CH: Moving freight traffic off the roads an onto rail

Isn't there some distance, under 200km I think, where rail freight isn't viable for general transport? And since most places on this Island are less then that away it doesn't make sense to force them off the road.

Canals would be good but again you need long distances to make them usefull.

It's OK for Swizterland to do this as it's all through freight, but you'd be more then doubling the amount of trucks on our roads if we had to do this. One truck to bring to rail head, we wish they'd have proper facilities at our ports to load directly onto carraiges, and then one to unload and bring to destination. While an artic could take several loads and drop off enroute.

As you point out, Switzerland was "designed" this way. They have a dense rail network. Ireland doesn't. That's something that Ireland could fix...with maybe 30 or 40 years of investment.

Interestingly, SBB cargo - whom you're singing the praises of - are currently running a loss, and the government are facing increasing pressure for their refusal to sell it to foreign concerns.

probe wrote: »

Switzerland is continually taking measures to force freight traffic to use the rail system rather than roads. The country has to carry large volumes of freight traffic transiting from one point in the EU and other (eg Germany+Benelux+Scandinavia <> Italy, France <> Italy, Austria <> France, etc). When the new 57 km x 2 Gotthard rail tunnel is complete, they will be in a position to force most of this onto the rail network on trains (up to 1.5 km long) capable of carrying 4,000 tonnes of freight at speeds of 120 to 150 km/h. This will take place silently, underground, powered mainly by electricity from hydroelectric sources. Rail freight in Switzerland is 4% cheaper than road freight*.

While these trains will take Ro-Ro freight (trucks driving on and off the train) I suspect that the Swiss initiative is going to make logistics companies and railway operators in the dysfunctional EU wake up to using rail on an end to end basis (eg origin in Germany to destination in Italy and v.v).

Tunnel brochure: http://www.alptransit.ch/pages/img/projekt/The_new_Gotthard_rail_link.pdf

Construction website: http://www.alptransit.ch/pages/e/index.php

Budget: CHF 11.83 bn (EUR 7.3 bn) – the real cost is probably zero for Switzerland, it will be fully recovered from the EU consumer on freight charges, and Switzerland will be left with a zero cost tunnel that can provide high speed rail connections for passengers (250 km/h) between Northern and Southern Switzerland!

* http://www.inboundlogistics.com/articles/features/0305_feature03.shtml

.probe

Ireland has been systematically taking freight off rail and onto roads for about ten years now.
Part of the problem is that so much of the rail network is closed, dormant or shared by long/short distance passenger traffic it has become difficult to justify. However you could argue this was deliberately run down as a low priority.

You have to remember that we are only now getting used to the idea that it is neither desireable nor feasible to share short distance and high speed long distance on a single line (i.e. the Belfast enterprise and Cork service sharing with DART and commuter services), never mind frieght.

A lot of the key businesses that did maintain the old freight service closed down, much of the problem was that IE never bothered developing additional business that would have kept these services profitable.

probe wrote: »

It doesn’t matter if that customer is a passenger (you or I buying a €50 ticket) or a freight customer (eg you or I sending a piece of railcargo from one station to another) costing €50. The point is that the €50 ends up being close to 99% profit, flowing to their bottom line.

This line of logic would suggest that even the most inept of railway companies...such as CIE for example...couldn't fail but to make a profit. Given that this isn't so, and that even SBB freight are fighting to get back into the black, then it would seem obvious that things are a bit more complex then you suggest.

Indeed, finding highly profitable rail systems is hard. SBB passenger services manage it currently, but are facing massive investment costs in coming years, that they are already warning they do not have the money to meet.

So if for the sake of argument Danzas has 200 trucks per night operating between Germany and Italy and they enter into some form of partnership deal with SBB, to put the trunk shipping portion of this freight flow on Swissrail cargo trains at various points in Northern Italy and rail freight it over the same network (see map http://www.sbbcargo.com/en/index/ang_intps.htm) to Germany, Rotterdam and other ports along the North Sea or wherever it is going (and vice versa). Danzas will probably save at least €3,000 per truck per load on fuel, driver’s payroll costs, costs associated with tacograph compliance/dead time or the cost of having a spare driver on hand, tolls, and related expenses (truck maintenance, depreciation etc).

