Can canals, rivers and trains save supply chains hit by the HGV crisis?

[Alan de Enfield]

 

 

Londoners strolling by the river this month were treated to a glimpse of the capital’s newest vehicle. The Bravo Lima GB took to the waters for the first time in what its owners hope will be the start of a new era for Old Father Thames. The 9m-long boat is designed for easy, roll-on roll-off delivery of small crates. Its first job is to deliver medical supplies from Dartford in Kent to Guy’s hospital near London Bridge. “We’re quite excited about this,” said Ed Livett, director of river freight operator Livett’s, which owns the launch. “We’ve earmarked the boat for this NHS project. The idea is to prove the concept and then potentially invest in a bigger version.”

 

Can canals, rivers and trains save supply chains hit by the HGV crisis? | Business | The Sunday Times (thetimes.co.uk)

[Jen-in-Wellies]

Quote

Can canals, rivers and trains save supply chains hit by the HGV crisis?

No.

[BEngo]

Even with waterside or rail connected premises there are still transhipment costs which are higher than for road vehicles. BR was very glad to move to trainload freight and stop having to marshal  hundreds and thousands of small wagons.

For water transport it is also very difficult to get the  number of ton-miles per hour/day anywhere near that achievable with a truck.  Since labour is a large part of costs this matters hugely.

 

Much as I would  like to see water freight again ot is likely to remain a niche operation where other factors combine to outweigh the negatives.

 

N

[Up-Side-Down]

See page 14: https://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/html5/reader/production/default.aspx?pubname=&pubid=d192940e-f732-42bc-a9d9-6fbce501da9a

[zenataomm]

The need to have everything today.

Economy of scale.

Trucks & lorries still being needed for final delivery from the transhipment depot.

 

Are merely three insurmountable obstacles, without delving into issues around infrastructure, weather and costs of labour for multiple handling.

[ditchcrawler]

2 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

Londoners strolling by the river this month were treated to a glimpse of the capital’s newest vehicle. The Bravo Lima GB took to the waters for the first time in what its owners hope will be the start of a new era for Old Father Thames. The 9m-long boat is designed for easy, roll-on roll-off delivery of small crates. Its first job is to deliver medical supplies from Dartford in Kent to Guy’s hospital near London Bridge. “We’re quite excited about this,” said Ed Livett, director of river freight operator Livett’s, which owns the launch. “We’ve earmarked the boat for this NHS project. The idea is to prove the concept and then potentially invest in a bigger version.”

 

Can canals, rivers and trains save supply chains hit by the HGV crisis? | Business | The Sunday Times (thetimes.co.uk)

9Mt long?

 

[Athy]

4 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

9Mt long?

 

That's only about 30 feet; I suspect "19m is what they meant.

Serves them right for using foreign measurements, confusing not only their readers but themselves. 65 feet long perhaps?

[Jerra]

5 minutes ago, Athy said:

That's only about 30 feet; I suspect "19m is what they meant.

Serves them right for using foreign measurements, confusing not only their readers but themselves. 65 feet long perhaps?

Tut Tut Athy.  Surely you taught in metric after the UK officially went metric in starting in 1965.

[Athy]

11 minutes ago, Jerra said:

Tut Tut Athy.  Surely you taught in metric after the UK officially went metric in starting in 1965.

I never taught maths. Of course, as a teacher of French, I had to understand the metric system, but I have never thought in it. Anyway, canal boats are still more often referred to as so many feet, rather than metres, long.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

 

That boat looks remarkably like an ex Yorkshire gravel barge.

[Ronaldo47]

I seem to remember in the run-up to the 2012 London Olympics that  there was talk of how it was going to be environentally-friendly by having building materials transported to the site by barges to reduce road traffic, one of the reasons for renovating the Bow back rivers. As far as I recall, according to Waterways World, no such freight was ever transported. I don't think that the water bus was exactly a runaway success either, but I believe it was rather pricey.

Edited November 28, 2021 by Ronaldo47
typos

[Momac]

 

 

 

You are all assuming the boat pictured in the above posts is the subject of the piece .  Bravo Lima appears to be about 9m in length.

https://www.livetts.co.uk/fleet/bravo-lima-gb/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Athy said:

I never taught maths. Of course, as a teacher of French, I had to understand the metric system, but I have never thought in it. Anyway, canal boats are still more often referred to as so many feet, rather than metres, long.

 

I agree boats of all sorts are referred to in feet , even some of those made in Germany for example. Distances at sea in Nm speed of boats in knots , depths on sea charts  in metres, UK inland waterways signs in mph and some in km/h  . What a mix up ! 

 

Now French - that's undeniably a foreign language, unless you happen to be French or from some other nation where French is spoken.

 

Metres on the other hand are certainly are not foreign having been in common use the last 50 years in the UK. 

 

[Ronaldo47]

The knot is of course not an imperial unit, but a non-decimal  metric unit, being now based on the international nautical mile of 1852 metres instead of the former imperial unit of 6080 ft. 

 

The foot is also used in international shipping as the register ton of 100 cubic feet and the freight ton of 40 cubic feet.

 

I suspect that France might only have started expressing road distances in  kilometres as a consequence of the WWII German occupation. I have a late 1930's motoring annual that advises prospective travellers to France that road distances are expressed in Leagues (lieue du poste = 4km),  of about 2.5 miles.

