FELIXSTOWE A PORT OF TH1 FUTURE
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klready a successful aonventional port, it faces a fantastic upsurge of business when roll-on Ferries start operating BY NORMAN H. TILSLEY
'OR several years Felixstowe has been tipped as Britain's
most up-and-coming exit port for the Continent, and hauliers—quick to recognize this potential—are establishing depots and bases in the area. Already the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Co. boasts full palletization, offering 20 per cent rebates to exporters who forward goods for shipment either palletized, containerized or unit loaded. With the start (scheduled for mid-July) of the Transport Ferry Service's new roll-on/roll-off service, linking Felixstowe and Rotterdam, plus the possibility in the not-too-distant future of a commercial hovercraft service operating several times daily to the Continent, the port certainly looks as if it will live up to its reputation.
But why Felixstowe, one .might ask, especially in view of the fact that only 10 years ago, as a combined result of the Second World War and the East Coast floods of 1953, the port was virtually derelict, with the dock so silted up that its entrance practically dried out at every low tide? Ten years ago, the port's only traffic was wheat, which came in by barge.
The fact is that Felixstowe is the nearest British port to Rotterdam—the gateway to the industrial north west of Europe and. so far as commercial vehicles are concerned, to the whole of Gerrnany and countries through and beyond the iron Curtain. But it is not this fact alone that has singled out the port. Felixstowe is conveniently situated to the Midlands and the North of England and -unlike Tilbury. for instance— its approach roads are not badly congested.
Felixstowe has been completely free of strikes—the reason for this being that the full labour force is employed by the Dock company on a full-time basis, with a pension scheme, sick and holiday pay, and so on. For these reasons, ship owners such as the General Steam Navigation Co. Ltd.. the Fisher Line Ltd.. the Great Yarmouth Shipping Co., the Danish DADS line, the Svea Line and the Swedish Lloyd Steamship Co., which offer between them regular services to Holland, Denmark, Germany. Switzerland and Sweden. have abandoned larger ports and dock systems for independent Felixstowe.
From 1955 onwards Felixstowe's story has been one of steady and continual expansion. Derelict jetties have been replaced with new concrete piers: a new quay has been built at the east end and the dock has been dredged to give 22 ft. of water at low tide to all quays. Adjoining the dock basin a tank farm has been established, while on neighbouring land to the south the Dock company acquired a crane pier carrying a 50-ton lifting crane. An oil terminal, capable of handling large tankers up to 16.000 tons, has also been completed. Among its new facilities is the importation of propane which is brought to this country by sea from the American Gulf coast to be stored in refrigerated storage tanks on the site.
Under the general management of Mr. fan C. Trelawny, responsible to a very active board, the port's trade has developed since 1956 from approximately 62.000 tons to 375,000 in 1963. Throughput of goods—and these include new cars, machinery, barley and chemicals outwards, and timber, paper, fertilizers and industrial solvents inwards, to mention but a few of the commodities handled—continued to rise last year, despite a setback because of the Government's import surcharge and the loss of a certain Scandinavian car manufacturer's imported product to the near-by port of Harwich.
Where does road haulage fit into this picture? Certain farsighted hauliers—both local and foreign based—have built .up their trade along with the shipping companies -already mentioned. Felixstowe is a mere stone's throw from Ipswich—just 12 miles-on A45 which in turn links the port with Cambridge (66 miles away), Northampton (117 miles) and, via Ml, with Birmingham (160 miles), and the north west via M6. Manchester, using this route, is only 224 miles distant. Other mileages involved are London, which. is 83 miles away using AU; Newcastle upon Tyne, 285 miles (11 fartherthan the journey from Newcastle to London) and Sheffield, 187 miles.
In conjunction with the Road Haulage Association and the Eastern Regional Hoard for Industry, the Deck company is striving hard, with increasing success, to get the trunk roads improved and proposals are afoot for an east-west motorway. The approaches to the dock itself are completely uncluttered. The access road has recently been reconstructed to take the heaviest of loads, and plans have been approved in principle by the Minister of Transport to provide a dock spur road between Trimley and the dock, which will give a direct link to A45 avoiding altogether the town of Felixstowe.
The port, of course, is railway-siding connected, but the reliable and speedy services offered by hauliers in recent years probably has been responsible for a decline in the overall amount of tonnage carried into and out of Felixstowe by rail.
Although it is true that British Railways has increased its tonnage in the past eight years, its percentage of the total traffic passing through the port has decreased from somewhere around 32 per cent to something less than 10 per cent. The Dock company, however, still believing that there is an important role for rail transport to play in inland transport, is to expend some thousands of pounds on a new rail-marshalling yard and will provide rail facilities to the roll-on/roll-off service for the transhipment of containers and trailers that may, in future, arrive by rail should any form of piggy-back technique be developed in this country.
Road operators offering facilities to the port can be divided into two categories—those who carry goods to and from the ships arid warehouses and those who actually use the port as a springboard for their Continental operations.
Obviously, with the advent -of the Transport Ferry. Service, this latter category will greatly increase and hauliers, both public carriers and C-licensees, whose vehicles have possibly never been to Felixstowe docks before, will be visiting the port in ever-increasing numbers. • Given every encouragement Currently serving the port in the former category, offering a nightly trunk service to Birmingham and Coventry and also daily services to the Midlands and London, is Hatcher Transport (Framlinghain) Ltd. A sister company, Hatcher Transport (Felixstowe) Ltd., maintains an office in the dock. Another local haulier is Page Brothers, of Ipswich. who offer a daily articulated vehicle service to London. while another well-known local firm, whose name appears in the official list of operators who serve the ships that use Felixstowe, is W. Carter, of Woodbridge in Suffolk.
