On 22/10/2019 12:53, Graeme Wall wrote:
On 22/10/2019 12:40, tim... wrote:


"Graeme Wall" wrote in message
...
On 22/10/2019 11:35, tim... wrote:


"Recliner" wrote in message
...
From:

https://www.ft.com/content/c2b51fd2-f19f-11e9-ad1e-4367d8281195?segmentId=080b04f5-af92-ae6f-0513-095d44fb3577


One of the Britain’s busiest railway stations is set to take on a
new role
as a freight hub as part of a plan to shuttle goods to central
London from
a container port using old passenger trains.


Have I understood this right?

someone is going to take a container of stuff from the port

transfer the contents of it onto a converted passenger carriage
individual "units" at a time, presumably through side door(s)

and then at the other end empty the passenger carriage by individual
units onto little trucks

Actually into vans


What size of individual unit is this going to work for?


Pallets

the problem with pallets is they presumably need to be fork lifted

and you aren't going to be able to load up a train carriage through a
couple of side doors (even if you widen them) using fork lifts, you'd
need flat wagons for that

and wheeled cages,

wheeled cages would work, but that means that the goods have to be
correctly loaded into wheeled cages at the origin and the cages
transported 6000 miles on the ship.

No, the wheeled cages are loaded at the distribution depot. As someone
else explained container loads with goods for multiple destinations get
broken down at a distribution depot and made up into individual
cage-loads for each destination. Normally then taken by van from the
depot to the customer. The problem with the Orion concept is that it
involves an extra handling phase, depot - train - van. However with the
increased charges for operating diesel vehicles in major city centres it
could well be economically feasible. The alternative would be to utilise
electric lorries from the depot in the first place.


That seems a little bit too much organisation to me

think updated BRUTES.

I have no idea what BRUTES is

Are (or were, have any been preserved?): British Rail UTility Equipment,
wheeled cages that could be formed into "trains". A common sight at
major stations when BR was in the parcels business (Red Star).
There were also placed onto trains, sometimes into the guards' van or
more commonly onto dedicated trains. Ramps were provided but this could
be achieved without.

There are still one or two modified BUTES around but they're now used
for other purposes.




Somehow it reminds me of one of the late Michael Bell's schemes

The only three trains a day is also a bit of a damp squib

how many container movements is that going to replace, 100 or 2?

and how many containers arrive at the port every day - Google tells me
that the largest ships can carry 19 thousand, so 100,000 per day??

They don't all get delivered to one port. A better idea of throughput is
that each crane can shift up to 400 containers per shift, with three or
four cranes per vessel. Figure derived from a doco on Southampton
Container Port a few years back. 400 is the upper end of practicality,
350 per shift would be more normal.


OK they aren't all going to London, but what the heck!


Full containers would still continue by train and lorry to inland
container ports.