"Graeme Wall" wrote in message
...
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.

I still can't get my head around, that it's not two extra steps

However with the increased charges for operating diesel vehicles in major
city centres it could well be economically feasible.

Yes I can see that.

The question is "will it?" (rhetorical.)

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).

Oh I know what you mean now, Never knew the name though.

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.

Oh OK.

tim