Irish Rail cargo

Muahahaha

As a kid I used to live near the Dublin to Belfast line and frequently saw cargo trains, these days less so. Do CIE do much cargo these days ? I was always fascinated at the length of some of the cargo trains and the sheer amount of weight they could pull. At a guess I'd imagine a cargo train could pull the equivalent of 30 artic lorries so it seems strange from an efficiency and cost perspective that more transporters don't use them. Surely it is cheaper to send a train with one or two staff from Dublin to Cork than it is to send 30!lorries ?

Is it something to do with a lack of warehouses to store goods till collection at the other end or what is the main reason trucks are preferred over trains ? Should CIE have offered a local delivery service from train station to final destination to capture some of this market, is that the missing link ? How is it in other European countries, what would be the rail-road mix for cargo elsewhere compared to here ?

corktina

First thing you would need is a customer shipping 30 artic-loads, and on a regular basis.

LXFlyer

Zinc Ore from Tara Mines to Alexandra Road
Containers from Ballina to Waterford
Containers from Ballina to North Wall
Timber from Westport to Waterford
Timber from Ballina to Waterford

cdebru

corktina wrote: »

First thing you would need is a customer shipping 30 artic-loads, and on a regular basis.

Not true really you could have 30 different customers each shipping one artic load or indeed 60 shipping half an artic load, as for a regular basis there seems to be plenty of artics ploughing up and down the N7,N4, N11 etc everyday.

It does seem like craziness that most of the infrastructure is there and sitting pretty idle overnight.

MGWR

cdebru wrote: »

Not true really you could have 30 different customers each shipping one artic load or indeed 60 shipping half an artic load, as for a regular basis there seems to be plenty of artics ploughing up and down the N7,N4, N11 etc everyday.

It does seem like craziness that most of the infrastructure is there and sitting pretty idle overnight.

That's what happens when you have too much centralised control over both road and rail. Leads to a conflict of interest, especially when things could be more competitive and indeed much cleaner as far as diesel fume emissions.

cdebru

MGWR wrote: »

That's what happens when you have too much centralised control over both road and rail. Leads to a conflict of interest, especially when things could be more competitive and indeed much cleaner as far as diesel fume emissions.

What ?

Who has centralised control over road and rail haulage ?

corktina

cdebru wrote: »

Not true really you could have 30 different customers each shipping one artic load or indeed 60 shipping half an artic load, as for a regular basis there seems to be plenty of artics ploughing up and down the N7,N4, N11 etc everyday.

It does seem like craziness that most of the infrastructure is there and sitting pretty idle overnight.

never going to happen...the logistics of that would be a nightmare.

cdebru

corktina wrote: »

never going to happen...the logistics of that would be a nightmare.

Yet it is done everyday there are depots all over the country sorting and loading artics to move items around the country, all you are talking about is instead of 30 odd trucks heading to Cork that those loads go on one train.

LXFlyer

The container trains are run on behalf of DFDS and Eucon and IWT - they basically hire the entire train.

Loadhaul is the only game in town these days.

L1011

corktina wrote: »

never going to happen...the logistics of that would be a nightmare.

That's what DFDS/IWT do, though. Not a case of one customer filling those trains.

hfallada

I know the rail line that runs through drumcondra and glasnevin regularly has train loads of chemicals. As in the big massive vats. I presume going to Dublin Port.

corktina

MYOB wrote: »

That's what DFDS/IWT do, though. Not a case of one customer filling those trains.

They are container trains and it works because there are no container shipping facilities in Ballina...there are though in Cork, so no containers from Dublin Port to Cork or vice versa

corktina

hfallada wrote: »

I know the rail line that runs through drumcondra and glasnevin regularly has train loads of chemicals. As in the big massive vats. I presume going to Dublin Port.

not recently I fear...

Muahahaha

corktina wrote: »

First thing you would need is a customer shipping 30 artic-loads, and on a regular basis.