Why aren't Danzas already doing this, probe? Why do they need SBB to court them? Why are they voluntarily choosing a more expensive way of shipping? I mean...seriously...you seem to be suggesting that teh money is just there to be taken, the only problem is that SBB have to convince stupid people to make obvious cost-cutting.

These are not the partnerships SBB are trying to find to make themselves profitable. They're trying to partner with other rail-freight companies, so that they can combine their logistics, resulting in lower costs, which allows them to reduce charges across the board and be more competetive. If they can tightly couple their rolling stock with that of other operators, they can all use their equipment more efficiently, thus moving more stuff, further, faster, for less money.

I’m not talking about turning Ireland into some Rotterdam type trans-shipment point for the USA.

So you're cutting out a large chunk of the business that SBB relies on in order to be even close to profitable.

The Swiss started building their motorway system in the 1950s and stopped in the early 1980s.

Untrue.

The Basel-Zurich / Biel motorway connection opened only a few years ago.
Work is still continuing to inter-connect the three motorways which come to Biel (Bern, Basel/Zurich, Geneva).
Some of motorways around Bern are being upgraded to include new lanes - an operation one will also find occurring in many other locations in Switzerland, as the urban motorways are becoming as overcrowded as the public rail system at rush-hour.
The Motorstrasse stretch from Biel to Bern is also pencilled for upgrading to motorway, although thats further away.

Thats just stuff in my region, and I've left out some other work which took place in the 90s.

The other big lesson for public transport in Ireland from Switzerland is the cost and revenue issue.

Indeed. The Swiss have invested massive amounts of money, over generations. They spread the cost.

Ireland did not, as we didn't have the money over generations to invest. You, probe, are suggesting that its somehow "cheap" to do all of this in a short term...perhaps within our lifetimes. Reform CIE, modernise the entire railway system, build untold amounts of wind-farm capacity to power it all.

You keep saying that the Swiss system is literally free money (which it isn't, because they're short of cash for new projects as I keep pointing out), but you ignore the cost of investment before payback can even start.

Ireland would have to spend untold billions...and all before it would see any benefit, if a benefit were to be found.

The more integrated the system becomes, the more people use it.

Interestingly, from the Swiss perspective, the system is a morass of non-integration unless you have a GA or some form of end-to-end subscription. For the casual traveller, its completely non integrated....something they've been talking about fixing for years.

probe wrote: »

Who says they have to be profitable? People don’t complain about the road networks not being profitable. Quite the opposite in fact if you look at the public outcry at the massive profits made by NTR on the M50 toll racket over the years! Neither does the public want the rail system to make huge losses and be a heavy drain on public finances. There is an expectation of an efficient equilibrium between ticket prices, QoS, and the financial outcome of the railway network operator.

Well, at least we're both finally agreed that it would be loss-making...thats progress. We can now look at the problem more realistically, and accept that selling a loss-making option to the public is part of the problem. I mean...I'm sure some people would be willing to pay to reduce congestion on the roads, which is one of the theoretical benefits a successful rail-freight business would net them.

SBB is a state owned railway,

Its not any more. I was surprised to read up on that myself...but its not.

But seriously...probe...you can insist all you like that these are the type of partnerships that SBB are "obviously" looking for, but if you go and check up their own stated policy, thats not where they are concentrating. Their problem is not one of finding freight to carry right now.

They are looking to be a major player in the European (or even Eurasian) rail freight system, and that means forming partnerships with other rail-freight carriers. Improved logistics, greater range of destinations, etc. are their current targets. They already have a partnership with SBB passenger services regarding rolling-stock maintenance, as that was more efficient than doing their own.

Switzerland is at the forefront of railfreight with twice as much on rail as the rest of the EU.

