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Unread 29-03-2006, 07:16   #1
Navan Junction
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Default [IT letter] Sharp decline in rail freight

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.
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Unread 29-03-2006, 08:14   #2
Mark Gleeson
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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
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Unread 29-03-2006, 08:27   #3
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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.
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Unread 29-03-2006, 08:28   #4
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Leighton Buzzard.. that's west Cork isnt it?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson
Asahi (some weird chemical, oil)
Isnt that a Japanese beer?
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Unread 29-03-2006, 08:49   #5
Mark Gleeson
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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

Last edited by Mark Gleeson : 29-03-2006 at 08:56.
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Unread 29-03-2006, 09:23   #6
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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)
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Unread 29-03-2006, 09:32   #7
Mark Gleeson
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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
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Unread 29-03-2006, 11:41   #8
PaulM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson
All stopped using rail since they either went out of business or the raw material got used up
That's no excuse.

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.
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Unread 29-03-2006, 11:55   #9
Mark Hennessy
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Quote:
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
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Unread 29-03-2006, 15:01   #10
Thomas J Stamp
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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.
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Unread 05-04-2006, 21:05   #11
MV_001
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Asahi (some weird chemical, oil)

Methyl Acrylate & Acrylonitrile used for the manufacture of synthetic fibres
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Unread 06-04-2006, 09:28   #12
Thomas J Stamp
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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....
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Unread 06-04-2006, 09:42   #13
Mark Gleeson
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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
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Unread 07-04-2006, 16:21   #14
Thomas J Stamp
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson
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.
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Unread 25-06-2006, 10:45   #15
Kevin K Kelehan
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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.

Quote:
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
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Unread 04-07-2006, 10:39   #16
MrX
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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!

Last edited by MrX : 04-07-2006 at 10:42.
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Unread 04-07-2006, 22:55   #17
Derek Wheeler
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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.
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Unread 05-07-2006, 09:28   #18
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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?
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Unread 05-07-2006, 09:40   #19
Thomas J Stamp
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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.
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Unread 05-07-2006, 09:49   #20
Mark Gleeson
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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

Last edited by Mark Gleeson : 05-07-2006 at 15:08.
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