AT THE HEART OF THE ROAD TRANSPORT INDUSTRY.

Call our Sales Team on 0208 912 2120

TRACK VA RS

16th October 1997
Page 56
Page 57
Page 56, 16th October 1997 — TRACK VA RS
Close
Noticed an error?
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.

Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

Despite a slow start, intermodal rail systems by Thrall and Bombardier Eurorail, among others, are gaining ground on road competitors as the baffle to carry European freight intensifies.

It's been a long time coming, but English, Welsh, & Scottish Railways (EWS)which will acquire Railfreight Distribution at the end of this month—is on the brink of launching a piggyback service.

"We should receive final approval from Railtrack to run the wagons within the next two weeks, and we'll be doing so as an adjunct to our London to Scotland Enterprise Service," says EWS general manager, business development, Julian Worth. "And the cost to the customer of using it to send a load will be competitive with the cost of sending it by road, even taking into account the need to use a truck for collection and delivery at each end."

Available

EWS will be using Thrall Europa's EuroSpine wagon. "It's the only one that's fully available for use in Britain at present," Worth explains.

Based on a concept originated by Thrall in the US, but built by Babcock in Fife to a design better suited to European operating conditions, it is constructed in four segments. Each will carry a 13.6m trailer grossing at up to 36 tonnes, and trailers are craned on and off.

Initially the service will run alternate nights using one wagon, but fairly quickly two wagons will be deployed to provide a nightly service. Parcelforce, John Russell Transport and two tanker operators have already decided to use it. The trailers will be the same as standard road-going semi-trailers with the addition of four lifting pockets—two each side—and an upwards-hinging under run bar. They will also he lower than standard trailers, with an internal height of 2m, Worth sees the wagons appealing to companies wishing to transport dense loads, and who want to take advantage of the 44-tonne concession, "And we expect to see increased interest from tanker operators during the course of next year," he adds.

Accepting standard trailers poses difficulties because the UK's railway loading gauge isn't as generous as the Continental one, and offers insufficient clearance.

The 3.96m height limit imposed by bridges and tunnels needs to be raised by I 70inm, and Worth doubts that the necessary work will be done before 2003/2004. Estimates of the likely cost vary from £250m to £300m, but Mick Such of Kent County Council, secretary to the Piggyback Consortium, is sure the money will be found. "Railtrack knows it has to find the money, because if it doesn't it will continue to lose the container market to the ports of Felixstowe and Southampton," he believes. The current height restrictions mean conventional piggyback trains cannot be run through the Channel Tunnel from the Continent and on to the British network.

For Such, that's a development that can't come soon enough. "At present Kent is the meat in the sandwich between the rest of the UK and mainland Europe, and we're desperate to switch freight from road to rail," he says.

EuroSpine is not the only piggyback solution, but rival manufacturers which build wagons that are already in service in Europe are wary of going to the expense of building prototypes for trial in Britain. Partly that's because EWS has already committed itself to Thrall—which takes one potential customer out of the equation—but also because they want to be certain the potential for piggyback traf

fic in the UK claimed by the Piggyback Consortium and the Rail Freight Group is genuinely there.

Bombardier Eurorail's T4B wagon will transport a single 13.6m trailer or several containers within an overall length of 18.3m.

"We've got several hundred running around on the Continent, a batch has recently been produced for a German customer and we're confident that we can build a UK-gauge version when the time comes; but we want to see what the market does first," intermodal equipment designer Malcolm Ord says. "We need buyers—we're wagon-builders, not a logistics company—and rail privatisation has left us in the wilderness for the past two years."

Ord's caution is shared by Roger Parker, sales director at Powell Duffryn Rail Projects. It's been instrument*in developing PIGLET (Piggyback Innovative Gauge Limited Equipment) but has yet to construct one.

'We've not cut metal yet because there are too many prototype wagons lying around that have been produced on a speculative basis by wagon builders," Parker says. "We want confirmation that there are buyers out there."

