Tesco switching to container trains, away from lorries

CIE

Bloomberg

Tesco Plc is leading a trend among U.K. supermarkets to stock stores using container trains, transforming a rail-freight market once dominated by bulk flows of coal, steel and chemicals.

Tesco, Britain’s biggest retailer, is being followed by Marks & Spencer Group Plc and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s Asda in the drive to cut transport costs and improve delivery times by switching more of its logistics chain away from crowded roads. ...

Shops have doubled their use of rail in five years, said John Holwell, development manager at Malcolm Group Plc, which books trains for Tesco, Asda and the Argos household goods arm of Home Retail Group Plc that are run by Direct Rail Services. ...

corktina

can it happen here?

OurLadyofKnock

yes it can happen here - but not with CIE involved.

What Tesco are doing is using liner trains as both transport and warehouses - which is bloody ingenious when you think about it. Why bother renting or building warehouses when you can leave them in a fenched off siding until they are needed.

no reason why it can't happen here once CIE are out of railways.

Cookie_Monster

they've been doing this for years now, hardly news...

considering the amount delivered to Cork and backhauled out of there by them A Dublin Cork liner could work. Little need for other routes though as there just isn't the traffic to justify the time and cost spent depot-yard-load-train-unload-truck to local stores-return box to yard-return to dublin-unload-return to warehouse.

L1011

Seeing as Tesco have just recently built one of the largest footprint buildings in the country as a warehouse I doubt they'll want to use the containers-as-warehouses concept just yet.

rainbowdash

OurLadyofKnock wrote: »

yes it can happen here - but not with CIE involved.

Thats it in a nutshell. CIE shut Fasttrack at a time when couriers and online shopping was expanding, along with rising oil prices. They also had a unique selling point in that you could drop a parcel into Galway station at 5 or 6pm and have it in Dublin the same evening.

Looking at the parcelmotel concept they were in a prime position for such a service.

Then they closed all the container yards after investing in gantrys and bridge works etc.

Now in the age of high oil it MUST be viable to run container trains at night on a loop from Cork to Waterford to Dublin to Limerick to Cork or Dublin to Sligo to Mayo to Galway to Dublin etc., with mobile fork trucks to load and unload the containers, hauliers could book online and send their freight in containers at a competitive price. There would surely be a solid base load from supermarket chains, DIY outlets, brewerys etc.

It could be made work but would never happen if Irish Rail were involved.

dowlingm

rainbowdash wrote: »

Looking at the parcelmotel concept they were in a prime position for such a service.

Indeed. (Although GO Transit doesn't actually move the parcels, just provides space for the dropoff)

bk

rainbowdash wrote: »

Now in the age of high oil it MUST be viable to run container trains at night on a loop from Cork to Waterford to Dublin to Limerick to Cork or Dublin to Sligo to Mayo to Galway to Dublin etc., with mobile fork trucks to load and unload the containers, hauliers could book online and send their freight in containers at a competitive price. There would surely be a solid base load from supermarket chains, DIY outlets, brewerys etc.

The bolded part is the problem, the cost of all that loading and unloading and staff to handle it wipes out any fuel saving costs.

Also you ignore the fact that rising oil prices also effect diesel trains.

The reality is you can load a container off a ship directly onto the back of a lorry and have it delivered directly to it's destination in any city in Ireland within 3 hours. Rail in Ireland just can't compete with that.

CIE

bk wrote: »

The bolded part is the problem, the cost of all that loading and unloading and staff to handle it wipes out any fuel saving costs.

Also you ignore the fact that rising oil prices also effect diesel trains.

The reality is you can load a container off a ship directly onto the back of a lorry and have it delivered directly to it's destination in any city in Ireland within 3 hours. Rail in Ireland just can't compete with that

Certainly when you have a public sector continuously dismantling the railway network (while building an excessively-large roads network at the same time), instead of having more private participation and a growing railway network. (Which seems to be at least one of the results of the UK's privatisation.) So how do you get it out of the public's hands? Vital question.

corktina

CIE wrote: »

Certainly when you have a public sector continuously dismantling the railway network (while building an excessively-large roads network at the same time), instead of having more private participation and a growing railway network. (Which seems to be at least one of the results of the UK's privatisation.) So how do you get it out of the public's hands? Vital question.

please read what bk said. 3 hours. You wouldn't even have finished loading a train in that time, never mind set out for destination, of which there would only be one as opposed to a couple of dozen different ones with road transport.