Tesco, Aldi, Lidl, Dunnes, etc I'm sure they would all be selling at least 30 container loads of stock in the Munster area every week. Surely it would be cheaper to send it by train, store it in a distribution centre and then have trucks to distribute it as needed from store to store across Munster ? On the way back from Cork to Dublin a company like Heineken would have the capacity to fill a train or two with kegs to service the Dublin and Lenister regions, also I'd say Munster Joinery shift a lot of stuff from the south to the Greater Dublin area. I'm not saying it would be ridiculously busy or anything but Dublin and Cork are Ireland's two largest cities, the greater areas of them cover around 2 million people so there is bound to be a sizeable amount of goods shifted from one to the other and vice versa.

I can certainly see the attraction of road haulage but in an age of rising fuel costs and downward pressure on logistics costs I would have thought CIE would be doing this type of service

foggy_lad

The problem is in getting in the goods loaded on a lorry at source for transport to the rail depot then unloaded onto the train or into the yard for loading on a later train. Train then takes a day or three to reach destination and more staff are needed to unload the goods into a yard or onto lorry's for transport to the customer.

While years ago there were thousands of general labourers employed by railways and in docks who did all the loading and unloading and were paid very little so rail freight was a very competitive option for many companies, in today's Ireland this double/triple handling of goods is prohibitively expensive when compared to sending the goods by road with a single driver.

For your examples of heiniken and also tesco etc having distribution centres in say cork and delivering goods by lorry from the depot in cork, it is much cheaper to just deliver from Dublin/wherever the company's distribution HQ is to anywhere in the country

corktina

warehousing and handling equipment are expensive as are the staff to operate them. Companies tend to run on a "just in time " basis so that they don't need warehousing...they order in what they need as they need it,

TheBandicoot

Why does Tesco freight work in the UK?

corktina

TheBandicoot wrote: »

Why does Tesco freight work in the UK?

volume I imagine....people live there.

TheBandicoot

Lol, good point.

foggy_lad

TheBandicoot wrote: »

Why does Tesco freight work in the UK?

Much larger country with higher population density so higher volumes in regional depots. Basically trains to UK depots from ports/manufacturers work because to truck the same volumes by road would work out much more expensive but here with lower volumes and much shorter distances it is cheaper to send lorries from Larne/dublin to cork/Sligo/galway/limerick etc.

end of the road

foggy_lad wrote: »

The problem is in getting in the goods loaded on a lorry at source for transport to the rail depot then unloaded onto the train or into the yard for loading on a later train. Train then takes a day or three to reach destination and more staff are needed to unload the goods into a yard or onto lorry's for transport to the customer.

cargo off ship straight on to the train via reinstated railway lines into the port straight to the sorting depot if company uses them

foggy_lad wrote: »

While years ago there were thousands of general labourers employed by railways and in docks who did all the loading and unloading and were paid very little so rail freight was a very competitive option for many companies, in today's Ireland this double/triple handling of goods is prohibitively expensive when compared to sending the goods by road with a single driver.

its only double/tripple handling because of CIE removing the railway from most ports and because the government never made companies build their sorting depots beside the railway.

foggy_lad wrote: »

For your examples of heiniken and also tesco etc having distribution centres in say cork and delivering goods by lorry from the depot in cork, it is much cheaper to just deliver from Dublin/wherever the company's distribution HQ is to anywhere in the country

what happens when you give road hauliers all sorts of tax breaks and exemptions, remove them and we'l see whether road and rail freight are truely competitive, the road option only makes sense if the company doesn't have a distribution centre in the first place, if they did, forcing them to build ones rail connected would mean rail freight being an option, it can be done if it really wants to be done

end of the road

TheBandicoot wrote: »

Why does Tesco freight work in the UK?

because they want to use it and both them and the freight operating companies go out of their way to make it work

end of the road

foggy_lad wrote: »

Much larger country with higher population density so higher volumes in regional depots. Basically trains to UK depots from ports/manufacturers work because to truck the same volumes by road would work out much more expensive but here with lower volumes and much shorter distances it is cheaper to send lorries from Larne/dublin to cork/Sligo/galway/limerick etc.

it wouldn't be as cheep if we removed any tax breaks and exemptions that road hauliers possibly get, something they shouldn't be getting anyway considering rail freight probably doesn't get as such

relaxed

It should be possible to operate mixed trains of fertilizer, coal, cement etc. if somebody had the wherewithal to organise it.

I find it ironic that Ennis yard is often stacked with fertilizer, definitely enough for a train load, all brought in by road.

