Railnet - Royal Mail's £150m Waste

in the early 1990s as the operation of mail trains faced an uncertain future royal mail in cooperation with british rail and its shadow company rail express systems embarked on an ambitious project to revitalize the travelling post office service across the uk this scheme coming to fruition in the form of rail net a massive refurbishment project which was set to see sustained mail-on-rail operations well into the middle of the 21st century but after only a decade was rendered obsolete as the mail train contract was swept away the british mail train itself can trace its routes back to as early as november 1830 with the liverpool and manchester railway while from 1838 the railway's conveyance of mail act of that year meant railway companies were obligated to carry mail resulting in the development of specialized rolling stock which allowed for the sorting of parcels and correspondences while on the move rather than it fixed sorting offices thereby creating the travelling post office or tpo a staple of the british railway network for the next 150 years by the middle of the 20th century though the railway industry was facing a steep decline thanks to the sudden rise of road and air competition following world war ii and therefore in the 1960s attempts were made to speed up the transportation of mail and parcels under the parcel post plan of may 1969 which introduced 90 mile an hour mail services between the terminus stations of london and bradford nottingham birmingham bristol and cardiff with additional routes started by the end of 1970 although due to the transport arrangements of the mail train not suiting post office operations the parcels contract was not renewed with british rail for the long term in 1974 opting instead for a combined multimodal system of rail transport road transport and the containerization of certain goods aboard br's fledgling freightliner service throughout the 1970s an emphasis on mechanized and computer sorting at dedicated post offices meant the tpo was given the unfortunate prospect of losing its role although the 74 million pound profit earned through mail services was one of the few steady sources of income for br during a period when it struggled to recover from the beaching acts of the previous decade male trains traveling 8 million miles and carrying 7 million mailbags per annum with 10 000 trains transporting mail per day on both dedicated mail train consists but also under the red star parcel system wherein mail and parcels were transported in sacks aboard regular passenger trains it was in 1978 though that br became acutely aware of the problems faced by the limited speed of britain's railway network when the post office announced the transfer of mail traffic from rail to air on the primary london to edinburgh service followed by the opening of dedicated air mail hubs at speak airport in liverpool and east midlands airport in leicestershire during 1979 and 1982 creating an internal network of domestic mail flights which by 1992 accounted for 3 million items of postage conveyed per annum on march 31 1981 the rail-borne mail contract between br and the post office was extended allowing royal mail the ability to transfer mail aboard up to 20 000 passenger and dedicated parcels trains per day the appeal of the mail train being cemented in the fact that many sorting offices had been built next to train stations although a major loss for br during the 1980s was the end of the newspaper services in 1988 when with the rise of electronically transferable articles the traditional printing and publishing centers of london and manchester were rendered largely obsolete compounded further by the rapid expansion of tv and radio news by the start of the 1990s rail-borne mail traffic was continuing to drop the post office preferring the establishment of concentrated sorting centers located at airports such as east midlands to complement their domestic air transport arm while from 1991 virtually all saturday movements of letters and packages were transferred from rail to road under the roadrunner scheme implemented by royal mail seeing this decline a joint project was developed known as railnet launched in 1993 which was to be created in partnership with the dedicated light freight and parcel sector of british rail called rail express systems or res which had been formally launched in october 1991 as the mail arm of the rail industry and at the cost of 150 million pounds the rail net scheme would introduce a sweeping improvement in consolidation of the traveling post office system which would include the opening of a series of rail served terminals the commissioning of a main hub at willston and the procurement of new purpose-built rolling stock the creation of res essentially removed the previous system of transferring mail aboard regular passenger trains through further investment in dedicated parcels workings and with the proposals of the rail net scheme set to be delivered over the course of 13 years royal mail would be capable of transferring up to 100 million more letters per weekday than before adopting stringent security and high performance demands for both raw mail and res alike the first move under rail net was the replacement of mail transfer being undertaken at london's terminal stations by moving all capital operations to a single dedicated center at stonebridge park developing a 15-acre road rail hub adjacent to the west coast main line and the north circular road in north london called the wilston rail net terminal which opened on september 30th 1996 and was essentially an additional london terminus with platforms but with no passengers the seven platform facility replacing