Thats mostly because there's these bloody big mountains in the south of the country, and the most efficient way of moving anything through there is by rail. This was as true when A.Escher founded the SKB (now Credit Suisse) to finance his great railway vision (including the Gotthard line) as it is today.

Its aided by the fact that the Swiss get so much of their generating capability for rail effectively for free...thanks to a massive investment in hydro capability over the past number of decades. The cost of hydro is mostly up front...just as with rail tunnels. Once thats paid, you're in gravy.

I know you're a big fan of wind, but thats the same problem...the costs are up front. Ireland doesn't have the decades of investment already put in place to build the system, so they're looking at all of this up-front investment to make the whole thing possible. That doesn't mean its not worth doing, but it certainly means that its not a quick-and-easy win. Thankfully, we don't need (many) of the tunnelling costs that the Swiss faced (and still face).

Partnerships will give a growing competitive advantage to rail freight as oil prices skyrocket over time.

Short-term, yes. Mid-term, the road network will be based on something other than oil. Once that happens, the dynamics shift again, and it becomes a question of which is a better use of electricity. Each has their advantage. Again, this is a factor which has to be considered for Ireland more than Switzerland...as it would take Ireland at least 10-20 years to get a modernisised, electrified rail system, with clean generating capability in place...with all the up-front costs associated with it. Arriving there only to find that the market has cracked the electric-powered-motor problem and that rail still offers no compelling advantage over road despite the high price of oil would effectively mean that all that up-front cost would be far, far harder to recoup.

As far as Swiss motorways are concerned, you are just nit picking again!

No, probe, I'm choosing accuracy over nice-sounding generalisations. The swiss did not stop their motorway-building plans in the 80s. It may be true to say that they havent had any projects as large as some of those in the 80s, but that is not the same thing. The Swiss have constantly worked on their motorways, and are expanding the network to this day and for the forseeable future.

Look - I realise that Switzerland is still one of the best models out there for other nations to aspire to, but no-one is being helped by a rosy, untrue picture of the reality of the Swiss system. I would argue that its more helpful to paint a realistic picture, including where the Swiss are trying to improve because that shows where the best of the best think the future is.

Its unquestionably worth considering what factors are unique to Switzerland, because that has impacts on suitability elsewhere...but it also makes clear what factors are not unique, so that one can better see how to lean from what was done in those areas.

After all, I'm sure you wouldn't see the up-to-7-hour waits that people can suffer at the Gotthard as a model worth copying. Should we pretend that it doesn't exist? Should we point instead to the magnificence of the tunnel and ignore that its woefully inadequate? Should we close our eyes to the reality that its a problem with no good solution...that there is - quite simply - already too much traffic which wants to do that stretch? They're building a new tunnel, sure, but they already know that its not enough to alleviate the problem. Should we do that probe, or should we just point at Switzerland as some sort of perfect solution to all things transport and scoff at those who try to paint a more realistic picture? Should we accept its existence but accept that its a fairly unique problem caused by those rather large hills, and thus one that doesn't really apply to Ireland? If so, should we not then also accept that those self-same hills play a major factor in the attractiveness of rail freight, particularly on the North-South axis?

No I’m not. Twenty years ago, Switzerland had similar rail freight levels compared with France and Germany. They set out on a project to push as much road freight as possible on to rail and have doubled rail’s share of the market in the meantime.

Agreed. They already had the rail network in place, though, with the capacity on the lines to carry the freight. The set out on a project to push off the roads, generally because it meant that the investment in rail they had already made could avoid additional investment in road....they had the foresight to limit congestion by leveraging what they already had as effectively as possible.

This is the investment I'm talking about - the up-front cost of building the rail network in the first place, and the generating capability to power it.

And lets not forget...the Swiss government also played ball by making sure road-based transit faced charges and limitations that the rail system didn't face. The cost of going through Switzerland by road was made less attractive, although not so unattractive that going around Switzerland was preferable. You don't see Ireland's future as a transit point, so some of that doesn't apply.

The payback to a "Danzas" investment in SBB cargo could be very quick in terms of energy and labour cost savings.

