Electric lorries

[Mike Hall]

Seen in yesterdays paper.

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[Graham Shaw]

Absolutely awful !.Get all those long-distancie lorries off the road-use them(electric powered) for servicing local distribution hubs from strategic road/rail interchanges.Upgrade the rail network for dedicated freight only use ,and keep the existing ones for passenger use.Reopen secondary lines,many of them closed 60 years ago by Beeching (they have started doing this already in some areas) to connect with main lines at certain points with huge Park & Ride facilities-get people out of doing long-distance car journeys ! Scrap the billions of pounds HS2 Project-what are we going to do with the mere 15 minutes per passenger time saved between Birmingham and London?But above all,as I have said- GET THAT FREIGHT BACK ON THE RAILS !

[One idiotic example of misjudged transport strategy here over the years. In 1954 a new Electrified Line was opened through the Pennines from Manchester to Sheffield via Woodhead ,two great Northern cities connected in about slightly over an hour,for passengers and freight alike. [There is plenty about this Line on t'internet] Yes,of course,like any engineering feat it's maintenance cost was high,but instead of working on a cost/benefit plan.what did they do? They CLOSED IT ! After 16 years it was gone for passengers and 25 years for freight..Reason? Well,they said passengers could use another line-the Hope Valley Line further south.It wasn't alright-particularly crossing the Pennines in winter,and longer,it took two hours at least. And the freight? Simple,let's build a motorway across the Pennines from Liverpool and Manchester to Leeds and then it can connect with the M1 down to Sheffield. Result? Instead of trains carrying their loads quickly and fairly cleanly across the Pennines,you have hundreds upon hundreds,both directions ,of lorries on the M62 almost nose to tail at times vying with all those private cars travelling between Manchester and Sheffield,because Malcolm and Mavis would rather drive in comfort in their Vauxhall Astra,rather than put up with the appalling rail service through the Hope Valley,...because since they closed the 1954 Woodhead route in 1970 then there's no proper alternative......Shortsighted Ministers of Transport and Planning,or what?

[John Arton]

Driving down to join my ship in the MSC on a fairly regular basis, that motorway over the Pennines was a nightmare, especially the section from Leeds to Manchester where the assh**Les in there BMW's, Audi's and Mercedes thought that as they were so important to get to their meetings in either one of the city, they should have the sole use of the motorway.
Rgds
J.A.

[Tony Taylor]

In 1959 The biggest marshalling yard in Europe (at the time) commenced construction a few miles south of Newcastle; the publicity at the time was that it was designed to get freight off the roads and onto the rails, you may remember "Freight Liner" ; They also constructed a container handling facility about half way between Newcastle and Sunderland, adjacent to the motorway so goods could be distributed by road from there.
To cut a long story short, the freightliner depot has been closed for years and built over, the marshalling yard has been in the process of winding down for about ten years and what is left of it is derelict or a parking area for locos. It is a huge area doing nothing for years apart from acting as magnet for vandals, it is a big waste of money, in fact the owners got fined mega money lately because some little intruder electrocuted himself while up to no good, but it wasn't that poor souls fault it was the fault of the owners for not having a good enough fence to keep these people who had no business being there in the first place.

[Keith at Tregenna]

#1: Interesting, thanks for the thread / post Mike.

Keith.

[vic mcclymont]

All talk of electric vehicles, great idea, media selling the idea to a gullible public, sound great for the greens.
But where is the electricity coming to meet the demand, the country struggles as it is and there is threats of power outs in the coming winter months as there is no spare capacity.
Coal fired power stations have been running for nearly nine months to meet the demands of the nations electricity supplies.
But, never mind go electric, save the planet because there will be no electricity.
Vic

[j.sabourn]

#5 Had that anything to do with the haulage business Freightways Tony ? If so the wives Uncle started it from his home in Tynemouth. Believe Freightways was sold out a long time ago. JS

[happy daze john in oz]

Slowly those who demand 'Green renewable energy are coming to understand it is not that simple.
A very large wind farm here is not working as it should, the reason, so many turbines the movement of the blades is causing a mini wind system within the area effecting the effciency of the wind farm.

Saw an article about the concept of 'tram style' power for vehicles.
One problem with that, as with the trams only one way with limited journeys.

Electric trucks are being tested here to see how far they can go with a full load.

There is call for more transportation by rail rather than road.
But not that easy, no rail head to every factory or outlet. Then some deliveries to remote areas.

There will always be the need for some form of transport in the style of trucks, but to load and unload from a train will add to general costs, not such a good idea.

[Tony Taylor]

Back to the horse and cart it is then.Attachment 33004 think of the benefits, free organic fertiliser. Oh hang on every time a horse farts , methane gas not good for the environment so the Greens will be up in arms.

No Lewis, you need to think out of the box (as the saying goes). You could collect the gas and use it to power the lamps on the cart at night.

[Tony Taylor]

#5 Had that anything to do with the haulage business Freightways Tony ? If so the wives Uncle started it from his home in Tynemouth. Believe Freightways was sold out a long time ago. JS

I don't think so John, it was an offshoot of British Rail and meant to be an integrated freight system where the long distances were done by rail with localised deliveries by road. An interesting angle to this was the Port of Tyne has huge warehouses at Tyne Dock and until recently they had a fleet of heavy goods vehicles for nationwide haulage of goods from the port. By all accounts it was a good efficient system but sadly closed down in last 2 years or so.