We'd all love to see container trains whizzing around the country, but the reality is it defies logic to even be thinking of it

bk

Of course it is the fault of the government and has nothing to do with the demographics, geography and economy of Ireland!!

You literally couldn't find another country whose geography and demographics are less suited to rail freight.

- Majority of people live in Dublin which is a port and at the centre of the country.
- Every other city is also a port and under three hours from Dublin by road.
- Almost no heavy industry in Ireland, most industry is light, just in time type industry.

It is for these reasons that rail freight will never play any sort of major part of freight transport in Ireland.

rainbowdash

corktina wrote: »

please read what bk said. 3 hours. You wouldn't even have finished loading a train in that time, never mind set out for destination, of which there would only be one as opposed to a couple of dozen different ones with road transport.

We'd all love to see container trains whizzing around the country, but the reality is it defies logic to even be thinking of it

I don't get the 3 hours bit? For a lot of people if a ship arrives into Dublin this afternoon they want it "down the country" for the morning, so overnight freight train is just as fast.

If a truck is sent down from dublin and he comes back with an empty container thats a dead load, at least a container yard can stack the containers and redistribute them a bit better based on demand.

What if a container is delayed unloading, the driver is over his time so can't drive back the same day, thats more cost.

Containers are transferred between Liverpool port and Manchester by barge and demand keeps growing, its only a distance of 20 odd miles and way slower than trucks, so why is that viable given the short distance and slow time?

Judgement Day

rainbowdash - you're wasting your time trying to convert bk, he obviously never had a train set as a child and hasn't got over it. As for foggy_lad....there's a mystery that even I have no answer to.

steamengine

rainbowdash wrote: »

I don't get the 3 hours bit? For a lot of people if a ship arrives into Dublin this afternoon they want it "down the country" for the morning, so overnight freight train is just as fast.

If a truck is sent down from dublin and he comes back with an empty container thats a dead load, at least a container yard can stack the containers and redistribute them a bit better based on demand.

What if a container is delayed unloading, the driver is over his time so can't drive back the same day, thats more cost.

Containers are transferred between Liverpool port and Manchester by barge and demand keeps growing, its only a distance of 20 odd miles and way slower than trucks, so why is that viable given the short distance and slow time?

The pecking order of cheapest modes of transport regarding fuel costs per tons transported is in fact ships or barges, followed by rail, then road and finally air. Simples as to why rail is preferred over road, but not the only reason. CO2 emissions is the other - the less fuel burned the less emissions. Either start the change or get pelted with carbon taxes. The UK are responding with an increased shift from road to rail - Ireland please copy !!! BTW - Anyone notice all the rain this year, a product of the mean rise in ocean temperatures due to global warming.!!!

corktina

rainbowdash wrote: »

I don't get the 3 hours bit? For a lot of people if a ship arrives into Dublin this afternoon they want it "down the country" for the morning, so overnight freight train is just as fast.

If a truck is sent down from dublin and he comes back with an empty container thats a dead load, at least a container yard can stack the containers and redistribute them a bit better based on demand.

What if a container is delayed unloading, the driver is over his time so can't drive back the same day, thats more cost.

Containers are transferred between Liverpool port and Manchester by barge and demand keeps growing, its only a distance of 20 odd miles and way slower than trucks, so why is that viable given the short distance and slow time?

but the overnight freight train will leave it off in Cork or Limerick or Galway whatever and it then has to be loaded on to a truck to go to it's destination,which could be many miles from the railhead, whereas the truck from the Port can go straight to destination.

Comparing to the situation in the UK is not a viable comparison...the flow from Liverpool to Manchester would be very many more times that from Dublin to Cork, even if there is indeed any flow on that route seeing as Cork is also a port capable of handling it's own container traffic. Manchester is an inland city, and fairly unique as it has a Ship Canal to it from Liverpool

bk

Think about it logically, if you were a major logistics company, how would you operate Ireland.

You would probably have a major warehouse somewhere close to the M50. You would have the freight come in at Dublni port, ship to the warehouse, distribute from there to the Dublin area and down directly to Cork, Limerick, Galway, etc. by road.

This is almost exactly what Tesco do with their massive warehouse in Donabate.