But we've already established that a Danzas investment isn't what you see for Ireland. Danzas, in your example, are shipping from an enormous German base, to an enormous Italian market, using Switzerland as a transit-route. In Ireland, all we have is shipping to/from the port. No transit. No Danzas. Imports are limited by the size of our internal market (incomparable to German or Italy), which leaves exports. So to get the massive volume, we need to be a manufacturing center of some sort for a European market...which means we need the whole package...rail to the coast, ship to the mainland/England...rail from there....and we need that cheaper and more time-efficient than simply building on the mainland.

Now sure...the future of ships may not be oil-based, but the future of road transport may not be either. Its by no means a win-win situation that one can just bet the farm on.

You keep repeating this mantra! In addition to the GA, one has all sorts of regional and local integrated tickets eg

probe...all I can do is tell you the truth. The Swiss see their ticketing system as being non-integrated. Its fine if you've a GA. If you're travelling a point-to-point commute, you can get an abo of some sort. If you need freedom within a city, you can get a monthly ticket.

If you're the occasional traveller, who has the occasional need to travel from point A to point B, you will probably end up getting seperate tickets for every different form of transport you take. If you have a point-to-point commuting ticket, and need to go somewhere else, you will need a ticket for each form of transport you take. If you have a city commute and go outside the zones you have a subscription for, you will need a ticket for each form of transport you take.

Now, sure, you can buy things like day-cards...but they're generally more expensive than paying the single costs for a specific journey.

You can think otherwise all you want probe. You can continue to paint the Swiss system as teh model of perfection all you like. I am, again, choosing accuracy over rose-tinted glasses. The Swiss see lack of ticket integration as one of the major things to be fixed with their system. What they have might be light-years above what other have, but the Swiss aren't interested in being "better". They're interested in doing it right...and its currently not right.

If you are so dissatisfied with the rail set-up in Switzerland, why don’t you move to Ireland or Italy?

Who said I was dissatisfied? You seem to have this perspective that because I can see room for improvement, I'm unhappy with what I have. Like the Swiss, probe, I want to see it done right. I know, as well as any other daily commuter here, what is and what is not right in the system. I'm grateful for what I have, but that doesn't mean for one second that I don't want the improvements that could and should be made.

You want Ireland to look at the Swiss and say "we could have that". I want Ireland to look at what the Swiss are aiming for and ask themselves "what, of that, makes sense for us". Thats what it boils down to. I'm willing to point out the flaws in the Swiss system, and the parts that may be problematic for Ireland to copy. You seem to take offence that I'm doing so.

probe wrote: »

The road system has a lot more costs terms of maintenance, financing costs, depreciation, signposting costs, policing costs, health service costs – the loss of around 350 lives per annum + 8,000 people injured, and increased asthma rates and cancer deaths and other problems caused by road traffic pollution.

I've already agreed that if you redefine "cost" in whatever terms suit you, then you can argue that whatever you like is profitable.

Are you trying to go in circles now?

Why can't you just come out and say that you want the Irish to adopt a model which will be a business which involves massive up-front financial investment which it will never recoup because year on year it will run a financial loss....but that you think the fringe benefits will compensate for this.

You can get from Zurich Airport to the city centre in 10 minutes by train – and I mean the city centre rather than some Heuston Station type outback location.

Probe...please...can we leave passenger services out of this? You started a thread about freight traffic, and about how Ireland could model its freight services after that of the SBB freight system....yet time and time again when it comes to showing how good it is, off you go extolling the virtues of the SBB passenger service.

Make up your mind...do you want to discuss the thread you started, or do you want to change topic to discussing rail in general as an alternative to road. And if you're going to do that, then can we leave the Swiss integrated public transport system out of it, unless what you really want to discuss is something else entirely.

Until you decide what it is, I'm going to actually stick to your topic and ignore all your gushing about the wonderfulness of the Swiss public transport system which has nothing to do with it.

