foynes rubbish please) if fopr no other reason that we know who reads these boards and it may be useful for them to hear suggestions.
Just trying to get an idea of the state of non passenger movement in IE since I have very limited knowledge of this. I was wondering
Is fast trak a seperate entity from passenger rail and is it a profitable section of IE?
What are fastrak able to carry in terms of size volume etc :confused:
Thomas J Stamp
05-07-2006, 22:10
Fasttrack is actually a parcel service where you use the train to get stuff from station to station. I have used it to get documents from down here in Tipp up to the Four Courts and the various registries. Problem is getting it to and from the station, you need a courier to get it to your home station and another one to pick up. I know one courier firm that uses it a lot to get stuff down country and local taxis to get it form the station but pretend (and charge joe sod) on the pretext that they have driven the parcell to the destination themselves.
Dont know about size limitations but it is only a parcel service. If there's a white van man anywhere near the board he might be able to fill you in.
A mate of mine worked for Fasttrack and complained that they had to compete with a courier firm that hired OAPs to carry parcels for free around the network. Smart, huh?
Derek Wheeler
05-07-2006, 23:56
Im your very own white van man!
Fastrack will not take anything more than a "parcel", that cannot be lifted by one person comfortably. Ive had very many experiences of parcels being refused at offices, because they were "too heavy", eventhough, they may be no be bigger than a shoebox. No joke. Honestly. (I'll come back with exact weight)
In modern day terms, a large printer(for a pc) or small photocopier will be deemed too heavy and not be carried as one unit. We all know that you cant take them apart and pack seperately.
So Fasttrak is not exactly a courier service as I thought rather an crap postal service but faster.
If they dont take things the size of a small office printer then they are doing themselves out of alot of business.
So fasttrak dont have any contracts with local couriers to get items to and from the station which is crazy.
whats the point in having to ring a courier to bring your item to the station then ring fasttrack to bring the item to say dublin then ring another courier to bring it to its drop off point
The ideal would be to take anything that could be reasonably easily moved without a pallet lift and have local couriers contracted to collect and drop off the items from the station. one point of contact minimal hassle.
Do fastrak have any contracts for the likes of UPS or DHL??
On the "trainspotters" (IRN) issue, yes I do get the impression that many of them are British-based and see Irish Rail as a wonderful quriky old system that has lots of loco-hauled stuff which is strange and different. They've no interest in the network other than as a living museum of ancient GM locomotives.
It's a bit like having a vintage car enthusiast dissussing motorway planning.
IE isn't a theme park for trainspotters, nor should it ever be. We have train-based themeparks for that sort of thing.
The 201s, Commuters, CDEs, Enterprises, DARTs and arrows may be boring and modern, but they're doing what railways are meant to do and what all of those old quirky technologies did to the best of their ability in their day - move a huge number of people as efficiently, comfortably and rapidly as possible.
Would these guys also like to see Aer Lingus doing transatlantic flying boats?!
We had similar arguments morning the demise of operator-switched telephone services in the west of ireland. "the friendly voice of the operator being replaced by heartless monotonous digitally produced tones." back in the early 80s. --- However, I don't think many people in rural areas were complaining!
Derek Wheeler
06-07-2006, 20:44
Fastrack do offer a door to door service that can be same day or overnight. While they have a fleet of vans, they also use a company called GLS.The most popular method, though, is station to station.
At the moment all Fastrack movements on the Sligo and Wexford/Rosslare lines is carried by van as the railcars have no space for parcels.
Ive christened it...."fastruck".:D
Question:
will the Mitsui IC railcars be able to take FastTrack parcels?
Thomas J Stamp
07-07-2006, 10:11
I would imagine so, Sean, they are proper intercity trains, the ones we have at the moment, even though they are doing intercity work, are commuter trains. The new DMUs will even have food facilities, they will be the same as what we have at the mo except the engines might be underfloor.
Have at look at the mitsu website, I would pay real money for that to be our DMU!!! It might even get the IRN lads excited.