If Foynes and Limerick cement was still running then palletised loads to yards around the country of cement, fertilizer, coal and all sorts of palletable stuff would be viable.

It would take a lot of will to do it though, I doubt it would be much cheaper than road but it should be profitable for somebody, its not like the road hauliers don't make profit.

It would need to be a low wage and reasonably automated operation from start to finish though, not something Irish rail would be accustomed to.

Then they would go on strike and screw all the customers.

Losty Dublin

end of the road wrote: »

its only double/tripple handling because of CIE removing the railway from most ports and because the government never made companies build their sorting depots beside the railway.

Could you list these ports that have seen CIE remove rail links from?

end of the road

Losty Dublin wrote: »

Could you list these ports that have seen CIE remove rail links from?

post badly written, should have said removing or taking out of use rail links to most ports, dublin and waterford bellview are the only ones i know now rail connected, rosslare, the railway went right to the peer at one stage i believe, possibly cork has its rail link out of use, the foynes link would need to be rebuilt

Losty Dublin

end of the road wrote: »

post badly written, should have said removing or taking out of use rail links to most ports, dublin and waterford bellview are the only ones i know now rail connected, rosslare, the railway went right to the peer at one stage i believe, possibly cork has its rail link out of use, the foynes link would need to be rebuilt

That would be because they haven't removed any, bar those on very minor piers which never generate traffic, such as Westport or Fenit or Bantry. When you mention Foynes, it's a port whereby the traffic flows that rail moved ceased and the line remains disused. There are a few others where the port removed it's own rail tracks; Galway and Dundalk spring to mind.

ClovenHoof

TheBandicoot wrote: »

Why does Tesco freight work in the UK?

60 million people and many large cities.

Every little helps.

Muahahaha

end of the road wrote: »

cargo off ship straight on to the train via reinstated railway lines into the port straight to the sorting depot if company uses them

its only double/tripple handling because of CIE removing the railway from most ports and because the government never made companies build their sorting depots beside the railway.

what happens when you give road hauliers all sorts of tax breaks and exemptions, remove them and we'l see whether road and rail freight are truely competitive, the road option only makes sense if the company doesn't have a distribution centre in the first place, if they did, forcing them to build ones rail connected would mean rail freight being an option, it can be done if it really wants to be done

That's probably the missing link I was asking about when I started the thread. It would only make sense for cargo by rail to work if the receiving company had a warehouse on CIE land and leased from them. That way the goods would be ready to go on short hops across the region the distribution centre serves. For all that to happen you need joined up policy and obviously we never had that to begin with so CIE are left with an underused resource and a whole lot of land that they could be commanding decent rents on. It seems like a missed opportunity really.

I wonder how other companies/countries do it ? How does parts and components for the car industry around Munich get from the ports to the Mercedes, Audi, BMW assembly operations ? Do Wal-Mart and Amazon in the US use road or rail to shift goods from coast to coast ?

corktina

Good question...just how do our car factories get their supplies of components?

You see there is not much of a comparison to other countries....we have a small population and really just one city of any size (and that's quite small!). Long haul bulk freight we just don't have in the main.

hfallada

corktina wrote: »

not recently I fear...

I seen it last year a few times. I used to regularly run along the line and see it

corktina

Probably the ballast train which consists of large hopper wagons to works sites on the railway...there is nothing else that fits the bill I think. Not commercial traffic if so.

Judgement Day

Losty Dublin wrote: »

Could you list these ports that have seen CIE remove rail links from?

Can't resist...the link to quayside via the old Point Depot at the North Wall, Dun Laoghaire Pier, Rosslare Harbour (more or less), New Ross, Horgan's Quay (Cork), Baltimore, Bantry, Valentia, Dingle Pier, Fenit, Foynes, Cappagh Pier (West Clare), Westport Quay, Sligo Quay, Killybegs (CIE were involved as part owners of CDRJC at the very end), Drogheda (Boyne Road)...I'm sure there are others that I've overlooked.

Jamie2k9

Why does Tesco freight work in the UK?

Just to put a few things into prospective about Tesco freight in the UK and why it works and why it wouldn't work in Ireland.

All imports for Tesco come via Dublin Port and they have a major distribution centre in North Dublin. In the UK they have lots of centres because of it's size and number of stores.