Rail just can't compete with this.

No waiting till the next day for the rail freight to arrive.
No needing trucks and all the staff to load the freight onto and off the rail heads.
No having to worry about Irish Rail going on strike.
Having numerous different road hauliers competing aggressively with one another for your business.

BTW Why do you think most companies would be ok with waiting till the next day for their product, when they could get it the same day within three hours of coming off a ship for pretty much the same price or less?

If you are Tesco you definitely want it as quickly as possible. The fresher the produce the better.

And where are all the companies crying out for rail freight? If there was really any demand for it we would be hearing about it.

As to JD's comments about train sets, actually I did have a very large and impressive train set as a kid and I loved it. But that doesn't mean I leave my brain by the door. I can quiet clearly think logically and look at the economics, demographics and geography of Ireland and come to the very logical conclusion that it just doesn't make sense for Ireland, just as it seems most people who need freight moved in Ireland.

Note I say Ireland, moving heavy freight across the US for example makes very logical sense.

corktina

or even within the UK where there are very many inland towns and cities, and ten time the popualtion we have.

rainbowdash

bk wrote: »

Think about it logically, if you were a major logistics company, how would you operate Ireland.

You would probably have a major warehouse somewhere close to the M50. You would have the freight come in at Dublni port, ship to the warehouse, distribute from there to the Dublin area and down directly to Cork, Limerick, Galway, etc. by road.

This is almost exactly what Tesco do with their massive warehouse in Donabate.

Rail just can't compete with this.

No waiting till the next day for the rail freight to arrive.
No needing trucks and all the staff to load the freight onto and off the rail heads.
No having to worry about Irish Rail going on strike.
Having numerous different road hauliers competing aggressively with one another for your business.

BTW Why do you think most companies would be ok with waiting till the next day for their product, when they could get it the same day within three hours of coming off a ship for pretty much the same price or less?

If you are Tesco you definitely want it as quickly as possible. The fresher the produce the better.

And where are all the companies crying out for rail freight? If there was really any demand for it we would be hearing about it.

As to JD's comments about train sets, actually I did have a very large and impressive train set as a kid and I loved it. But that doesn't mean I leave my brain by the door. I can quiet clearly think logically and look at the economics, demographics and geography of Ireland and come to the very logical conclusion that it just doesn't make sense for Ireland, just as it seems most people who need freight moved in Ireland.

Note I say Ireland, moving heavy freight across the US for example makes very logical sense.

If a ship arrives in this afternoon and the truck picks it up and brings it down to say Galway it could be 5, 7 or 8pm, factory or shop is closed, nobody knows what time its going to arrive, so are you going to pay overtime and keep the place open, or wait in the knowledge that the train arrives in at say 6am, the local haulier can collect at 6.30 and have it in your place by 7,so everybody can schedule their work the day before.

You seem to think trucks sit at Dublin port like taxis waiting to whisk containers down the country in some magical 3 hour timeframe. The reality is very different, when the ship arives in nobody can do anything until its unloaded, cleared customs and a release note issued. Then you can ring around and guess what, all the trucks are busy doing something else so unless you want to pay a big premium you could be waiting until the next day anyway, if it was planned to be on a train its a lot easier schedule a local haulier to bring it the last 10 or 20 miles the following morning.

You mention Tesco, by equal measure companies could open a warehouse in China and load full containers there, and unload the containers directly at their furniture warehouse in Tralee for example. No fooling around paying high European wages in a Dublin warehouse to unload and reload everything or paying trucks to go over and back to the port all the time.

As regards companies crying out for railfreight well there are already viable container flows in this country, against all the odds, now if they started selling their excess capacity on the flows that already exist then container freight could really take off, but with Irish rail involved its hard to see it.

rainbowdash

corktina wrote: »

but the overnight freight train will leave it off in Cork or Limerick or Galway whatever and it then has to be loaded on to a truck to go to it's destination,which could be many miles from the railhead, whereas the truck from the Port can go straight to destination.

Comparing to the situation in the UK is not a viable comparison...the flow from Liverpool to Manchester would be very many more times that from Dublin to Cork, even if there is indeed any flow on that route seeing as Cork is also a port capable of handling it's own container traffic. Manchester is an inland city, and fairly unique as it has a Ship Canal to it from Liverpool

I still don't get your argument that this imaginary 3 hour truck taxis on standby type service is the reason container freight won't work in Ireland - which was you original point? I would hazard a guess that most containers are loaded / unloaded within 20 / 25 miles of a former rail container terminal in this is country. Only a small amount are hauled miles out to the middle of nowhere so I doubt they would make any difference in the grand scheme of things.

