Premier - Potter's pallet palaver

[BrushType4]

A long time ago while working for a major retailer I worked to setup a rail freight operation from East Anglia to Scotland. This was to mainly move goods produced by Premier Foods Wisbech to the regional distribution centre in Scotland for onward delivery to Tesco Stores.

It was pretty difficult to get it going and the main reason was the railway wagon load infrastructure had a smaller carrying capacity to road transport. The project started with IZA? twin sets that carried a combined load of 48 pallets. This was a reduction of 4 pallets as regular hgv 13.6m semitrailer capacity is 26 pallets. The 8% difference was the gap between working and not working. It also made it difficult for the ordering systems to process as they were sensibly fixed to order full 26pallet truck loads.

During the project I think we managed to get this wagon type banned from Peterborough as too many derailed while crossing the ladder.

EWS who supplied the traction came up with an idea. They had what they referred to as Talgo wagons. These I found out later were ex Rover Cars and had been purposefully designed to carry cars and palletised parts for production. They had been designed with modern freight capacity in mind and could carry 52 pallets. 2 x regular hgv loads. They did this by having a lifting floor section in the middle that could accommodate double stacked pallets.

So we were on, three times per week we round tripped Wisbech to Scotland via Potters of Ely. Wisbech Roadways/Knowles Transport handled the leg from Premier Foods to Potters. Potters unloaded the trucks and reloaded the Talgos being very careful not to mix the load around. Usually two or three Talgo wagons were used and hauled by a class 37 to Wembley where the consist was linked to an existing service to Scotland. Usually a class 66.

In Scotland the freight was unloaded into Tesco vehicles that were empty after delivering to stores. I was using empty legs to back haul from the railway depot back to the Tesco RDC.

Worked great and the service was eventually replaced by a DRS/Stobart service utilising Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal (DIRFT) to Scotland on containers and regular container carrying rail wagons. That service still exists today though with a different traction provider.

Anyway I had the bright idea to recreate this scene in model form. I mentioned this to Dave Lowery who immediately set Simon aka BRblue to task.

So first picture of the 7mm scale Talgo wagon.



It’s a beast but I hope to fit a couple with a Heljan EWS 37 on my diorama. The second wagon will have the hoods in an open position so I can have a partially loaded wagon. Who knows, probably a Potter liveried 08 as well. Very kindly, Knowles Transport gave me two 1:43.5 scale model lorrys in their livery so I’ll have these for the diorama as well.

Picture of Potters yellow 08? Shunters.

 

[BrushType4]

As an interesting side note, EWS also had some wagons that could carry HGV semi trailers. These were good as the trailers reversed on and pulled off. So didn’t need lifting equipment.

They were especially commissioned for the Post Office. The wagons existed, I saw them in the sidings in Scotland.

The semitrailers were specially designed by Cartwright but the Post Office owned these and they scrapped them rendering the rail wagon useless.

Bit of a shame really. One day I might get one of these made as well as what might have been.

 

[Oz7mm]

Great back story Phil. Thanks

John

 

[BrushType4]

Thanks JB, I’m going to carry on. My actual job for Tesco at the time was Primary Network Manager. My key responsibility was to make sure the ordered products were delivered to Depots on time at the cheapest cost. There was always a debate to be had between reliability, sustainability and cost but that’s another story.

Part of my portfolio of suppliers was Grocery and this lumped together all the ambient goods suppliers that were not Beers/Wines and Spirits or Soft Drinks/crisps and snacks. Fresh and frozen were separate supplychains. So from a humble toilet roll, through baked beans to custard, I managed the supply chain between supplier and Tesco depots.

So thinking up a cost reduction project I thought let’s give rail another go. It had been tried by Tesco previously on at least a couple of occasions but had fizzled out to nought. Trying to get freight on the railways is hard work. Right off the bat, instead of dealing with one carrier who’ll transport from supplier to depot, you now have at least three to deal with. Supplier to rail depot, rail depot to rail depot, and rail depot to Tesco RDC. All these elements must tie up exactly on time so the flow isn’t waiting for the next part. Everytime a pallet is touched, it costs money. Waiting time for trucks and any part waiting costs money. You get the picture.

Generally speaking, ambient retail orders goods on day one and expect delivery on day three. Sounds like 72 hours. It isn’t. The day one order cutoff could be 2pm or later. Delivery slots on day three could be as early as 12am. Tesco depots work 24 hours and they dictate the delivery schedule to suit their internal schedule. So the lead time from suppler receiving the order to the truck delivering to depot could be as little as 34 hours in reality.

