Great Western Coffee Shop

From the BBC Cornwall website

Note they managed to turn out the Green Train Set at Penzance for this ;)

From Business Cornwall (http://www.businesscornwall.co.uk/news-by-industry/roads-and-transportation/live-lobsters-take-the-train-123):


The story was also covered on BBC Spotlight news yesterday. That can be watched at the following link until 1829 tonight, 1st December 2015: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b06qms47/spotlight-30112015 (forward to 11:51)

Mark Hopwood practising for a career change into stand-up comedy?

Taking parcels on passenger trains is a very good idea.  Perhaps they could brand the service Red Star Parcels.

Hey, maybe one day the railways could carry fresh vegetables, the mail and newspapers, too....

.......and Milk :P

Can't call it that. Isn't it some sort of communist emblem. We don't have publicly owned railways here you know!  ;D

.......just publicly funded ones! 😉

Freightjourneyplanner.co.uk suggests 8 hrs 57 from Penzance to London, not allowing for traffic or rest breaks. The 12 hours might not be far out adding in traffic and breaks for a single driver.

.. the obvious distinction being that The Mail is not a newspaper.  :P ::) ;D

A great idea, but presumably short lived given that the new sets will lack lobster space?

Hopefully space enough for them to be on the Pullman menu periodically. As they are now.  ;D

There's a bit of space between the leading passenger door and the driver's cab door on the new AT300 series trains (800/801/802), don't know if that's filled with electronic gubbins to make the train go or if it'd be available for something like this.

9 hours to do 300 miles? It's never taken me that long - I'm by no means a speed merchant but I've normally done it in about 6 and a half with a stop at Taunton Deane in average traffic - once you get past Plymouth it's a straight line!

Ever done it in an HGV? The clue is in the quoted URL...freightjourneyplanner.co.uk

The AA suggests 5hrs 17 minutes for driving a car.  What vehicle would you use for live lobsters?

Lorry speed limits are 50 m.p.h. on single carriage way, 60 m.p.h. on dual - so the freight vehicle will take longer. (note - those speed limits both increased on 6th April 2015 by 10 m.p.h, and article figures quoted may use the older speeds.  Also note that vehicles sometimes have 56 m.p.h. speed limiters)

https://movingon.blog.gov.uk/reminder-hgv-speed-limit-changes-in-england-and-wales/

9 hours - average speed 33 m.p.h.
6.5 hours - average speed 46 m.p.h.
5.25 hours - average speed 57 m.p.h.

Indeed. It would be useful to brand such a service, but what name? I could only come up with 'Railfreight' and 'Speedlink'... anyone?

If a truck driver is bouncing off the limiter. 5.45 hours by my calculation, straight driving, at 55mph the whole way.

As it would probably link the major cities - at least at first - you could call it CityLink.

Impossible. Roads through Cornwall won't permit that. Last 10 miles in London won't permit that. Tacho won't permit that.

We all know impossible, depending on time of day it will take 3 1/2 to 4 hours for a truck to do Penzance to Exeter, I just used it as hypothetical. The only time my example would work is perhaps leaving Cornwall 9pm.

I suspect there are probably quite a quantity already being trunked along the A38/A30/M5 corridor up to Billingsgate fish market. An HGV is by far the most efficient means (on the road) to do this.


Going by my own driving (I try to make the most of all speed limits), a large proportion of which is off-peak motorway driving, so 70+mph max and my long term average speed is around 55 mph as I recall, so I think a 30-35mph range as a long term average is sensible for an HGV limited to a maximum of 56-60mph, which supports Grahams suggested journey time above and that of a journey planner website set up specifically for the use of the road haulage industry. It's a bit ridiculous discussing anything other than real world journey times. A bit like saying an HST can travel the 305.25 miles from Penzance to London in 2.44 hours  ???

Other advantage of road transport over HST's currently is the possible use of refrigerated vehicles, the ability to carry 20-30+ tonnes of freight in a single vehicle (class 43 limited to 1.5 tonnes as I recall) and the reduced requirement for trans-shipment.

In my opinion, this whole lobster shipping thing is just another silly PR exercise by FGW/GWR and will never develop into a sustainable service, nor is it intended to.

Maybe not HSTs, but refrigerated rail vehicles isn't a problem is it? Class 175s for example sometimes decide they are going to refrigerate their occupants.

Thinking about it, MK3 coaches also quite often chill their occupants to the bone!

But currently, no proper refrigerated freight vehicles exist on the railway for this sort of thing. I'm not sure if reefer containers can be carried by train, but containerised freight is a different matter entirely and not so suitable for perishable/live goods due the time spent with trans-shipment.

If FGW were actually serious about this, then perhaps they could add a (refrigerated) wagon to the sleeper and make a proper go of it? One of the old Motorail coaches would seem ideal for this - last time I went past, there were still a handful gently decaying at Cardiff Canton.

Back in the mid sixties we had new flow of perishable traffic from the South Coast to Goosetry in Cheshire. Namely Mushroom Spawn. it was put on selcted trains and collected at Victoria for Euston.

RE refrigerated containers. New Zealand has two types of wagons this type of traffic.

UKR which are 5 wagon sets with a diesel generator in a Container in the middle to provide electrical power to allow 'active refrigeration' to cool the containers.

The second type  VRA and VRB use swap bodies which can be loaded onto a Flat wagon with a semi permanent diesel powered refrigeration unit. Which will provide refrigeration for the swap body.

 :D - Heh, that's a good idea, may they could pick up other stuff along the way.
How about "Pick-up goods" for a name idea  ;D ;D

Go to any freight port (road, sea or rail) in NZ and you will see the containers (usually white Maersk ones) that have the refrigeration units bolted onto the end so that all that lamb can be kept refrigerated while it travels around the Country/World.

Did it by any chance get moved from Victoria to Euston using one of these? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scammell_Scarab (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scammell_Scarab)

The first picture on the page is of a particularly nicely patinated variant in BR livery from 1962  :)

Apologies for the slight thread drift...

Longshore drift, even.

Probably had a day out in one from Redhill goods Sundries deliveries around North surrey countryside. Interesting!