Judgement Day

bk - one point you overlook is that customers didn't, in many cases, leave CIE rail services out of choice - they were forced to by the services being withdrawn. The Sundries system was modernised in the late 1970's and goods were sent in 10ft containers instead of the traditional goods wagon but the whole process was botched from day one as insufficient containers were provided. In other cases such as the Ardee branch, CIE tried to get the end user to pay for the entire cost of renewing the connection to the mainline. The company is banjaxed and muddles along from one crisis to the next. Almost two years ago they were talking of reintroducing Fastrack on the Dublin/Cork route and expressions of interest were sought - what happened to that? Still they have GoRail magazine, RailGourmet and Barry Kenny, and if they are to be believed soon timings will be back to where they were in the 1980s.

steamengine

bk wrote: »

Think about it logically, if you were a major logistics company, how would you operate Ireland.

You would probably have a major warehouse somewhere close to the M50. You would have the freight come in at Dublni port, ship to the warehouse, distribute from there to the Dublin area and down directly to Cork, Limerick, Galway, etc. by road.

This is almost exactly what Tesco do with their massive warehouse in Donabate.

Rail just can't compete with this.

No waiting till the next day for the rail freight to arrive.
No needing trucks and all the staff to load the freight onto and off the rail heads.
No having to worry about Irish Rail going on strike.
Having numerous different road hauliers competing aggressively with one another for your business.

BTW Why do you think most companies would be ok with waiting till the next day for their product, when they could get it the same day within three hours of coming off a ship for pretty much the same price or less?

If you are Tesco you definitely want it as quickly as possible. The fresher the produce the better.

And where are all the companies crying out for rail freight? If there was really any demand for it we would be hearing about it.

As to JD's comments about train sets, actually I did have a very large and impressive train set as a kid and I loved it. But that doesn't mean I leave my brain by the door. I can quiet clearly think logically and look at the economics, demographics and geography of Ireland and come to the very logical conclusion that it just doesn't make sense for Ireland, just as it seems most people who need freight moved in Ireland.

Note I say Ireland, moving heavy freight across the US for example makes very logical sense.

What is logical about not opting to use the most fuel efficient form of transport where possible ? According to your logic, you would put the Tara mines trains back on the road, because as you say Ireland is not geographically or demographically suited to rail freight. It is really not a case of rail OR road, but rail AND road. Rail from the ports as far as possible then road. Fuel costs and Co2 emissions are reduced on two fronts both at the port and for the first part of the journey. It's not as if railways have to be built from scratch, they are an already sunk cost and there to be utilised.

Cookie_Monster

Just to Further elaborate on Tesco.

Good into the warehouse are delivered by other companies for the most part (apart from stuff shipped from UK & backhaul). There can be delays of up to 3 hours waiting for access to a bay (Both from experience working for them and from my Dad's experience delivering to them on a weekly basis) which occur frequently

Products can sit in the warehouse for a day or a month before getting trucked out to store on Tesco or Stobart trucks. 90% of trucks then backhaul items, either empty roll cages or drop in to a local producer in the region they just delivered to and pick up a shipment for the warehouse. For example trucks from Cork not full of cages are full of Barries Tea and their other product, a huge amount is bought by Tesco and a lot is saved on delivery costs by doing it themselves.
A very efficient operation and not something rail is ever going to be able to match for speed and frequency for a company such as Tesco.

Their rail operation in the UK are strictly inter depot transfers and maybe the odd bit of heavy xmas items direct to local stores from the rail yard.
No point driving a hundred trucks from Southampton to Wales or Scotland when 2 trains can do the same.

rainbowdash

steamengine wrote: »

What is logical about not opting to use the most fuel efficient form of transport where possible ? According to your logic, you would put the Tara mines trains back on the road, because as you say Ireland is not geographically or demographically suited to rail freight. It is really not a case of rail OR road, but rail AND road. Rail from the ports as far as possible then road. Fuel costs and Co2 emissions are reduced on two fronts both at the port and for the first part of the journey. It's not as if railways have to be built from scratch, they are an already sunk cost and there to be utilised.