In the mix the supplier has to pick the order and make it available for collection and often will have their own booking for collection system. These are often 3rd party warehouses and they don’t particularly care for Tesco delivery times. Not their problem.

We have all this going on and I want to add complexity to this and make sure I wasn’t consumed into micro managing the process ongoing. Any changes to facilitate rail could not be at the detriment of Tesco. In other words no one should feel any impact and service would be as usual.

TBC

 

[DougT]

During the project I think we managed to get this wagon type banned from Peterborough as too many derailed while crossing the ladder.

I will try and dig out the photos I have from attending said derailment at Spital ladder where I spent a fascinating day as the RIO’s (Rail Inicident Officer) runner!

 

[BrushType4]

I will try and dig out the photos I have from attending said derailment at Spital ladder where I spent a fascinating day as the RIO’s (Rail Inicident Officer) runner!

They would be good to see. Looked at the Crescent Sidings as an alternative or additional rail access point but the ladder issue prevented that from moving forward along with some other issues.

 

[DougT]

As an interesting side note, EWS also had some wagons that could carry HGV semi trailers. These were good as the trailers reversed on and pulled off. So didn’t need lifting equipment.

They were especially commissioned for the Post Office. The wagons existed, I saw them in the sidings in Scotland.

The semitrailers were specially designed by Cartwright but the Post Office owned these and they scrapped them rendering the rail wagon useless.

Bit of a shame really. One day I might get one of these made as well as what might have been.

I recall those wagons being trialled on the WCML. If only we had the gauge for a rolling motorway service, it would be a game changer for rail.

It’s a concept that this growing a fair rate on the continent, this is almost a daylights worth of rolling motorway services on the PLM near Tournus one day last week.

Sounds like a really interesting role that you had Phil.

 

[BrushType4]

I recall those wagons being trialled on the WCML. If only we had the gauge for a rolling motorway service, it would be a game changer for rail.

It’s a concept that this growing a fair rate on the continent, this is almost a daylights worth of rolling motorway services on the PLM near Tournus one day last week.

Sounds like a really interesting role that you had Phil.View attachment 223474View attachment 223475View attachment 223476View attachment 223477

The Post Office wagons had some compromises. I think from memory it required short semi trailers and that’s why the PO side of things were so important. It’s a shame they scrapped the semitrailers instead of parking them up with the rail wagons when the contract ended.

 

[mickoo]

Worked great and the service was eventually replaced by a DRS/Stobart service utilising Daventry International Rail Terminal to Scotland on containers and regular container carrying rail wagons. That service still exists today though with a different traction provider.

I was partially involved in this, all the containers came from overseas and had to be shipped by rail to the inspection facility before entering service.

Being pallet wide containers there was some concern about the loading gauge and I think one went solo to check on a Sunday.

The rest went on special trains assembled on Saturday afternoon from south rail to the destination facility (no idea where). Not only were they pallet wide but they had full curtain sides as well, unique as far as I know for an ISO container.

My involvement was from a crane engineering aspect, being pallet wide our crane flippers could not get down the sides of the boxes, even though the pockets matched the standard ISO, the flippers were loosened to allow them to wriggle down the sides but there was still a risk of twistlock jamming.

If jammed then the only way to sort things is to bypass some safety features, engineers could do the mechanicals but the bypassing of the crane system to ignore the jammed or problem twistlock was my remit. On the quay cranes the flippers can be flipped up and down hydraulically so there was no issue, but in the park and rail terminal they're fixed.

New boxes were stacked in specially cleared zones and allocated two yard cranes for the vessel discharge. If you look closely at the pockets you'll see the twistlock holes are inset from the outer edges, it's only a few inches but it's enough to cause issues. They're also fully compatible with Euro handling systems who tend to prefer reach stackers with drop legs; these which lock into the small yellow pockets at low level.



As I recall there were 120-150 containers in four or five batches delivered by vessel.

Loading was at South Rail and the initially test was with the crane, later they opted to use reach stackers as they don't have flippers, why we used the crane to begin with I've no idea, probably because the planner was a numptie and didn't know reach stackers had no flippers, I kid you not.





Finally a 'spot the train in the scenery' shot, taken from the top of a quay crane the Tesco special is just heading up the Felixstowe branch near the Levington crossing some five miles away.



