Ovid rail freight growth
lengthy trains are capable of being hauled by a Class 66 loco that is used as almost a standard machine by the freight operators.
From Southampton, the emphasis has been on upgrading the routes to the West Midlands, as well as providing a diversionary route for port departures to allow resilience in the event of planned or out-of-course disruption on the direct line.
The new East West Railway (see page 14) will also allow services from Southampton to access the West Coast Main Line via Oxford and Bletchley, relieving congestion in the West Midlands.
Freeports
Other ports have a growing presence in the provision of intermodal rail services, and the initiative to create eight freeports is likely to accelerate traffic growth.
A freeport is not confined to a single location – for example, Teesside includes the Teesport complex and port facilities at Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Teesside International Airport and the Wilton chemical works (formerly operated by ICI).
PD Ports is the Statutory Harbour Authority for the River Tees, and it strongly backed the proposal for a freeport made by the Tees Valley elected mayor, a post that holds significant authority over economic development. After investment of £1bn by PD ports in the last decade, a further £1bn is expected to be committed over the next five years to include a new rail-connected Northern Gateway container terminal.
The Thames freeport will bring expansion beyond the London Gateway container terminal opened in 2013, built by Dubai Ports World on the site of a former oil refinery at Thames Haven.
The zone will also embrace Tilbury Docks, owned by
Forth Ports, and the Ford Motor Company complex at Dagenham, where future investment for the production of electric vehicles is anticipated.
While a lot has been achieved within the umbrella of the SFN, there is a significant gap with the lack of a trans-Pennine route. This is a constraint to the improvement of services at the Manchester Trafford Park terminal, where there is the added issue of restricted paths available using the congested Castlefield corridor.
Investment in electrification has not been included in the upgrade of Strategic Freight Network routes.
This has not been attractive to the freight operators, which operate a large fleet of modern diesel locomotives and wish to avoid the costly option of providing alternative traction to reach terminals beyond the boundary of electrified lines.
This could be resolved by the use of bi-mode equipment, and the Class 88 type introduced by Direct Rail Services represents a future solution.
Meanwhile, Network Rail is forecasting a three-fold growth in intermodal tonne kilometre haulage over the next 25 years.
This is in part because post-Brexit trade deals with countries throughout the world will increase the amount of deep-sea container traffic that will be handled at the new freeports.
It can also be anticipated that additional high-capacity distribution terminals will be constructed to increase the reach of the rail intermodal network.
Silverstone-based company is set to convert a Type 3 to battery-diesel power.
A PROGRAMME to demonstrate the potential for converting main line diesel locomotives to hybrid electric power is to benefit from almost £400,000 of funding from the latest round of the Department for Transport’s ‘First of a Kind’ (FOAK) competition.
Meteor Power Ltd entered the railway sector having built on years of experience in racing and developing superbikes and highperformance engine upgrades.
Thanks to FOAK funding in 2019, the business – based at Silverstone racing circuit in Northamptonshire – completed a hybrid rebuild of Class 08 shunting locomotive No. 08649. It featured a generator-charged battery pack, which is also capable of storing energy from regenerative braking, and resulted in a locomotive claimed to have more precise control anduptotwicethepowerofa traditional Class 08.
Meteor Power chief executive Mike Edwards believes this has proved there is a viable future for older locomotives: “We’ve had a lot of interest in the ‘08’ conversions. We have a number of things ongoing alongside this, where we’re looking at converting other popular and less popular shunters to start with – even some fairly heavyduty ones.
“We expect after that to start progressing more in the main line scenarios, so I think the ‘37’ is just the beginning for main line loco conversions.”
Scaling Up
Former Plym Valley Railway resident Class 37 No. 37207, more recently stored outside at UKRL’s Leicester depot awaiting a main line return, has been selected as the test bed and is expected to be up and running as early as February next year.
Mr Edwards says creating a main line locomotive traction package was the intention from the outset: “We could’ve done the ‘08’ much more quickly if we hadn’t been planning that far ahead. You’ve got six traction motors on a ‘37’, but it’s the same technology effectively. We’ve got to have an 110V system for TPWS and all the standard safety kit, but we’re pretty much replacing everything else with three-phase AC, so we can run the latest compressors, etc. It’s not just a modernisation exercise for the traction system; it’s a modernisation exercise for the whole system, auxiliary as well.”
Whereas the converted shunter is designed to operate on battery power, with the generator (powered by a European Stage V emissionscompliant 6.8-litre John Deere diesel engine) only providing traction when high power is needed, the Class 37 will have two of the same diesel engines, with the battery coping with peaks and troughs in power and when pulling away from a standstill.
‘Tugs’ And ‘Sheds’ Also
Main line certification is more straightforward given the fact the locomotives are reengineered rather than a brand new design.
Mr Edwards describes it as “tried, tested, proven and made better”, and says that the cost, compared to purchasing a new locomotive, is likely to make it very appealing: “For an ‘08’, you’re probably looking at 30-40% of the cost of a new equivalent. For a ‘37’ you’re probably looking at 40%, depending on how much you want it overhauled.
“We see this progressing through Class 60s, 66s and onwards. All those ‘66’s that people are trying to buy now, just the fuel saving would be immense, but the additional control and safety and everything else would make it even more worthwhile.”
■ Meteor Power has also designed a hydraulic energy capture and storage system that can be fitted to wagons, aiding trains to speed up more quickly from a standstill, saving time and potentially making it easier to create paths for heavy freight.
The standalone set-up, for which funding was also received in July’s round of FOAK, uses artificial intelligence to control energy capture and release by analysing whether the train is slowing down, accelerating, or if the wheels are just rolling slightly due to the brakes being released.