Ireland - places with a few stores
Dublin - 40
Cork - 6
Galway - 4
Waterford - 5
Limerick - 5

Outside of Dublin there is not enough stores to justify rail freight services.

The only way freight would be profitable in Ireland is if imports were processed in Waterford (just because of the rail link) and rail was used to transport to 40 stores in Dublin and probably another 10 or 20 in Kildare/Louth.

Take the West coast line in the UK, you have 13 stores in Birmingham, 17 in Manchester, 21 Liverpool, 19 Glasgow not including other towns along the routes. That's 70 stores in 4 locations and given the population density in those places the level of food required would be significant. Now I have no idea if they transport by rail on these route but the scale is much bigger in the UK to justify it.

foggy_lad

corktina wrote: »

Probably the ballast train which consists of large hopper wagons to works sites on the railway...there is nothing else that fits the bill I think. Not commercial traffic if so.

The weedspray train has large tankers of pesticides, could that be what was seen?

Losty Dublin

Judgement Day wrote: »

Can't resist...the link to quayside via the old Point Depot at the North Wall, Dun Laoghaire Pier, Rosslare Harbour (more or less), New Ross, Horgan's Quay (Cork), Baltimore, Bantry, Valentia, Dingle Pier, Fenit, Foynes, Cappagh Pier (West Clare), Westport Quay, Sligo Quay, Killybegs (CIE were involved as part owners of CDRJC at the very end), Drogheda (Boyne Road)...I'm sure there are others that I've overlooked.

Slipping up, JD; most of these are silly suggestions

The Point is about the only one you can stick down to CIE but don't forget that it wasn't used for freight in years; it was kept for loading rail stock. These days deliveries come in at Belview or Alexandra Road as they can handle deeper boats

Dun Laoghaire wasn't used as a freight line, mail boats excepted. The Port company owned the spur and not CIE. As they wanted to move the ferries to a newer berth, the port company took the decision to close the spur while the infrastructure for DART was being built.

Rosslare is still connected but it's not currently used for freight; Belview has the bulk of the container market for the region.

New Ross port wasn't connected for rail freight though it is beside the station. These days the port can't handle large container boats and it lost it's little traffic for this reason more than anything.

Horgan's Quay (Cork) lost it's container traffic when North Esk opened. It handled kegs and cement until Diagee and Irish Cement withdrew from rail haulage and not the other way around.

Baltimore, Bantry, Valentia, Dingle Pier, Fenit, Cappagh, Killybegs; you are talking about small piers on long closed lines which were used for little more than a few baskets of fish and the day of loose coupled vans and the common carrier obligation

Westport was closed as it hadn't been used by the port in years with it's freight being handled at the station, Sligo Quay is still connected if shortened and is available.

Lastly Boyne Road was a GNR siding which served the cement plant. When Platin opened, it took on it's traffic and the spur fell into disuse.

relaxed

foggy_lad wrote: »

The weedspray train has large tankers of pesticides, could that be what was seen?

Do some of the container trains running at the moment not have a few container shaped tanks, as per links below, I assume that's what he was referring to?

http://www.chassisking.com/images/products/regular/iso-tank-container-20ft-tank-container-on-tank-chassis.jpg

end of the road

Losty Dublin wrote: »

Rosslare is still connected but it's not currently used for freight

i thought when they moved the station from the old proper setting to the current dump they lifted the tracks?

corktina

end of the road wrote: »

i thought when they moved the station from the old proper setting to the current dump they lifted the tracks?

certainly the ones through the old station are gone and I think that means the dock is disconnected.

end of the road

corktina wrote: »

certainly the ones through the old station are gone and I think that means the dock is disconnected.

so it couldn't be used for railfreight then

Losty Dublin

end of the road wrote: »

so it couldn't be used for railfreight then

The pier isn't connected but then again it was never used for freight. Any freight that was handled at the port went some years ago.

corktina

surely it was used for cattle?

Losty Dublin

corktina wrote: »

surely it was used for cattle?

Just looking up some reading matter on same.

From the IRRS journal, it notes that a freight steamer left Waterford for Fishguard daily except for a Sunday, when a special running from Waterford to Rosslare on Sunday evening would take some perishables, notably beef in special chilled containers.