For closure some photos of flippers, brand new ones being tested on my last project (automatic/remote driver yard cranes)



This was a breakdown, two in and two out and cross locked, technically impossible with all the interlocks, but frequently occurred.



Finally a quay crane spreader, no we didn't normally move twins like this, numpty driver didn't extend the twins, bypassed the alarm and lifted up, everything was fine until he cleared the guides.......berk.



The flippers are in the corners and flip down to enclose the container corners, they need to be flipped up before you enter the ships cell guides, they make an almighty bang if you don't and generally get ripped off. unlike yard flippers which only go down the sides, quay crane ones wrap around the ends, it makes landing on boxes from 150' up much easier. For diversity and to cover most situations you can flip them all up or down or any combination from single to two (front, rear, left, right, diagonal pairs), three or four. If you're really bored, flip to 1:15 where I'm testing a spreader before return to work.

Apologies for the diversion, I'd forgotten all about that little exercise we did; normal service is resumed.

 

[Jordan]

As an ex-HGV driver now, at my last job I spent a fair share of my time waiting at Tesco RDCs as one of the smallest cogs in the wheel...
The OP nails a few reasons why freight by rail in the UK is so rare & hard to do these days - and why freight was lost to the roads in the first place.
In a nutshell it's 1- Transhipping - the railway is a middle-man within a middle-man, when road transport is needed either end, 2 - Loading Gauge - affects pallet capacity as the OP noted, & 3 - Distance - or the lack of it, in the UK, where major cities and distribution hubs are all reachable within 12 hours by road - although a train can move a lot of trailers 'all at once' any delays in the transhipping (point 1) impact the overall cost of the operation.

The supermarket sector is a major originator of road traffic. Far beyond all the individual supermarket's own trucks delivering from RDCs to stores, I think the general public would be amazed how many other haulage companies are involved daily (& nightly!! ) in transporting goods from manufacturers & importers to the RDCs!! They moan about how many trucks are on the road, and do their best to cut in front of them at the last second, but would soon be cold & hungry if they weren't there!!
I'm all in favour of more freight on the rails - it's one reason I follow & model Nth American trains, where freight is predominant, but it is sometimes difficult to explain to
UK rail enthusiasts that it's not that easy to do here, especially after decades of decline and the fine-tuning of road operations over the same time period.
A very interesting topic, thanks for posting!

 

[John57sharp]

Fascinating breakfast time thread. Thanks to all.

 

[timbowales]

I especially like the two Potter 08's. Who says all EE 350hp shunters are alike? Those two aren't

 

[BrushType4]

So before I start, I don’t know what will be ordered, I need a cost saving though I can count CO2 to a small degree, it must not create extra work, it can not fail.

Ordering

I downloaded the ordering history and concluded that there was enough orders to sustain a train but I would need to make some changes from everyday ordering to three times per week.

I arranged a meeting with the Tesco stock control team and explained my idea. Big concerns as tried before, extra work, why can’t the train carry 26 pallet loads. What happens if it doesn’t go to plan.

On the last concern, the railways are pretty reliable but we didn’t know that at the time. If a train broke down, it wouldn’t be just one load that failed but potentially 8 loads all destined to one depot. Because of rail the product wouldn’t be easily recoverable due to access. It would be a disaster. So we started slowly. This relied heavily on EWS taking a punt as they would be running the train with all the people required to transship as noted by Jordan at a huge loss.

The trains runs overnight from Ely to Mossend Rail Terminal Monday, Wednesday and Friday. We agreed we would change the ordering system to order in such a way that the deliveries to the depot would be required on Tuesdays Thursdays and Saturday. I also configured the system to order in 24-26 pallet load sizes in the hope that some orders would be 26 as normal and some would flow through as 24 to fit on the IZA’s. As it happened I did get 26 ok but the balance loads were invariably 25 pallets…

I could live with tweaking an order in the startup phase.

 

[BrushType4]

Just playing.

 

[BrushType4]

Costs
This is a long time ago so I would imagine the costs are irrelevant today so I’m happy to share what I can remember.

To get a load to Livingston Depot from Wisbech was £14.50 per pallet based on 26 pallets. That’s £377 per load. That’s 326 miles so £1.156 per mile. Not much at all and was a good price even back then. I didn’t have much money to play with and I was still sure I could make a saving.