SBB is owned by the Swiss Federal Government - exhibit A the SBB Annual report page 76: http://sbb-gb2007.mxm.ch/annualreport.aspx?site=pdf where it states that the Confederation is the sole shareholder.

The Swiss Confederation is not the Swiss Federal Government. You should also note that the only requirement in the charter of SBB is that the Confederation holds a majority of shares. There has been talk in recent months about the possible necessity of having to exercise that option and sell an interest in the company to raise capital for the required expansion costs that I've mentioned.

The current stance is that this is seen as a last resort, and that strategic partnerships and other options will be investigated first.

Fine you will be back to battery and or H2 electric cars – but a traffic jam of electric cars is just as inefficient as a traffic jam of cars running on liquid fuel.

It can use the same clean wind-power that you extoll, which removes the problems like asthma rates, cancer deaths and all the rest that you were banging on about when extolling the wonderfulness of "clean" electric-rail.

In addition, it doesn't require another massive upgrade. Irish roads need the upgrade regardless of whether anything gets done with rail. Putting rail refurbishment on the cards as well means paying masses more. Indeed, other than perhaps some of the physical rail, you pretty-much need to start from scratch. A lot of disused track will need replacing, and track currently in use will need vast improvement if you want it to carry frequent large volumes of traffic that its not carrying. The entire management system will need to be replaced, and the entire thing electrified.

You say that some 7,000 MW of wind generation has been blocked in Ireland. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you're supplying a figure for total theoretical capacity, rather than actual average expected capacity, which at a generous average of 30% would be 2350 MW. And as I've pointed out in another thread, you still need a solution for when the wind isn't blowing. You can't brown-out a good chunk of the country just because its a calm day, nor can you stop the trains, so you still need additional base-load capacity either nationally or via inter-connect to supply the same amount. Swiss rail consume some 2300 GW/h per year, with their trains consuming some 80% of that. Now....sure...Ireland won't have anything like the Swiss network, but

I’m not saying Ireland has to Switzerland itself within five years – nor could it. Massive progress could be made with the existing track resources if they were managed more efficiently and electrified in heavy traffic areas initially – with electrification rolling out elsewhere progressively.

How much time, and how much money. You go on about the rising costs of oil, so you need to have it all in place before our economy suffers the collapse your rising costs imply will happen, and that rail can help avoid.

Time and money, probe...thats what its all about. My opinion is it will cost too much, would take too long, and will never deliver.

The Swiss have their rail around for a long time...long enough for business to base itself near rail lines. Ireland doesn't have that, so either we build loads new rail, or we expect business to up and move, or we require them to have trucking fleets capable of moving everything anyway....albeit over a shorter distance.

So we need to allow for that too.

So how long before it all comes together? If we start today, do we reap non-financial benefits in 10 years? 20? 50? And how much do we pay out before then? How much of that investment do we write off to the feel-good non-monetary "profit" that you say is so important? Where do we get the money from?

No you are not! You don’t even know who owns SBB! :-)

I know that the Swiss Confederation is not the Swiss Federal Government, as you claim:)

I also know that the current structure of the company allows them the freedom to sell anything below half of SBB...something they couldn't have done while it was state-owned-and-run. I'm sure you're aware of the difference between the someone owning the company and someone being the sole shareholder with the freedom to hold shares.

Take a road map of Switzerland in 1997 and another dated 2007, and there would be almost no difference in the motorway coverage. You couldn’t say that about Ireland!

I never claimed otherwise, probe, and I never made any claim about Ireland.

Seriously....I pointed out that your claim that work stopped at the end of the 80s was wrong. You're now trying to plamas your way to saying that when you said "stopped" you really meant something like "scaled back because they had done the major jobs".

As I've pointed out, I'm favour accuracy where you prefer sweeping statements which paint a rosier picture. When you take that approach, then of course Ireland will be completely* saved** by copying the perfect*** Swiss rail freight**** system, and all at a cheap***** price.

* may not mean "completely"
** may not mean "saved"
*** may not mean "perfect"
**** may not mean "freight"
***** may not mean "cheap"