Page:The Reshaping of British Railways (Beeching Report).pdf/36



(a) Single wagon consignment (16-ton capacity wagon) from colliery to small station on branch line

Per wagon s.

(1) Terminal facilities and services at both ends of transit; documentation

96 (including local trip working to first, and from last marshalling yard)

(b) Through-train load consignment (16-ton capacity wagons) from colliery to private siding

Per wagon s.

(2) Provision of wagon (3) Marshalling

28 32 92 21 (4) Trunk haul 69 (85 miles) 93 (100 miles) TOTAL 278 153 Cost per ton (14·5 tons per wagon) 19.0 10.6

Since 61 per cent. of the total coal moved by the railways is still handled by wagon-load movement, at correspondingly high costs, it is very necessary to consider what can be done to enable more of it to be handled in through-trains. In this connection, the data given in Appendix 1 is of particular interest. This shows how the total 28·1 m. tons received by stations was spread over the 5,031 stations open to coal traffic in 1960. Although open to receive coal, 1,172 stations received none and many of these have obviously fallen into disuse for this purpose. A further 1,790 received between one and five wagons per week and totalled only 1·7 m. tons between them in the year, or 6 per cent. of the whole. At the other end of the scale 64 stations received over 50,000 tons per year each, and between them received 20 per cent. of the total. In between, 2,005 stations, receiving 2,500 to 50,000 tons/year each, together accounted for 74 per cent. of the total.

All the coal from these stations is distributed by road in any case, with an average radius of distribution of 2½ miles at present. Since the whole country can be covered by a 10-mile radius of distribution from 250 centres, the costs of road distribution would not be greatly increased by reducing the number of rail-served coal depots to a few hundred large ones which could be supplied by through-train movement. The resulting reduction in rail costs would be very considerable, and depots large enough to be fed by the train-load would also have enough throughput to justify efficient mechanisation and the use of special purpose road vehicles, so that the overall cost of handling and distribution from depots could be reduced as well.