Marland wrote:
Recliner wrote:
Marland wrote:
tim... wrote:


"Recliner" wrote in message
...
Graeme Wall wrote:
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 and wheeled cages, think updated BRUTES.

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

His scheme involved autonomous, self-propelled containers being carried on
the convertible upper deck of his giant high speed double-decker trains.
They would drive themselves right to the cutomer's address.

you might jest, but I feel sure that Amazon are looking at doing that sort
of thing without the train involvement

tim





The Ocado depot in Andover Hampshire burnt down early this possibly because
the fire precautions were not thought through enough, that withstanding the
publicity from the incident did show how far the technology of
autonomous sorting equipment has become and similar equipment is used
elsewhere.
video of the Ocado system here, it would not be inconceivable to think that
some of the units could be programmed to load themselves onto a truck or
train get taken to distribution point and once self driving vehicle
technology has developed complete the last leg though I imagine at first it
would be other warehouses.

Ocado before it burnt.

https://youtu.be/4DKrcpa8Z_E

Automated robots following tracks in flat factory floors aren't new, and
the Ocado ones run in a segregated environment where they don't have to
steer clear of people or other vehicles. Extrapolating that to the general
problem of operating in a public space, where they have to self-navigate
around people and other vehicles, across curbs and bumpy surfaces, obeying
traffic lights, etc is a difficult problem whose solution isn't imminent.
Level 5 autonomous cars are certainly more than a decade away, perhaps much
more.




Have no argument with the long development time for autonomous vehicles
which is why I added the caveat
of first use could be to other warehouses ,which might be the store for a
large supermarket and further replace
the need for human staff

As it happens the system used by Ocado is little more sophisticated than a
flat factory floor in that the storage baskets are stacked several tiers
vertically, as well horizontally and the system stores items less in
demand at the bottom. And while it may be a controlled environment they do
have to avoid each other.

Which is a lot easier than avoiding random pedestrians, cyclists, dogs,
cars, buses, etc.


I wouldn’t expect to see anything like them roam free in public space
anytime soon but was more using them as an example that the late Mr Bells
idea of self loading cargo pods might not be so outlandish though not on a
super gauge railway.


I think Michael's grand vision in this area was based on a number of
individually feasible, or at least theoretically possible, elements, but
collectively it was far from practical. That was true of many of his grand
plans, which generally weren't based on impossible science. One rare
exception was his strange belief that taller high speed trains would be
more stable than squatter ones.

In message , at 20:50:41 on Tue, 22
Oct 2019, " remarked:
On 22/10/2019 10:12, Graeme Wall wrote:
On 22/10/2019 09:49, Recliner wrote:
From:


https://www.ft.com/content/c2b51fd2-...d8281195?segme
ntId=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.

The first service, which is due to start in May between London
Gateway and
London Liverpool Street, is intended to help hauliers avoid the charges
from London’s Ultra-Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ), which was introduced this
year, and the congestion zone. It would also take traffic off the heavily
congested A13 that links the port near Thurrock in Essex to the capital.

A specialist rail engineering company, Rail Operations Group, is working
with DP World, the owner of London Gateway, to develop the low-emissions
scheme to compete with road hauliers to move consumer goods and freight
nearer to their final destination in London.

Karl Watts, ROG chief executive, said the response to its plans from
logistics companies and retailers had been “overwhelming,� although he
declined to name any customers that had signed up for the service.

Paul Orchard, ROG production director, said a series of different
companies
— including logistics companies and retailers — were looking at
participating.

Heavy goods vehicles that fall short of the standards required for
the ULEZ
have to pay a charge of £100 for each trip into the zone, which
from April
this year mirrors the congestion-charging zone in central London. From
October 2021, Transport for London will extend ULEZ to cover the area
within the north and south circular roads.

Mr Orchard said road hauliers can face environmental charges of up
to £200
on a return trip into the capital depending on timing and the type of
vehicle used. “The margins are in some cases wafer-thin,� Mr
Orchard said
of road transport. “You start adding in an extra £200?.?.?.?and
that’s
enough to make rail competitive.�

ROG, which will offer the service under the “Orion� brand, plans to
initially run three round-trip rail services per day outside of peak
hours.
It plans to use two converted, four-carriage trains that previously
operated the Thameslink cross-London passenger route.

The trains, due for delivery in May, are having their seats removed and
being fitted with diesel engines. The engines will generate power
when the
train is not running on non-electrified lines, such as the freight
sidings
at London Gateway. ROG estimates that each carriage on its trains will
carry around the same as a heavy truck.

Once the packages arrive at Liverpool Street, they will be distributed to
their final destinations around the city by electric van or cargo bikes.
Liverpool Street is the UK’s third-busiest station with 67m passengers
using it in the year to the end of March 2018.

ROG is looking to expand the service and is talking to customers about
other destinations, including possible overnight trains between
London and
Scotland and from London to Bristol.

DP World confirmed it had held discussions with ROG about starting the
service. It said it was also talking to the Port of London Authority on
plans to use barges to move some goods to a site in Fulham, west
London, by
river.

Then ship them up the Grand Union toÂ* Birmingham!

I've wondered whether the Grand Union or even the Caledonian could find
commercial use once again.

Perhaps the Regents Canal from Limehouse up to Paddington Station via
Little Venice? That would require an intermodal station, however.

Does Sweden's Göta Canal ever see any commercial traffic?

