Ill-fated Roadrailers

Having been part of a small team in the late 1990s looking to develop both Roadrailer and Piggyback on the British network, there are a few cautionary tales from our experience at that time that relates to David Cooper-Smith’s letter on inland freight ( RAIL 798).

Firstly, customers such as Safeway and the Aberdeen paper companies were all happy, but we were less happy with some of the technology and financial aspects.

There were issues with the robustness of the Roadrailer technology, and the road trailers were big heavy beasts, which reduced the potential road-going payload. Also, at one point, Piggyback trailers for John G Russell Group (built by KronE) were refused registration because they had been built fractionally too big for the GB loading gauge.

On financing, the manufacturer of Roadrailer wished to sell a package of trailers and bogies to a single customer, whereas the freight operator was trying to catch up on years of under-investment in conventional rail wagons, and was reluctant to acquire road trailers.

There was also the added complexity of whether to lease trailers on to customers, or to provide a bespoke door-to-door service. In the end, a few Piggyback wagons were acquired but customer acquisition of trailers never took root.

Roadrailer, Piggyback (via the Thrall Eurospine wagon) and the ill-fated Tiphook/Charterail (in the early 1990s) all offered proprietary patented technologies, which potentially created interoperability issues and over-priced equipment because each was a monopoly supplier.

In the end conventional, generic intermodal wagons proved to be simpler and cheaper. David Hodgson, Alloa