The first leg Wisbech to Ely, 25 miles. This cost £130 per load. The round trip of 3 hours. So one driver and truck could achieve four trips in a shift. Truck revenue £520. Cost per pallet £5.00

To handle the pallets onto the train a further cost of £2 per pallet. £52 per load.

The train I’ll come back too.

At Mossend EWS funded the transship and the cost was part of the train.

Transport from Mossend to Tesco was handled by Tesco trucks returning empty after a store delivery. I put in a cost of time as an additional £25. £0.96 per pallet.

This leaves before any savings just £169 per load to operate the train from Potters, Ely to Mossend via Wembley….

 

[BrushType4]

EWS were running a train from Wembley to Mossend anyway and that consist had unused capacity so effectively this leg was free to Tesco as someone else was already paying for it.

That left the new leg from Ely to Wembly to fund. 4-6 loads x £169 leaves £676-£1014.

The wagons had no other use other than taking up siding space so these were free of charge. Having observed the wagons, maintenance wasn’t a big spend. They certainly didn’t get cleaned much. Potters cleaned the inside at much complaining as I didn’t feel inclined to pay for that either.

So EWS on the basis that this could be the beginning of a new speedlink service with Tesco volumes opening up the routes to customers, they went with it and I believe the operating costs were covered. The project management very doubtful but that’s the cost of business development.

I agreed with EWS a minimum spend per trip and amounted to two wagons worth or four truck loads three times per week.

I’d use the road haulier for odd numbered loads if I couldn’t push the order and for last minute issues. Remember the wagons take two truck loads of either 48 or 52 pallets depending on wagon type.

 

[Osgood]

An example of other factors influencing the use of rail for freight:

The opening of the Shredded Wheat factory at Welwyn Garden City in 1926 came shortly before the General Strike, which - despite the best efforts of some railway staff to keep a service going - rather put the kibosh on deliveries of product by rail, and left the company in the lurch.
So they had to quickly set up a fleet of trucks and vans to distribute their product.
Apparently they determined to never again to be dependent upon of rail for their product distribution, so whilst grain arrived mainly by rail, most (if not all?) product left by road.

One might imagine that at the time, long distance trunking by rail was surely the most efficient way to move freight long distances.
Inward grain traffic gradually started to move over to road, the last use of rail being (I believe) in 1974.

 

[simond]

I think the part of this debate that I find most disappointing is that it was not so long ago that the railways had it within their power to provide a door to door service, at a container level (and package level) but didn't build that into a supercompetitive machine.

Road will always be more flexible, but there must be efficiency and CO2 savings in using one driver and electric traction for the long distance leg.

Opportunity lost???



Philosophical thoughts for the day. What would Beeching have done if he had a crystal ball and could have foreseen the congestion of 2020?

And if he could see the empty commuter trains of the post Covid WFH generation????

 

[Jordan]

This relied heavily on EWS taking a punt as they would be running the train...

Famously, EWS was part of the Wisconsin Central group (hence a similar livery), so well used to running freight in the USA, but as far as I understand it just one of the problems in the UK was the lack of any equivalent of US Short Lines - the smaller, privately owned railroads which frequently do the "first & last miles" of a freight car's journey, i.e. collection & delivery, saving the mainline Railroad time, money and the use of their locos. Here the EWS 'mainline' engine had to do all the switching - sorry, shunting work as well as take the train up the line, which cost more money. The lack of rail goods handling facilities in many cities and most towns also didn't help.

I think the part of this debate that I find most disappointing is that it was not so long ago that the railways had it within their power to provide a door to door service, at a container level

That was/is Freightliner, but 'domestic' freight (i.e. not being imported or exported) in the UK does not often go in ISO Containers, so they are not involved as a Company.

 

[timbowales]

I think the part of this debate that I find most disappointing is that it was not so long ago that the railways had it within their power to provide a door to door service, at a container level (and package level) but didn't build that into a supercompetitive machine.

Road will always be more flexible, but there must be efficiency and CO2 savings in using one driver and electric traction for the long distance leg.

Opportunity lost???



Philosophical thoughts for the day. What would Beeching have done if he had a crystal ball and could have foreseen the congestion of 2020?

And if he could see the empty commuter trains of the post Covid WFH generation????

Simon, dream on re electric traction in the UK!
It is notable that freight hauliers, especially DB, have ditched their electric locos as Network Rail's pricing of traction electricity (E4T they call it) is so outrageous as to make it uncompetitive when compared to diesel