If the road hauliers are worried about their HGVs being banned, then
they could recruit OAPs (with Freedom cards) to hand-carry items from a
railhead near the M25. Brentwood to the east and Chorleywood to the
northwest. There's even a pub near each station where the OAPs could
gather while waiting for the HGVs to arrive.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 17:34:28 on Tue, 22 Oct
2019, tim... remarked:


"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 12:40:02 on Tue, 22 Oct
2019, tim... remarked:

think updated BRUTES.

I have no idea what BRUTES is

Are.

If you think you were correcting my grammar, fraid not

I had assumed it was the name of a concept or system solution, say like
TOPS.

It's dispelling that assumption which requires your grammar to be
corrected.
--
Roland Perry

"Anna Noyd-Dryver" wrote in message
...
tim... wrote:


"Anna Noyd-Dryver" wrote in message
...
tim... wrote:

And. of course, they will only deliver the bottom pallet of a stack


How high do you think they’ll be stacked within a train carriage?

more than one


The pallets I’ve seen on supermarket shop floors are stacked to about 6
feet high and wrapped in shrink wrap. I didn’t realise 769s had 12 foot
internal headroom...

from personal experience:

you wouldn't want to be moving around a 6 foot high stack with a hand driven
thingy

you need the item to be no higher than you can reasonably see over the top







Anna Noyd-Dryver

On 23/10/2019 08:08, tim... wrote:


"Anna Noyd-Dryver" wrote in message
...
tim... wrote:


"Anna Noyd-Dryver" wrote in message
...
tim... wrote:

And. of course, they will only deliver the bottom pallet of a stack


How high do you think they’ll be stacked within a train carriage?

more than one


The pallets I’ve seen on supermarket shop floors are stacked to about 6
feet high and wrapped in shrink wrap. I didn’t realise 769s had 12 foot
internal headroom...

from personal experience:

you wouldn't want to be moving around a 6 foot high stack with a hand
driven thingy

you need the item to be no higher than you can reasonably see over the top

Tell that to Asda. Our local one has been re-fitted with their extra
high shelves and I'm forever being asked to reach items from the top one.

wrote in message
...
On 23/10/2019 08:08, tim... wrote:


"Anna Noyd-Dryver" wrote in message
...
tim... wrote:


"Anna Noyd-Dryver" wrote in message
...
tim... wrote:

And. of course, they will only deliver the bottom pallet of a stack


How high do you think they’ll be stacked within a train carriage?

more than one


The pallets I’ve seen on supermarket shop floors are stacked to about 6
feet high and wrapped in shrink wrap. I didn’t realise 769s had 12 foot
internal headroom...

from personal experience:

you wouldn't want to be moving around a 6 foot high stack with a hand
driven thingy

you need the item to be no higher than you can reasonably see over the
top

Tell that to Asda. Our local one has been re-fitted with their extra high
shelves and I'm forever being asked to reach items from the top one.

That's a bit different from trying to push and steer a few hundredweight of
pallet around the store, isn't it?

As an aside, the 2.5 tonnes that (we have been told) these things can move
is never going to be likely in a manual loaded environment. With a 20 kg
personal lifting limit that's 100+ boxes per load.

Manually loading 100 boxes onto a single pallet repeatedly, just ain't gonna
happen


tim

On 23/10/2019 09:26, tim... wrote:


wrote in message
...
On 23/10/2019 08:08, tim... wrote:


"Anna Noyd-Dryver" wrote in message
...
tim... wrote:


"Anna Noyd-Dryver" wrote in message
...
tim... wrote:

And. of course, they will only deliver the bottom pallet of a stack


How high do you think they’ll be stacked within a train carriage?

more than one


The pallets I’ve seen on supermarket shop floors are stacked to about 6
feet high and wrapped in shrink wrap. I didn’t realise 769s had 12 foot
internal headroom...

from personal experience:

you wouldn't want to be moving around a 6 foot high stack with a hand
driven thingy

you need the item to be no higher than you can reasonably see over
the top

Tell that to Asda.Â* Our local one has been re-fitted with their extra
high shelves and I'm forever being asked to reach items from the top one.

That's a bit different from trying to push and steer a few hundredweight
of pallet around the store, isn't it?

As an aside, the 2.5 tonnes that (we have been told) these things can
move is never going to be likely in a manual loaded environment.Â* With a
20 kg personal lifting limit that's 100+ boxes per load.

Manually loading 100 boxes onto a single pallet repeatedly, just ain't
gonna happen


You are assuming they will be loaded manually.

--
Graeme Wall
This account not read.

"Graeme Wall" wrote in message
...
On 23/10/2019 09:26, tim... wrote:


Manually loading 100 boxes onto a single pallet repeatedly, just ain't
gonna happen


You are assuming they will be loaded manually.

I thought we'd established that's the MO here

tim

On 23/10/2019 11:07, tim... wrote:


"Graeme Wall" wrote in message
...
On 23/10/2019 09:26, tim... wrote:


Manually loading 100 boxes onto a single pallet repeatedly, just
ain't gonna happen


You are assuming they will be loaded manually.

I thought we'd established that's the MO here


Depends how the are loaded into the container at origin, could already
be palletised. Automatic loading of individual items onto pallets is
also possible but the latter are more likely to loaded into cages which
are already in use so they have to loaded somehow.


--
Graeme Wall
This account not read.

On 22/10/2019 14:35, Anna Noyd-Dryver wrote:

The taxi rank used to be between platforms 10 and 11, at platform level.
ISTR seeing service vehicles in that area on a recent journey, so
presumably there’s still access.

There still is a taxi rank between platforms 10 & 11, at platform level.

--
Basil Jet recently enjoyed listening to
Tortoise - 2016 - The Catastrophist