Wagons
What’s available?
As in the road logistics market there is a range of freight wagon types. For the movement of general palletised and non-palletised ambient goods there are basically two types of equipment:
- The de-mountable intermodal unit in the form of a container or swapbody, which is carried on a flat bed rail wagon, or
- The high capacity freight wagon, typically a covered box van with sliding doors.
Market demand and operator innovation also means there’s also a large number of rail wagons that have been designed for specific cargoes like steel coils, finished cars and aggregates amongst other things.
Who organises their availability?
Customers have the option of hiring, buying or leasing wagons directly for their own dedicated use or having equipment supplied as part of a package through the freight operating company.
If not buying, hiring or leasing wagons independently, it is possible to specify that the wagons supplied through the freight operating company are used solely for your traffic. It’s more usual that the contract between freight operating company and customer is for the supply of an agreed type of wagon appropriate for the traffic with individual wagons coming from a more general supply that is servicing the needs of several customers.
This flexible approach allows the freight operating company to take backloading opportunities or triangulate between flows that have synergies with one another and respond to peaks and troughs of customer demand.
How big are the wagons?
Depending on the type, high capacity freight wagons in the UK can accommodate up to 40 UK pallets (52 Europallets) on the deck, 63 tonne payload or 129m3 per unit. 45’ x 9’6 intermodal containers and swapbodies can be accommodated on the UK network, however available routes become fewer the greater the box size.
There is a coding system applied to the rail network that indicates the size of wagon able to physically fit on particular routes. These codes range from W6 to W18, with the higher number indicating that any bridges, tunnels, station platforms or trackside equipment is positioned further from the rail line. The freight operating company will advise on specific routes and equipment available. However, as a quick reference:
High capacity freight wagons are designed to go more or less anywhere in the UK.
There are at least 16 types of rail wagon available for carrying intermodal units. While the availability of these differ, using an appropriate wagon it is possible for:
- 8’6" containers to use the majority of routes coded W6 and above
- 9’6" containers to use the majority of routes coded W8 and above
- 2.6m wide intermodal units to use the majority of routes coded W9 and above
What about refrigerated units?
There are currently no refrigerated wagons available although reefer shipping containers and intermodal units are in use on the UK rail network.
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