Return of the BRUTE?

[whole diary]

[grahame]

From Ian Visits

But, could the railway, so used to handling heavy freight step in to deliver the lighter stuff as well?

And that’s what the rail freight company Varamis Rail is trying to do — developing in a way a return to the old way of doing things — trains bringing loosely packed cargo right into the heart of the city, where it can be delivered by low-emission vehicles to their final destinations.

And that’s why a former Greater Anglia Class 321 train has had all of its passenger seats ripped out so that it can be transformed into a dedicated cargo freight train and loaded up with industry-standard cargo cages.

[ray951]

If you look at the map in the pictures you will see that Varamis Rail have highlighted the London - Bristol route.
Would be interested to know whether this is just a suggestion or whether they have any customers lined up.

[CyclingSid]

train has had all of its passenger seats ripped out so that it can be transformed into a dedicated cargo freight train and loaded up with industry-standard cargo cages.

Hasn't something similar been reported before on the forum.

[Electric train]

The railways transporting goods and parcels ......................

... now that's new a novel 

It will never catch on     


Seriously, I do hope this does work, what would be better than an Amazon hub (other jungle providers are available) being rail connected .............. Royal Mail lead the way 30 years ago with their rail hubs and look what happened to those 

[infoman]

What I would like to see is a Minehead parcel train,its a three hour round trip to Minehead from Taunton

Parcel companies would drop off parcel/s at norton fitzwarren then parcels would then be taken to Minehead and stored in a safe location.

Then picked up by the receiver at Minehead.

Not sure of what the cost of each small parcel would be though.

[bobm]

https://www.railwaygazette.com/freight/gwr-delivers-shellfish-by-train/41725.article

A three-month trial of transporting live lobsters and other shellfish from Cornwall to restaurants in London in the guard's vans of High Speed Trains was launched on December 1.

The pilot project is being undertaken by InterCity RailFreight in partnership with Great Western Railway, WEGO Carbon Neutral Couriers and Cornish fishermen.

The shellfish will be packed into insulated crates and loaded onto the 17.39 departure from Penzance, arriving at London Paddington at 23.44 for collection and distribution to customers by WEGO.

This started amid much fanfare in 2015.   I don't know if the trial was extended but the courier mentioned in the article no longer appears to be operating and of course there aren't the HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) with their guards vans.

[grahame]

What I would like to see is a Minehead parcel train,its a three hour round trip to Minehead from Taunton

Parcel companies would drop off parcel/s at norton fitzwarren then parcels would then be taken to Minehead and stored in a safe location.

Brilliant - and you could extend that facility ... "Passenger train operating companies would drop off people at taunton then people would then be taken to Minehead and stored by Butlins in a safe location.

[stuving]

train has had all of its passenger seats ripped out so that it can be transformed into a dedicated cargo freight train and loaded up with industry-standard cargo cages.

Hasn't something similar been reported before on the forum.

Yes ... proposed by Varamis ... in 2020. At that stage there were four such proposals, though I think that was really two stock conversions and three potential operators.

Varamis came in as outsiders, so had to wait to go get an operator's licence. They are using class 321s converted (at least initially) by Eversholt under the branding "Swift Express". Recently Varamis have been buying them, not just leasing more. It does look as if they (and their backers, presumably) rate their performance so far as a success.

Porterbrook converted some of their rusty old 319s for parcels use, becoming class 768. At first GB^▸ (Great Britain) Railfreight were announced as operators and ran trials, but it was ROG who ordered several of them for their planned Orion subsidiary. Then they both went very quiet, and seem to have dropped the idea. It's hard to be sure as no-one give much publicity to such abandoned plans.

[Noggin]

If you look at the map in the pictures you will see that Varamis Rail have highlighted the London - Bristol route.
Would be interested to know whether this is just a suggestion or whether they have any customers lined up.

Conceivably Bristol Parkway might work, especially as it's electrified already.