James Shields
07-07-2006, 10:42
I would imagine there will be a small van section next to the driver's cab at one end, similar to what's on the Enterprise. The configuration might be something like: Driver's Cab-Van Compartment-First class seating.
Otherwise, we'll no longer be able to bring bicycles on IC trains, which would not be popular.
As far as I know, the order will be split between 3-car sets and 6-car sets. I would expect some differences in the level of facilities provided on each - the 6-car sets might have a full restaurant car while the 3-car ones only have a trolley service, but I would think the van section will be a requirement on both.
We'll find out for sure at the end of the year!
There must be a better way for railfreight though. Its sickening to be caught in places like Gort behind countless container, cement and fertilizer lorries, I know Gort station is closed but surely there is a market for somebody to lease a lot of the dead yards like Ennis, Athenry etc. and make money from bulk buying cement, fertilizer etc., getting it delivered to the yard in full train loads and supplying to local customers.
Apparently the yard in Tuam is full of fertilizer, I know I've seen fertilizer in the Ennis yard recently. How is it more economical to transfer the stuff on maybe 18 individual trucks instead of one train?
It appears to me that there is no will to get stuff back on the tracks and off the road.
Mark Gleeson
11-07-2006, 15:29
Most fertiliser went by rail but IFI closed down since then its all imports
Most of the freight business was withdrawn by third parties who ceased trading, new business is not an option since the DoT refuse to fund an inch of new track for freight, eg Lisheen mine
Most fertiliser went by rail but IFI closed down since then its all imports
Most of the freight business was withdrawn by third parties who ceased trading, new business is not an option since the DoT refuse to fund an inch of new track for freight, eg Lisheen mine
Does the fertilizer arrive at the port in bags and on pallets etc? I know nothing about it but if it arrived in Cork by ship then surely its economical to move full train loads of it to somewhere like Ballina or Dundalk?
Same goes for bagged cement, I assume its bagged in somewhere like Limerick, can they not fill a train and move it to places like Waterford in one movement.
(You'll probably tell me that all the fertilizer arrives into Foynes:D )
It just doesn't add up for me, kegs, cement etc. one train bringing it across the country instead of maybe ~18 trucks, how can it not be at least competitive?
Mark Gleeson
11-07-2006, 15:45
It just doesn't add up for me, kegs, cement etc. one train bringing it across the country instead of maybe ~18 trucks, how can it not be at least competitive?This is business and road is significantly cheaper
Diageo moved to road not since rail wasn't doing a good job but since the road option was cheaper
Does heavy freight like cement not destroy the tracks? It certainly destroys roads.
Thomas J Stamp
11-07-2006, 21:52
We had another thread before on the logistics of rail versus road freight. Rail freight makes good economic sence when there is a massive load and a guaranteed market at the destination, the problem with Ireland is that the population is too sparsely spread about. Most of the large cities have ports of their own and most of the large towns are close to those ports and cities anyway. the Guinness situation is a case in point, there was a guinness liner to sligo but the moment the road network from Dublin to Sligo became competitive the contract collapsed.
Remember that once a train arrives in a station with its load local hauliers will be needed anyway to get it to wherever it is going. IE used to have a road train service, ie its own lorries and also the freight business was subsidised in a manner in which it cannot be anymore. Even though in theory the freight businees is due to open up to the possiblity of private operators it will not happen because the margins just dont exist.
Sadly for the enthusiast it could well see the growth of freight DMU's!!
just read the above quote from IRN pretty much sums up the attitude of the enthusiast to freight and can proably be projected through to passenger services too, which is appalling.
They dont want to see good services or growth just old trains
:confused:
Mark Gleeson
25-07-2006, 10:08
The nameless international company which expressed an interest in Ireland was and remains the only company to operate freight using DMU style equipment (well they borrowed it from Railtrack) to prove it could be done
Cost of entry to the market is too high and all the big customers are contracted to IE, all the spare equipment is life expired and is being scrapped. The scrapping contract was advertised so a third party operator could have bought the kit as they used to do in the UK but they didn't
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