the previous sorting centers at king's cross saint pancras liverpool street paddington and houston stations and allowed for the seamless road to rail transfer of mail and parcels similarly to the wilston rail net terminal various other terminals were also established at strategic centers across the uk including shield moore for glasgow lowfell for newcastle warrington for manchester and liverpool doncaster for leeds in york bristol parkway for bristol and cardiff peterborough for cambridgeshire and anglia and tonbridge for southeast england as well as dedicated platforms being introduced at stafford for the west midlands to complement these new facilities res employed its own fleet of locomotives and rolling stock in order to operate the service inheriting nearly 700 mail vans and a motley selection of multiple units and locomotives including a series of dmus and emu's such as the class 114 and class 302 which have been converted from passenger to mail use while also hosting its own contingent of class 08 shunters 26 class 47 diesels and 15 class 86 electrics as well as being complemented by the addition of five brand new class 90s upon its formation in 1991. the most important part of the 1993 railnet plan was the provision of a brand new parcels multiple unit which would replace locohold mail trains on the electrified uk network this coming in the form of the class 325 which was contracted from the derby-based abb transportation and would comprise the delivery of 16 four-car electric multiple units capable of operating from 25 kilovolt overhead wires and 750 volt dc third rail the new trains being designed to carry containerized mail rather than having on-board sorting facilities as per the travelling post office fundamentally the underpinnings and body shells of the 325s were based on the same profile as the class 319 thames link units of 1988 although the regular automatic sliding doors were replaced by four roller shut doors per carriage and also included the traction systems and running gear of the 319s while the cab fronts were based on those of the recently introduced class 365 and 465 networking units the 325 is being equipped with third rail pickup shoes for the fleet's potential use on the southern region to the proposed rail net terminal at tunbridge the top speed for the units being 100 miles an hour in addition to the class 325s improvements in time saving for the regular loco hold operation was achieved through the conversion of 42 driving trailers from what had formerly been class 307 emus into propelling control vehicles or pcvs essentially a variation on the push-pull technology that had been introduced previously on the mark ii driving brakes standard open carriages of the great eastern main line and the driving van trailers of the western east coast main line the intention being that pcvs would allow for low-speed push-pull shunting at depots and terminals without the need for either locomotives to run round or for a secondary locomotive to haul the train backwards the pcv stock being converted at the hunts at barclay factory in kilmarnock between 1994 and 1996 while the res fleet of class 47s were modified to allow for push-pull use throughout the mid-1990s the various aspects of the railnet scheme were implemented with service cutbacks being placed on lower priority or smaller services while trunk mail train corridors were enhanced by the introduction of the new terminals and rolling stock the final layout of the res network being to serve 45 stations and 9 rail net terminals across the uk for rail-to-road transfer although the travelling post office continued to lose much of its relevance as mechanical and computerized sorting at post offices and sorting centers meant the practice of employing a full sorting crew aboard the mail trains was becoming increasingly uneconomic during the privatization of british rail in the mid 1990s the res company was put up for sale and on december 9th 1995 the bid to operate mail services was won by a consortium led by the american railroad company wisconsin central inheriting 164 locomotives and 677 wagons before being integrated into the wider english welsh and scottish railway or ews in february 1996 following wisconsin central's requirement of the three shadow freight franchises load hall mainline freight and transrail freight around this time the class 325 units started to become operational but problems were encountered due largely to the recently established private railway infrastructure firm rail track which began setting out new safety criteria which made it difficult for types which had been ordered under the previous br regime but not yet completed to adhere to specific examples being the class 325 male units and the class 92 electrics built for the channel tunnel royal mail stating in the house of commons in may 1996 that 15 months had been spent trying to satisfy rail track safety assessment for the class 325 fleet but the units were still not approved for regular service leading to the then chief executive of royal mail writing to both railtrack and the secretary of state for transport demanding a resolution resulting in only one unit being used on one of the intended routes with overall introduction for the remaining 15 sets commencing in september of the same year under ews ownership in order to increase the average speed of loco hall mail trains on the non-electrified network the company ordered a fleet of 30 125 mile an hour diesel locomotives from alstom at their factory in valencia spain at a cost of 45 million pounds these engines which were to be powered by prime movers built by electromotive diesel coming to fruition as the class 67 of october 1999 which would