Today has consisted of:
A train to Portsmouth Southsea
Train Southsea to the Harbour
Catamaran from Portsmouth Hbr - Ryde
Train.Ryde PH - Shanklin
Bus Shanklin - Newport and then Newport - Yarmouth
Ferry Yarmouth - Lymington
Train Lymington Pier - Brockenhurst
Train Brockenhurst- Southampton
Train Southampton- Hilsea.
Busy day...
Can I urge all and sundry to respond to the Treasury brain driven closure of ticket offices at various UK stations? There are now just 20 days to get your comments in.
According to the list the ticket office at London Euston is slated for closure but the one at South Acton isn't.
Not on Instagram nor Faceache. I have no more desire to let Meta monetise my viewing habits than pay Musk money.
So count me out in regards to Threads.
Other railfreight news in the UK:
The Royal Mail have opened their new hub at DIRFT (3) which is rail linked.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-66069338
Contrary to popular belief letters and parcels are still carried on the UK rail network on both dedicated trains for the RM (from PRDC to Shieldmuir/Low Fell/Warrington hauled by DB) and for private firms (Varamis between Glasgow and Birmingham).
New Aggregate flows (UK):
The four are Hillhead Sidings to Leyland and Peterborough West Yard; Tonbridge West Yard to Ipswich Griffin Wharf and Purfleet FY.
H/t to Pwaylen on Freightmaster who adjusted my original thinking somewhat.
Hillhead is a reopened Quarry siding south of Buxton. The Derbyshire Dales quarries are generating up to 30 loaded trains per week on occasions.
Leyland is the Lancashire town's ex car sidings. Now used for Aggregate.
Not affiliated with the Railfreight group in anyway but the latest newsletter is here:
https://issuu.com/railfreightgroup/docs/rfg_news_june_2023_issue_160
Interesting point of view from DP offering fiscal incentives for customers to switch to rail. Freightliner run a DP service from Southampton to London Gateway at the weekend (<100 miles) so there is a testing of the market.
The June 2023 issue of RFG News, the Rail Freight Group’s regular newsletter, has now been published. The RFG team were out in force at the Multimodal Show this month, as we exhibited with members on our popular Rail Freight Pavilion. Our Director General Maggie Simpson OBE was busy making the case for rail by chairing two key seminars in the Logistics UK seminar theatre. The first debate covered the digital railway and then a second seminar on encouraging more retailers to put their goods onto the network. It was a great event and thank you to everyone who came over to the stand and met with the team.