These local operators, together with many other near-by-based hauliers in Colchester and Woodbridge, are being given every encouragement by the Dock company's management to expand with the port. They enjoy the use of a reception system for delivering or collecting goods which is second to none. The drivers of all vehicles arriving are directed to a reporting point where their documents are scrutinized and where they are told, at once, to which shed or quay they should take their vehicles. They are then given a numbered "queuing card" (though, by comparison with London Docks, the word queue is most inappropriate) so that they, and the dock officials, know in which order the vehicles must be dealt with.
There is a transport liaison officer—Mr. S. Butcher—who endeavours to obtain return loads for vehicles bringing goods to the port. With a certain amount of co-operation on the part of the hauliers, this can nearly always be done, although, I was told, the port officials have the greatest difficulty in persuading operators to phone the estimated time of arrival of their vehicles --an essential ingredient if -a return load is to be found promptly. The fact that traffic flows arc fairly evenly balanced is a great help here--about 40 per cent of the general cargo passing through is either for collection or distribution in Birmingham and the Midlands, while a further 40 per cent goes out to, or some in from the London area.
The second category of hauliers using the port—the Continental operators—whose vehicles have used the daily lift-on/lift-off ferry service of the Fisher Line Ltd. to Rotterdam, contain some well-known names. Principal among them is Bulk Liquid Transport Ltd., who in 1957 pioneered and opened this gateway to and from the Continent for bulk liquids, mainly chemicals. Tanker movements through the port last year numbered 2.100 and this company maintains a large depot at Felixstowe complete with a pool of about 50 tanker semitrailers, With the start of the TFS ferry certain of these vehicles will be transferred to the roll-onfroll-oti service, Another Northern haulier who has used the port for some years is T. Brady and Sons Ltd., of Barrow-in-Furness, theheadquarters town of the Fisher Lines. This 'company maintains about 20 trailers at the port, with eight tractive units to do the shunting. Ferrymasters Ltd., who already extensively serve the nearby port of Harwich in connection with services operated from there by Mann and Son to Scandinavia and Northern Germany, have established an office in Felixstowe. The company plans, in the near future, to maintain several tractive units and semi-trailers and other equipment there.
In conjunction with Ferrymasters, Thomas Allen Ltd. and Hatcher (Felixstowe) Ltd., are building up sizeable fleets to cope with the TFS ferry traffic. Thomas Allen already handles much of the Carlsberg lager that goes through the port. Another company which has built up a large business at Felixstowe is British Road Services. With a depot immediately alongside the dock entrance in which they maintain a pool of 150 vehicles, it is understood that there are plans for expansion of ferry services.
The decision to use Felixstowe as the new terminal for the TES—which will be an extension of the successful services operated by the Atlantic Steam Navigation Co. from Tilbury to Antwerp and Rotterdam—has presented quite a challenge to the Dock company. Six and a half acres of foreshore have had to be reclaimed for use as a marshalling yard and Customs offices. and the seabed has had to be dredged to provide at least 22 ft. of water at low tide to permit vessels of 4.500 tons displacement to berth there. The ferry terminal initially is to be equipped with a 308 ft. by 40 ft. quay, linked with the marshalling area by an approach road. and a 2.000-ton floating pontoon, 150 ft. long and 90 ft. wide, will be connected with the marshalling area by two steel-girder road bridges. For lifting bulk cargo a 32-ton travelling crane will be provided.
To cope with Customs clearance (both TIR and ordinary) on a large scale„ an ex-R.A.F. hangar, with a floor space of about two acres, will be utilized. In addition, subject to Customs. approval, the company is providing a groupage warehouse, the object being to lease sections of this to hauliers so that they can conduct their own operations within it. Inside this will be a Customs area, through which all commodities coming in will pas before being passed out to the hauliers' own sections. Already this building is fully leased.
Apart from these facilities for hauliers within the dock terminal, a sister company—Felixstowe Dock Estates Ltd.— is providing plots of land on a 150-acre estate adjacent to the .Dock road on .which operators can provide their own depots, offices and maintenance facilities. It is here that T. Brady and Sons will build their new depot, as also will a new name to Felixstowe—Continental Ferry Trailers Ltd., of Barking— whose offices on the new site were expected to be completed only days ago. This well-known Continental operator plans to maintain a substantial pool of trailers at the port.
This, then, is Felixstowe in mid-I965. Already a success in its conventional shipping activities, this little go-ahead port is almost certainly headed for a fantastic upsurge of business as a result of the new ferry service about to start. But the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Co. by no means intends to rest on its laurels. Plans are well ahead for a new deep-water, dry-cargo quay north of the oil terminal, with improvements to the roads and services within the port area. And, as mentioned briefly in opening, ridiculous as it may seem now, it is possible, within a very short space of time, that -giant hovercraft, carrying similar payloads to the conventional ferries. will ply between Felixstowe and Furoport, in Holland. Indeed, in the port's last Act of Parliament, in 1963, provision was made for a hovercraft terminal.