replace the aging class 47s by the middle of 2000 but despite ews ambitious plan for a rapid introduction problems with the locomotives being slightly too large for the british loading gauge meant they had to be revised at a notable delay with acceptance trials eventually starting in december 1999 and all 30 units in the uk by 2000. although further problems of high axle loads meant an initial speed restriction to 110 miles an hour was enforced until bogey modifications had been made the class 67 is being gradually reworked between july 2001 and june 2003 so as to reach their 125 mile an hour top speed trouble once again brewed though in october 2000 as following the crash of a gner mark iv set at hatfield due to a metal fatigue induced deterioration of the track work that resulted in four deaths railtrack implemented speed restrictions and in some cases the outright closure of several male corridors while a mixture of flooding and enforced maintenance of the permanent way during the winter of that year meant royal mail's confidence in the reliability of rail-borne mail traffic was waning severely come 2003 49 daily mail trains were operating across the uk 16 of which continued to utilize the travelling post office mobile sorting system and thereby constituted the carriage of 20 million items of mail or around 14 of all mail carried in the uk during the first quarter of the year with ews declaring that the punctuality and performance of their mail services far exceeded those presented by the regular passenger train operators behind the scenes though royal mail's loss of faith in mail trains had led to protracted negotiations starting in 2001 between themselves and ews as to a possible renewal of the mail train contract all while the post office had been slowly transferring more of its mail diagrams from rail to either road or air transport the negotiations between ews and royal mail ultimately failing which combined with the rising concern over health and safety arrangements aboard the tpo service meant in june 2003 raw mail announced it would cease all rail-borne mail traffic focusing entirely on road and air-based alternatives throughout the remainder of 2003 mail train services were gradually wound down until eventually on the night of january 9th 2004 the very last mail on rails services ran bringing an end to 174 years of continuous mail trains and in so doing leaving the nearly brand new fleet of 30 class 67s and 16 class 325 units without a purpose as well as rendering obsolete all of the 150 million pound rail net terminals after only six to eight years of use the rail net terminal at bristol parkway being of particular note as this had only opened in may 2000 before the 12 000 square foot facility was closed in 2004 and demolished in late 2007 wasn't entirely the end of mail trains though as in april 2004 it emerged that raw mail were in talks with gbrf as to the possibility of resuming a number of mail trains at a small scale resulting from december 1st 2004 in the announcement that gbrf had been awarded a four-month contract to operate royal mail's class 325 fleet over the christmas period followed by a performance review in march 2005 as to whether the contract could be extended this review ultimately came out successfully for gbrf and from may 2005 raw mail signed a new contract with the operator to run two trains each night between williston and shieldmoor on the west coast main line carrying one million items of mail daily this contract being extended year after year until june 2010 whereupon the raw mail contract was awarded to ews successor db schenker this time for the running of seven mail trains on the west coast main line later changed from june 2015 to six daily services on the west coast main line and two on the east coast main line for the future with the increase of private shipping firms such as ups fedex and dhl now providing an alternative means of delivery to the conventional post office and with online orders for goods via the likes of amazon and ebay seeing an exponential rise proposals have been made for new forms of rail-based parcels traffic to be introduced many of which propose the use of redundant class 319 and 321 multiple units and former hst sets to operate services in competition with royal mail's own mail trains but as of 2021 most of these remain only at the concept stage as for rail net this was essentially the pinnacle of efficiency for operating a mail service within the uk as it allowed a perfect mixture of new high-speed rolling stock in combination with dedicated terminals and computerized sorting which easily outperformed the sluggish and time-consuming road and air competition sadly fate conspired against rail net and in so doing rented the 150 million pound expense of implementing its many facets obsolete within less than five years of their construction although with the recent turn to more sustainable transport alternatives the future for parcels and mail traffic on the railway may soon be facing a new renaissance [Applause] you

Channel: Ruairidh MacVeigh

Views: 235,895

Keywords: emu, diesel, express, multiple unit, rail, train, electric locomotive, passenger, shunter, trains, dmu, branch, diesel locomotive, class, engine, mainline, railways, steam locomotive, locomotive, freight, railway, track, Royal Mail, Mail Train, Mail, Parcels, Postage, Post, Post Office, Class 325, Class 47, Class 86, Class 90, PCV, Class 08, Rail Express Systems, British Rail, BR, RES, Willesden Railnet Terminal, Railnet, Propelling Control Vehicle, Class 67, EWS, GBRF, UK, Britain, Great Britain, WCML

Id: wM3aZKiO-dQ

Length: 16min 55sec (1015 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 25 2021