PIGLET'S big advantage is that it will work within the existing UK gauge, says Parker, but that a 2.5m internal height is nevertheless achievable on the road-going trailer if it is fitted with 19.5in wheels and long-travel air suspension, Andover Trailers, which is also involved in the project, is prepared to construct such trailers.

"With PIGLET, the trailer goes into an open well," says Parker. "Unlike the Thrall wagons it doesn't use a central spine—if it did, the 19.5in-wheel trailers would end up simply resting on top of it." Each PIGLET wagon will carry a trio of 13.6m Andover trailers.

Once a major manufacturer of rail wagons in the UK, Powell Duffryn shut both its plants on this side of the Channel in 1992. It has supplied 75% of the wagons delivered to British buyers over the past four or five years, but from factories in France, Slovakia and Finland.

Not a conventional piggyback service and considerably different from anything that Thrall, Bombardier Eurorail, or Powell Duffi-yn have to offer is another US development, the RoadRailer. Devised by Wabash National, the trailer rests on rail bogies and is thus transformed into a rail wagon; more than 500 are in operation in mainland Europe.

The drawback so far as most hauliers are concerned is that the trailers have to be specially built.

Box-bodied and refrigerated examples are made in the US. However, Boalloy's Congleton, Cheshire plant has constructed the curtainsided versions using US chassis. These chassis have required some strengthening, says Peter Bange, RoadRailer Europa's managing director. "We've modified them in the light of concerns over what might happen if a heavy cargo shifts, concentrating a lot of weight on one part of the trailer," he says. "We've also been worried about the impact of the sort of stresses which can be set up when a train is travelling over the Brenner Pass.

"You can get situations where a train is stationary, the pusher locomotive starts pushing, hut the one that's doing the pulling doesn't move away immediately.

"We've already had one incident on the Brenner which resulted in the trailer landing legs touching the rails," he admits. "Normally the deflection is only around 50mm. This hasn't affected the box or reefer trailers because they are of monceoque construction, and very strong"

Deutsche Bahn, the German state railway, is carrying out the necessary strengthening work in its workshops, and 220 out of the total 530 trailers in operation are being withdrawn from service for this to be done. The work will add 160kg to the trailer's weight, and primarily involves reinforcement around the king pin, says Bange. "We'll start to put the strengthened trailers back into service in November, and they should all be in operation again by February," he says.

There are two RoadRailer trains daily serving the Verona-Munich-Cologne route. Bange's next step will be to extend the service to Hamburg, and as far south as Bari mid Naples in Italy. "Then we want to link up to Zeebrugge, and therefore with the UK, probably during the second half of next year," he continues, "We're doing it this„way because although we have a slot in the tunnel, the charges are very high and Britain has a differ ent loading gauge to the rest of Europe.

"We're in contact with Poland, former Yugoslavia, and Hungary but Eastern Europe isn't a priority at present," he says. "There are safety and security considerations to be borne in mind, and there isn't a steady flow of cargo in both directions." Al] this means RoadRailer will have a further 1,300 trailers in operation by 1999.

Curtainsiders

EWS has four RoadRailer trailers in service in Britain—three boxes and a curtainsider-operating between north-east England and the Midlands. The number of curtairtsiders is likely to expand, says Julian Worth.

"In theory it would be possible to run RoadRailers through the tunnel, but we're not planning to do so at present," he says.

The Rail Freight Group has also been critical of Eurotunnel's stance on rail freight rates. "They are currently two or three times those charged for road freight," it claims. It has written to Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Margaret Beckett, to suggest the Office of Fair Trading's enquiry into the proposed P&O/Stena merger be widened to include Eurotunnel's rail freight charges, While Peter Bange is lukewarm about rail freight opportunities in Eastern Europe, others are more enthusiastic. The London to Sopron (Hungary) Rail Freight Freeway Project has appointed consultants—Sinclair Knight Merz in association with Deloitte Touche—to study the potential market for a UK/Sopron rail freight service.

It will connect with countries within an arc running from Moscow in the North, through Turkey, to Greece in the South.

by Steve Banner


comments powered by Disqus