Wheel Nut:
Carryfast:
starfighter:
The key part of intermodal is that it is more than one mode of transportation. You seem to think it means rail freight. Just let the trains move the boxes and then trucks can take them to the end user. Rail can’t duplicate pallet networks, the goods sidings, offices etc are gone. Even Royal Mail don’t use the train.
Intermodal road/rail operations actually just means that rail can’t deliver stuff because rail lines don’t go to where the customers are.So it’s stuck with having to use trucks for the delivery from the rail heads to the customers which from the rail freight industry’s point of view is just an inconvenience and it’s nothing new.Whereas the road transport industry can do the whole job from collection to delivery and most of the productivety that’s actually paid for is the mileage in between the further the better.
Intermodal means ports, ships, inland clearance depots, freight depots, trains, warehousing, rivers and lorries.
Barges and inland waterways are the losers in the UK as they are too slow and the infrastructure is poor or used for leisure. In the mid 20’s where CF seems to live, the local farmer takes his goods to market by horse and cart, they are loaded on a small lorry and taken to the railway station. They sit in a siding for a day while the train is loaded and arrive at their destination damaged, in poor condition because they have been handled by the farmer, the lorry driver, the railway worker, another lorry driver, the customer and finally the end consumer. we moved on a bit because the rail infrastructure was proven to be slow. The new motorways were able to be used to move freight quickly from the farm gate to the city markets. The city markets are closed, the motorways are congested and the warehouses are hungry for stock.
What is needed is a new approach whether that means rewriting the rule book and using local hauliers to do the local movements and let the best vehicle for the job move the bulk, that may be a lorry, it may be a barge, it could be a train.
Just remember that even Carryfast when he was a highly skilled night trunker was only a small part of the jigsaw. His company relied on the local driver to collect the goods, the warehouseman to sort them, the forward depot to distribute them using another local driver.
I actually said intermodal ‘road/rail’ freight movements as opposed to ‘road transport’.What you’re describing,even in the case of night trunking,involved/s long haul ‘road transport’ over the type of distance which the present levels of road fuel taxation are there to force onto rail transport wherever possible.
What’s needed is a new approach in which road transport is allowed to do it’s job of competing with the rail freight industry with a level playing field on fuel taxation and which allows the full range of the most efficient truck design possible to do that with.Instead of which we’ve got protectionism for the rail freight industry and no suprise those with an interest in the intermodal road/rail freight transport industry supporting the status quo in regards to that protectionist policy.
As for the 1920’s/30’s I think you’re forgetting that most types of transport,including freight,was done using a system of intermodal road/rail although the only difference was that freight etc etc was transhipped usually involving the lowly truck driver handballing,or shovelling etc,the load for nothing with his pittance for driving the truck,as I’ve said,being based on the short distance he was driving relative to the much more highly regarded and paid train driver.Which,as I’ve said,is a similar situation to what the rail freight industry would like to re create for the 21’st century.
The fact is those with an interest in the road transport industry should just be interested in the interests of that industry while the rail lot are more than capable of looking after themselves.
