Are small rail-served industires common in Europe?

I realized that while I've seen hundreds of pictures of warehouses and small industries, often in industrial parks, I haven't seen many in the UK or other parts of Europe. What is the current state of small-plant traffic there?
 
Many years back (and up until the late 1970's, early 80's) you could have compared Britain's railways to a river system. There were hundreds of small yards attached to the myriad local railway stations on our Branch lines and they acted like little springs and streams. They received and dispatched deliveries of many different products, but particularly coal for household use, for distribution locally (inbound) or nationally (outbound.)

These yards were fed by what what were known as "Trippers." A "Trip Engine" would leave the local shed and go to the nearby marshalling yards. They would spend the entire day picking up the allocated vehicles and distributing them to the local station yards as and where they were required. At the same time, as required by customer demand, another "Trip Engine" would be going around collecting empty wagons or loads despatched fom local manufactures requiring distribution nationally. They would take these wagons to the marshalling yards where they would be sorted for, perhaps, another "Trip Engine" to take them to the colliery for refilling, in the case of coal wagons, or, in the case of loaded wagons, they would be placed within an outbound goods train for transport on the mainline to another marshalling yard on the road to its eventual destination. A perfect example of a tributary feeding a river.

Local passenger trains on the Branch lines fed into large mainline stations too. Increasing the flow of customers because of there being no need for personal transport. Door to door by rail was quite feasible. (Tributaries feeding the river again.)

Then, we had the Beeching cuts that decimated local Branch lines and yards. Later, looking back now, it is plain to see that it was at the end of the 1970's that the push for privatisation slowly began to raise its ugly head. British Rail began to close many of the remaining local yards on the grounds of cost effectiveness. They started to refuse to take traffic from small local manufacturers or they charged ridiculous prices for transportation so that the customers would have to choose other, more viable, options. All British Rail wanted was to handle large, block trains from customers who had their own sidings. This negated the existence of B.R's Trip Engines (and their crews) and the large marshalling yards and it allowed the management to close the yards down as loss making concerns - oh, and make footplate staff redundant too. All nice and lean ready for a sell off.

So, in answer to your question Sir - as far as railways in Britain are concerned - no, small business/industry doesn't play a part anymore in rail transportation. It would take a lot of the congestion off our overcrowded roads if it did. When you consider that one laden truck is 44 tonnes max compared to one laden train that could be getting towards 10 times that - or to put it another way, 10 trucks and 10 drivers versus 1 train and 1 driver - that's a lot of potential saving.

Dave
 
Hi cyberdongreen and everybody.
So, in answer to your question Sir - as far as railways in Britain are concerned - no, small business/industry doesn't play a part anymore in rail transportation. It would take a lot of the congestion off our overcrowded roads if it did. When you consider that one laden truck is 44 tonnes max compared to one laden train that could be getting towards 10 times that - or to put it another way, 10 trucks and 10 drivers versus 1 train and 1 driver - that's a lot of potential saving.

Dave


Cyberdongreen, in 2010-2012 as fuel prices increased, it was felt within the British Road Haulage industry that rail could again play a very large part in retail distribution. First i will try to explain in as short an order as i can how the retail distribution industry operates in the UK and how time sensitive that operation it is.

All large multi-store retail organizations in the UK operate on the basis that as store stock is sold through the sales terminals that sale is immediately processed so that the central warehousing of the company can replace that stock on the next delivery. Those deliveries are normally carried out at a set time on a minimum of once every twenty four hours. The foregoing means that any retail store need carry no standing stock other than which is on the display stands for sale.

To support the above, large suppliers to the retailer get what is known as a “callover” which informs them again at a set time each day what the sales of their products have been through the store tills and therefore what has to be replaced. Normally within an hour or so of the callover a truck(s) is loaded and on route to the retailer's central warehousing complex (known as a hub).

On a timed arrival the stock is immediately sorted into roll cages and coupled with other incoming deliveries, reloaded onto trucks once again and routed to the company's regional distribution centers again on a strictly timed bases. The foregoing second journey is normally commences in the late evening and in known as “a night trunking operation”.

On arrival at those regional centers the stock is rolled of the trunking vehicles, sorted into the retail store distribution routes and the cages are then loaded onto the vehicles that deliver the stock to the stores. Often the above operation means that neither the supplier or the retailer has to hold any stock in the supply chain, saving millions on stock holding costs every day. The whole transport operation is what is known as a “just in time delivery system” (JIT) meaning that the delivery to the store is made just before the retail outlet runs out of stock on the shelves.