Longer term, they might convince the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) to fund extension of electrification to Avonmouth via Henbury, at which point there are most of the main logistics players plus Amazon a short drive away.

[stuving]

Today's Times had a short item based on an Amazon UK^▸ (United Kingdom) press release, primarily about them buying 140 Mercedes eActros 600 eHGVs. The text says they can be recharged in an hour (at an impressive power, I imagine) to run for 310 miles.


But sneaked into this was a brief statement that they will - indeed have started to - use rail transport along the WCML^▸ (West Coast Main Line). Amazon's full version has this on the subject:

For the first time in the UK, Amazon has also launched rail deliveries at scale. Amazon products are loaded onto train carriages on the fully electric West Coast Main Line between Scotland and the Midlands. Products are then picked up from stations close to local Amazon delivery and fulfilment centres– ready for sorting and packing ahead of customer deliveries. Products are also transported from stations and Amazon’s wider fulfilment network to ferry ports, to further reduce on-road traffic, while giving small and medium sized UK businesses easier access to European markets.

More than 20 million products sold on Amazon are expected to travel on the UK’s electric rail network this year, avoiding traffic congestion and carbon emissions, with plans to expand across further rail routes before the end of the year.

Who is operating what trains using what rolling stock between where, and whether exclusively for Amazon or as part of a service to others as well, I have yet to discover.

[broadgage]

The charging input must be substantial, if a 300+ mile range is achieved after an hours charging.
An electric car needs at least 50KW charging input to achieve about that range after an hours charging. An electric HGV would, I estimate, need at least ten times as much. 500 + kilowatts is beyond sensible to supply from standard mains at 415 volts, 3 phase. perhaps they use a higher voltage ?

[ray951]

The charging input must be substantial, if a 300+ mile range is achieved after an hours charging.
An electric car needs at least 50KW charging input to achieve about that range after an hours charging. An electric HGV would, I estimate, need at least ten times as much. 500 + kilowatts is beyond sensible to supply from standard mains at 415 volts, 3 phase. perhaps they use a higher voltage ?

Rapid charging uses DC^▸ (Direct Current) and not AC electricity, and cars typically have either 400v (most common) or 800v architectures and I assume HGV's will be similar. The fastest car chargers are typically about 300 KW/Hr and I have seen truck chargers at around 1MW/Hr.

[Chris from Nailsea]

My 'pass' at O-Level Physics in, I think 1976/7, can't cope with all that information.

[stuving]

If you follow the link to Amazon's source text (and why wouldn't you do that before posting?) it actually says 20% to 80% charge in just over an hour. So I didn't remember that quite right - a full charge (which  would hardly ever happen) would take well over two hours, as above 20% the charge rate has to be progressively reduced.

Amazon also mention 360 kW chargers, which at 400V 3 phase implies well over 500A. That's above the normal range per cable (e.g. for final distribution circuits feeding multiple houses), so a feed at 11 kV would seem appropriate - and necessary for more than one charger on a site. I'd expect an Amazon warehouse or a logistics depot to have one of those already.

Mercedes-Bend Truck, however, say they have 50, 200, and 400 kW chargers. They have been promoting megawatt chargers (MCS) but those are not quite here yet. The specification of the vehicle itself is for LFP (lithium iron phosphate) batteries of 621 kWh total capacity, 600 kWh usable. The maximum charge rate of 400 kW is set by the connector and cable; 1 MW will be possible with MCS. The drive is rated at 400 kW continuous 600 kW peak.

And looking at what DNOs^▸ (Distribution Network Operator) say they can do, it appears that the limit of 400 V supplies is nominally 276 kW. That's 400 A per phase, which is the most a single final circuit from a substation is expected to provide. So for that power, you need a whole new circuit per charger. Higher rated chargers will need to be fed at 11 kV, in which case the limit will have more to do with the handling of peak load levels, local network capacity, etc.