Maybe this fleet of container taxis could swing by Tara mines on their way back from Limerick and Galway and collect the ore? Its only 3 hours from when the container hits the quay in Dublin until its in Galway, so plenty of time for a detour on the way back:rolleyes:

foggy_lad

Ship to truck to factory costs a lot less than ship to train to railyard to railyard down the country to truck again and finally to factory costs a lot more than any Irish company will pay. Every time a person has to he employed to move a container by truck train or even crane or forklift it costs a lot more.

The problem is not the distance or even the times of delivery as containers are often just left outside factories for unloading. It is the handling and double triple and quadruple manhandling that costs the big bucks in manhours.

steamengine

rainbowdash wrote: »

Maybe this fleet of container taxis could swing by Tara mines on their way back from Limerick and Galway and collect the ore? Its only 3 hours from when the container hits the quay in Dublin until its in Galway, so plenty of time for a detour on the way back:rolleyes:

Or the empty Tara ore wagons could be filled with toilet rolls for Tesco and thrown off line-side at Donabate !!!

corktina

i still can't see where the trainloads of containers are coming from. Pretty much every town and city in Ireland is a port, it wouldn't make sense to rail containers from Dublin to Cork or Waterford..this traffic does not exist

rainbowdash

corktina wrote: »

i still can't see where the trainloads of containers are coming from. Pretty much every town and city in Ireland is a port, it wouldn't make sense to rail containers from Dublin to Cork or Waterford..this traffic does not exist

Well as long as Irish Rail are involved I wouldn't expect anybody to bring a container within a mile of a train.:D

bk

steamengine you assume that rail uses less fuel then truck, but is that true in the real world.

After all rail uses diesel too. I wonder once you use all the forklifts and trucks to move the freight to and from the rail heads, if given the short distances in Ireland, if it really is more fuel efficient?

Marginal I'd say at best.

Obviously if you are shipping all the way across the US, then it is a different story. But given the short distances in Ireland I doubt it is such a big deal.

But then most companies wouldn't actually care about this, they just care how much it costs to ship it. As foggy pointed out, with all the extra manpower needed to load and unload the freight on rail and to bring it to it's final destination (wages are by far the biggest expensive in almost all industries), plus the lack of competition within the rail freight industry, I'd be very surprised if rail freight isn't significantly more expensive then truck for anything but very heavy loads like mineral ore.

rainbowdash

bk wrote: »

steamengine you assume that rail uses less fuel then truck, but is that true in the real world.

After all rail uses diesel too. I wonder once you use all the forklifts and trucks to move the freight to and from the rail heads, if given the short distances in Ireland, if it really is more fuel efficient?

Marginal I'd say at best.

Obviously if you are shipping all the way across the US, then it is a different story. But given the short distances in Ireland I doubt it is such a big deal.

But then most companies wouldn't actually care about this, they just care how much it costs to ship it. As foggy pointed out, with all the extra manpower needed to load and unload the freight on rail and to bring it to it's final destination (wages are by far the biggest expensive in almost all industries), plus the lack of competition within the rail freight industry, I'd be very surprised if rail freight isn't significantly more expensive then truck for anything but very heavy loads like mineral ore.

But there should be direct railheads so its ship to quayside to train, and there should be gantries in Limerick and Galway too, with maybe stacker forklifts in places like Ennis but a lot of this equipment has been scrapped or let decay, or freight yards turned into car parks.

I see in the paper today that Irish Rail are in serious financial trouble, and it looks like a spiral of fare increases and less and less passengers, so they seem to be forced into a culture change but is it too little too late??

corktina

yes it's ship/train/truck vs ship/truck, first option could well also involve a good bit of mileage by truck in the wrong direction.

dowlingm

corktina wrote: »

i still can't see where the trainloads of containers are coming from. Pretty much every town and city in Ireland is a port

Not a container port. The sheer numbers of containers coming into (and projected to do) into Dublin Port says to me that there is a niche for rail - just a question of how big. Dublin Port have already invested in relaying the railspurs in the port area, maybe they could consider buying some new container wagons with bogies rated for ~70mph rather than 50 so that their paths could fit better around passenger workings. IE could then operate them on DP's behalf but DP would be assured that a future capricious IE regime couldn't scrap them on a whim.