Central Hubs usually send many 44 tonne vehicles to every regional centre each and every night of the week. As stated in 2010-2012 it was felt that the night trunking operations could be carried out by rail, for ten to fifteen trunking vehicles equal one train.I was involved in setting up such an operation in 2012 which involved a central hub in the East Midlands rail trunking stock to the Bristol Avonmouth rail terminal for quick specialised container transfer to road for the ten minute journey to the retailer's regional centre.

However in the above after several million expenditure on setting up the operation within weeks of the start up the operation was in trouble. Track maintenance in the main always takes place overnight and can involve the closure of a route while that is carried out. The closures can be often, although they may not last for more than an hour or two but that can mean disaster to any distribution centre operating under a JIT delivery system.

In the above one truck of twelve being delayed equals “well we will manage”. twelve trucks being delayed (one train) equals “just not acceptable”. When the retailer complained to Network Rail that they had not been informed of this situation occurring when they were in discussions with them prior to setting up the operation, Network Rails response was typical of that outfit. They stated that if a driver reports a problem with the track during the day we have to go to the site of the problem that night to rectify the situation. As the track is not normally closed for more than an hour or two “what's the problem” your freight will get through on the designated night.

The last time i looked freight traffic on the railways had leveled off after a 5% rise year on year rise in years 2010 to 2013. The operation by the retailer at Avonmouth has now been largely abandoned with the exception of non time sensitive stock delivery (special offers etc) after such hopes for the system at the start.

Network Rail strikes again.
Bill


 
Thank you Bill. Your post is extremely informative. I've often seen the hive of activity at night in the Nuneaton area where there are several major road transport terminals (which I'm sure you probably know of) and I fully appreciate the contribution the road haulage fraternity make to our country. I am not in anyway anti-road and see - more so after reading your post - just how well the industry serves us.

I am am not at all surprised by Railtrack's sabotage (or more likely incompetence) in connection with the service you attempted to instigate. Unfortunately, the modern railway is full of people who've studied some inane subject at one of our so-called modern universities and then somehow they've found their way into an industry that they have absolutely no understanding of. Yes, they know such and such needs to be fixed and by whom but they don't understand the implications of disruption to their customers. In fact, they don't understand that they actually have customers.

I once had a manager whose only qualification was a degree in Religious Education. She had never travelled on a train in her life and had not the faintest understanding of trains. Needless to say, she didn't last too long (though she was promoted sideways, as these people often are, not dismissed.)

Much of this is now reflected in the fairly recent announcement from British industry that it no longer considers formal educational qualifications as essential when people apply for vacancies.

This, I feel, is a direct result of Margaret Thatcher's insane decimation of Britain as a manufacturing centre of excellence in the 1980's. Everything that could be sold was sold, everything else was smashed up beyond repair and gotten rid of.

Kids nowadays can't claim any out of work benefits until they've had a job for a certain period of time - in fact, it has now changed again, I'm told, so that people have to stay at school until they're 18 unless they can show that they have a job waiting for them. Pathetic. This is designed for no other reason than to cook the books. To show that unemployment is not rampant in this country at all and that everyone who wants a job is happily and gainfully employed. Well, we all know "it ain't so."

The fact that these kids can go to some local college (that now somehow qualifies for University status) and study some useless crap about pop/film stars or something alike and then come home with a degree in it is beyond pathetic. It's no wonder industry has no interest in their qualifications - and I don't even want to get started on the subject of kids and their understanding of the real world around them these days.

Sadly, the modern railway cannot even deliver passengers to their destination on time. Time sensitive goods are far better protected by road haulage, as you say Bill. Until or unless we see wholesale change in this country, I fear that we will continue to struggle to achieve anything. We need a nationalised railway system with a joined up national policy (that can see further than London and its surroundings.)

The railways had massive workshops that used the skills of every trade ever invented. It provided apprenticeships in order for those skills to be passed down from one generation to another knowing that, whilst those apprentices were not productive, they were the future and would show their worth tenfold. It was all smashed and sold off in the name of profit. Sadly most of it was taken abroad. Government talk about British Train manufacturers - we haven't got any. They saw to that. The much talked about Bombardier at Derby are a Canadian Biz jet manufacturer that just happens to make crappy plastic rubbish for railways. They are not even remotely British.

Nowadays it's all about instant profit. That's why Britain has such a large service industry. It doesn't cost much to employ people to wipe everyone else's backside but the profit is handsome. How sad that our once great industrial revolution petered out into this.