I'll delve in deeper over the weekend about livestock trains and report back.

Muahahaha

Jamie2k9 wrote: »

Just to put a few things into prospective about Tesco freight in the UK and why it works and why it wouldn't work in Ireland.

All imports for Tesco come via Dublin Port and they have a major distribution centre in North Dublin. In the UK they have lots of centres because of it's size and number of stores.

Ireland - places with a few stores
Dublin - 40
Cork - 6
Galway - 4
Waterford - 5
Limerick - 5

Outside of Dublin there is not enough stores to justify rail freight services.

The only way freight would be profitable in Ireland is if imports were processed in Waterford (just because of the rail link) and rail was used to transport to 40 stores in Dublin and probably another 10 or 20 in Kildare/Louth.

Take the West coast line in the UK, you have 13 stores in Birmingham, 17 in Manchester, 21 Liverpool, 19 Glasgow not including other towns along the routes. That's 70 stores in 4 locations and given the population density in those places the level of food required would be significant. Now I have no idea if they transport by rail on these route but the scale is much bigger in the UK to justify it.

Good points, I hear where you are coming from. But what I don't get is how it is more efficient to send it all by truck and multiply the labour and fuel costs, the two main overheads in transport.

Like in your example above Limerick, Cork, Waterford all have 5 or more Tesco stores, Galway has four. I've no ideas of Tescos volume but they do have 27% of the market so at a guess each store would likely shift 30+ shipping containers of stock every week. And if there are 5+ stores in each region that is connected by rail then possibly the volumes that Tesco do could in theory mean that CIE could be running a train 5 days a week to Galway, Limerick, Waterford and Cork with warehouses and distribution centres placed on CIE land and leased out to tenants.

I know I keep coming back to the Tesco example mainly because they're the biggest player. But to reiterate my point they are 27% of the market so if Tesco have the volume to be running a train for each store owned per week then so too do Dunnes, Aldi, Lidl, etc.

Now I know we're talking theoretically here since the rail link from Dublin Port is closed off. But if it wasn't and you could transport goods directly from a boat to rail and efficiently off to a distribution center would CIE doing cargo then become viable to the likes of Tesco and other retailers who need to move large volumes of stock ?

corktina

The reason why it would not be more efficient to use rail is that the rail lines do not run to each store whereas the road does, so you would have to off load at a rail depot and load onto a truck, which takes time and labour, and then take it to a depot to be sorted for each destination. The only way this might work (as in the UK) is if there is enough freight to have a sub-distribution depot serving a large population area and multiple stores, and do the picking for the various stores at that sub-depot. Don't forget that if you employ staff, you have to have enough work for them to last a whole 8 hour shift.

foggy_lad

Muahahaha wrote: »

Like in your example above Limerick, Cork, Waterford all have 5 or more Tesco stores, Galway has four. I've no ideas of Tescos volume but they do have 27% of the market so at a guess each store would likely shift 30+ shipping containers of stock every week. And if there are 5+ stores in each region that is connected by rail then possibly the volumes that Tesco do could in theory mean that CIE could be running a train 5 days a week to Galway, Limerick, Waterford and Cork with warehouses and distribution centres placed on CIE land and leased out to tenants.

I know I keep coming back to the Tesco example mainly because they're the biggest player. But to reiterate my point they are 27% of the market so if Tesco have the volume to be running a train for each store owned per week then so too do Dunnes, Aldi, Lidl, etc

You really need to look into this more, no tesco store is shifting 30+ shipping container loads per week! If that was the case people could not get into the car parks for the ques of lorries. The larger stores might get through 5-8 full containers a week but here in Ireland goods are not delivered to supermarkets by container because the population density and size of the stores does not support that.

Each store might have 30+ deliveries a week from head office and different suppliers but most of these will be a few pallets or cages of goods. This type of delivery is not possible by rail. It could never be efficient or reliable or even fast enough.

corktina

you need to think of the Tesco Irish Central distribution centre as the equivalent of the one in Scotland which has a train service. Obviously you can't have a train service to Dublin from Tesco UK and equally obviously , Tesco do not distribute FROM their Scotland centre by train, thus no more can they do that in Ireland.