 

The metric system has in fact been legal to use in the UK for most purposes in addition to the imperial units since the late 19th Century, no doubt due to Prince Albert's influence, but most people never bothered.

 

The 1965 act mandated the use of metric for most commercial purposes. I well recall some of the metric madness at the time, when for example UK steel companies ceased supplying steel rod etc. in inch dimensions, resulting in engineering firms that needed inch dimension stock for maintaining legacy equipment, having to get it from continental suppliers. Not to mention the electronics component supplier, whose "metric" catalogue seemed to have multiplied everything by 25.4, including the value of pi in its technical data section 

Edited November 28, 2021 by Ronaldo47
typos

[Guest]

1 hour ago, MartynG said:

You are all assuming the boat pictured in the above posts is the subject of the piece .  Bravo Lima appears to be about 9m in length.

https://www.livetts.co.uk/fleet/bravo-lima-gb/

 

Which to be fair is kind of reasonable given it's pictured in the article.

 

Looking at the picture again though It looks possible to me that it is actually the A&C navigation (at ??? Woodlesford) with Leeds on the horizon, which would fit with it being a Yorkshire gravel barge. (and looking more closely it is actually carrying gravel in that picture).

 

Edit - In fact looking at Google Earth I would put money on it actually being Woodlesford. The game farm is on the left and The River Aire is to the right of the navigation.

 

 

Edited November 28, 2021 by The Happy Nomad

[BEngo]

Not forgetting the international shipping container.  Quantised in TEU, or Twenty foot Equivalent Unit, based on the original  twenty feet by eight feet by eight feet box.

 

N

[furnessvale]

Regular trains run carrying freight for supermarkets such as Tesco and Sainsburys.  Tesco have stated this has enabled them to avoid the worst of the HGV driver shortage.

 

Extra freight trains are also running for those companies and others, bringing imported wine from the docks, for example.

 

No one is suggesting that rail can simply take over from road, but companies that did not put all their eggs in one (road) basket, are now feeling the benefit.

[Up-Side-Down]

1 hour ago, The Happy Nomad said:

 

That boat looks remarkably like an ex Yorkshire gravel barge.

That's Branford Barge Owners' Farndale H on the top end of the A&C either this September, just after the breach at Goole was repaired, or on one of the early runs last Autumn when the contract for carrying sea-dredged sand from Hull to Leeds kicked off in September 2020.

 

She's an ex Harkers (hence the 'H' suffix) black oiler with three of the tanks cut open to form holds to carry aggregates. Other tanks have been retained so that she can be water ballasted for her return trip, light, and still get under the A&C bridges. She was originally built in the Harkers yard at Knottingley and has been fairly recently re-engined with 440 hp Cummings diesel.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Up-Side-Down said:

That's Branford Barge Owners' Farndale H on the top end of the A&C either this September, just after the breach at Goole was repaired, or on one of the early runs last Autumn when the contract for carrying sea-dredged sand from Hull to Leeds kicked off in September 2020.

 

She's an ex Harkers (hence the 'H' suffix) black oiler with three of the tanks cut open to form holds to carry aggregates. Other tanks have been retained so that she can be water ballasted for her return trip, light, and still get under the A&C bridges. She was originally built in the Harkers yard at Knottingley and has been fairly recently re-engined with 440 hp Cummings diesel.

 

Thanks for that.

[Up-Side-Down]

31 minutes ago, The Happy Nomad said:

 

Which to be fair is kind of reasonable given it's pictured in the article.

 

Looking at the picture again though It looks possible to me that it is actually the A&C navigation (at ??? Woodlesford) with Leeds on the horizon, which would fit with it being a Yorkshire gravel barge. (and looking more closely it is actually carrying gravel in that picture).

 

Edit - In fact looking at Google Earth I would put money on it actually being Woodlesford. The game farm is on the left and The River Aire is to the right of the navigation.

 

 

Correct. You're better at pin pointing the precise location than me!

[Guest]

Just now, Up-Side-Down said:

Correct. You're better at pin pointing the precise location than me!

 

It was one of our favourite mooring spots when we had a boat.

[Momac]

I think this might be the gravel barge pictured in the original post ?

 

[Guest]

24 minutes ago, MartynG said:

I think this might be the gravel barge pictured in the original post ?

 

 

Correct, it was named earlier.

 

I have a couple of pics. of Fusdale H but not Farndale H.

[ditchcrawler]

2 hours ago, furnessvale said:

Regular trains run carrying freight for supermarkets such as Tesco and Sainsburys.  Tesco have stated this has enabled them to avoid the worst of the HGV driver shortage.

 

Extra freight trains are also running for those companies and others, bringing imported wine from the docks, for example.

 

No one is suggesting that rail can simply take over from road, but companies that did not put all their eggs in one (road) basket, are now feeling the benefit.

We had a Tesco train go by the other day and a Royal Mail one

[David Mack]

4 hours ago, furnessvale said:

Regular trains run carrying freight for supermarkets such as Tesco and Sainsburys. 

 

[magpie patrick]

6 hours ago, Ronaldo47 said:

I seem to remember in the run-up to the 2012 London Olympics that  there was talk of how it was going to be environentally-friendly by having building materials transported to the site by barges to reduce road traffic, one of the reasons for renovating the Bow back rivers. As far as I recall, according to Waterways World, no such freight was ever transported. 

 

The project managers for the Olympic site were rather slippery on that score, although one of the aggregate suppliers was very keen