Dave
 
But the world is a bit more complicated than large stores. These days an increasing amount of sales are done on line, and within limits if it takes a day or two provided its free shipping no one is that bothered. The Economist had a recent article or lorry or truck driving in the UK. Average pay is about £15 an hour, 50% more than minimum wage. The 60 hours worked is a week is nto uncommon. It costs £3,000 for the training to get your license and the companies don't want to pay as another company will poach their trained staff. There is a shortage of lorry drivers so the JIT model is beginning to fall apart, there are a number of Polish drivers now working in the UK but with Brexit their days might be numbered. Besides with the fall in the pound its not so worthwhile.

Most manufactured goods come from China, so it takes a month or two for the goods to arrive in the UK so someone must be storing them somewhere before the stores call in replacements. My local superstore brings in a container a week direct from Bangladesh of clothing.

Something else that is happening some light rail or tram systems are now carrying goods on special trains out of normal working hours.

Cheerio John
 
Hi everybody.
John in reference to your posting at #5 of this thread, I have not seen the Economist article you refer to but I feel there are some inaccuracies in what you/they portray. To begin with drivers can work up to sixty hours in any individual week but they are not allowed to work more than a forty eight hour average over any twenty six week reference period. Therefore if you work more than 48 hours in one week a corresponding reduction must be made in another week(s).

In the above, no Lgv driver will ever work for more than 48 hours on average and that person's salary will reflect that over the course of a full year or the driver hours reference period. The European Drivers Hours regulations are extremely complicated and can often confuse drivers and logistics staff who have worked in the distribution industry for many years. However they usually muddle their way through but often get “clobbered” by the Regional Traffic commissioners when things go wrong.

In regard to “just in time delivery services” (JIT) the demand for those services has never been higher in the UK. Those operations now extend into Britains now large car manufacturing industry and internet distribution centres. However, the shortage of trained lgv drivers and skilled ancillary staff has meant that requests for JIT delivery cannot always be fulfilled and therefore the contracts often go unsigned. Many of the polish drivers have returned to their home country due to the high pressure working conditions in found in UK Road Distribution and has nothing to do with Brexit.

In the Foregoing even with salaries for lgv drivers ranging from £35,000 to £40,000 (45,000 to 52,000 US Dollars) the shortage of category C lgv drivers now exceeds fifty eight thousand and that is impacting on the overall performance of the UK economy. Drivers for trunking operations can still be found, but the more personally skilled Distribution drivers (the guy that you see pushing those heavy cages into your local supermarket or turns up with very large vehicle to deliver and install your new washing machine) are almost impossible to recruit or retain.

In many ways the problems of the road haulage here in the UK are very much the same as found in Britain's rail industry. The difference I feel is that the Road Haulage industry have up to now handled those problems far better than the rail industry. No one would state that relations between employees and their employers are perfect in road transport, but they seem to be much better than in the rail industry where industrial action seems to be rife at the moment and relations between the train operators and their employees in “meltdown”.

The above said, the sad fact is that people in general do not want employment in the transport industry whether that be road, rail or now even air due to the very unsocial hours that have to be worked often in all weathers, day and night, on every calendar day, all year round.

Bill
 
...The above said, the sad fact is that people in general do not want employment in the transport industry whether that be road, rail or now even air due to the very unsocial hours that have to be worked often in all weathers, day and night, on every calendar day, all year round.

Bill
I agree entirely, Bill. Many of my friends and former colleagues tell me that they cannot wait to hit the reirement age. They say that the people new to the job these days grab the money with both hands but don't actually want to work for it. They won't help each other out and it is all me, me, me.

In my time, the railway was a way of life not just a job. When you started on the railway you lost all of your friends outside the industry because you rarely got time off to mix with them. However, everyone within the industry looked after each other - including, generally speaking, the management - and we made the best of a tough life. Oh, and the wages were crap in those days too. You HAD to work overtime to make a decent living. It was 12 hours a day (minimum) and 7 days a week.

The Industrial Relations problems nowadays are mainly down to the T.O.C's trying to undo or walk all over 100+ years of agreements with the Unions. They want to cut corners everywhere. They tell all the new starters not to listen to any advice that ex-B.R staff offer them. They say that they know better and there is a new way to do things. The new starters very quickly learn that the T.O.C's way of doing things will quickly get them killed - yes killed.

And where does the government stand on all this? Oh they've become extremely deaf, dumb and blind all of a sudden.

Dave
 
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