- Anonymous said...
- Dorset County Council cuts: Secret report reveals £30m target So is DCC finally admitting that they do not have the funding to go ahead with some of their original plans ? http://www.thisisdorset.net/news/8268436.Dorset_County_Council_cuts__Secret_report_reveals___30m_target/
Monday, July 19, 2010
County Council cuts?
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31 comments:
Well cuts are going to happen , thou it maybe should start from the top people first , those with high wages.
I do hope that Swanage Railway still get the funding to have the signal's done and that we can be connected by rail to Wareham and the rest of the country.
Will this affect the schools transitioning to two tier?
I am not sure 3 mill for the railway will happen, as it will never be a profitable investment. It looks as though vanity projects will be placed on hold - or canceled. I still have not learned how a reconnected line will be operated in a way that suits local transport needs.
Well with a reconnected line , hows this for an idea.
Instead of big supermarket trucks coming into town , rail it in. The new recycle centre , rail the rubbish out. Cut down on traffic.
Thou the train coming in from London did in my opinion bring in the region of 400 people in one go.
So that must be good for us in some way!
How are you thinking of persuading the supermarkets to put goods bound for Swanage on trains? Who would pay the additional costs? If compulsion had to be used what new laws would be needed?
Where would this happen. How far away is the closest goods yard. How much labour do you think would be involved in unloading the lorries, loading the trains and transferring the goods at this end from the non existent goods siding at Swanage station to the shops. All to save 10 miles of road and in fact the miles from the distribution depots to the goods yard would probably add to the total food miles.
There is a presumption that the rail freight role is limited to bulk freight. In fact rail carries a range of non-bulk cargoes ranging from premium parcels, high value car components and food stuffs to other random items.
The blanket statement that rail freight is not viable for journeys under 200 miles is one of the most commonly propagated myths about rail freight.
Break-even distances are market specific. Traffic such as aggregates and waste can be economic over distances as short as 19 miles .Therefore proper sectoral analysis must be undertaken to establish what the addressable market actually is.
If the cost of carrying freight by rail was so high as to be uncompetitive then rail freight would not have expanded its market share (compared with road) by 50%. Nor would rail freight have attracted more than £1 billion of investment in locomotives, wagons and facilities since 1995 from the private sector.
The Rail Regulator’s review of track access charges, accepted by Network Rail, confirms that rail freight does pay its way and meets its marginal costs.
There are many examples of short viable freight journeys currently operating on our rail network as shown by the 19-mile aggregates flow from Greenwich to Kings Cross, the 27-mile municipal waste removal from Edinburgh to Dunbar and the 40-mile municipal waste from Cricklewood to Bedfordshire.
Rail often beats road on price, and can drive down costs through increased speed and reliability - a competitive advantage set to increase as congestion continues to grow. The cost of road transport will go up significantly with the introduction of the Working Time Directive in 2005.
The real costs of road transport including all the additional external costs which society has to bear are normally not factored into a direct cost comparison between the two modes. International Railway Union research in 2000 showed that rail freight’s external costs, i.e. excluding congestion, are eight times less per tonne kilometre than air freight and four times less than road.
Rail freight currently enjoys considerable environmental advantages over road haulage. Technological improvements will slowly improve the environmental performance of lorries, but rail freight’s environmental performance is also improving, and overall rail will still be significantly ’greener’ than road for the foreseeable future.
There is a presumption that the rail freight role is limited to bulk freight. In fact rail carries a range of non-bulk cargoes ranging from premium parcels, high value car components and food stuffs and other random items. With growing congestion, the greater reliability and speed of rail freight means that rail will continue to compete and win more non-bulk traffic.
The blanket statement that rail freight is not viable for journeys under 200 miles is one of the most commonly propagated myths about rail freight.
Break-even distances are market specific. Traffic such as aggregates and waste can be economic over distances as short as 19 miles .Therefore proper sectoral analysis must be undertaken to establish what the addressable market actually is.
There are many examples of short viable freight journeys currently operating on our rail network as shown by the 19-mile aggregates flow from Greenwich to Kings Cross, the 27-mile municipal waste removal from Edinburgh to Dunbar and the 40-mile municipal waste from Cricklewood to Bedfordshire.
excuse last post , this site has a habit of telling you your post is too large , so you size it down and its posted the first one already :( :(
Dave I agree. The amount of parcel delivery vans in Swanage each day is incredible. You would have thought this freight could all come in by rail and then be distributed from the station by a guy in a milk float.
We seem to forget that Swanage Railway is run mainly by volunteers and would have to expand its operations to employ people to handle goods and refuse, as you propose. There is also the problem of unloading/loading at the station, as well as employing a number if individuals. I am sure all this could be done but it isn't quite as simple as bunging a few boxes on the steam locomotive and using a milk float to deliver locally.
Delivering to the Swanage Supermarkets by freight train is just some sort of pipe dream Im afraid. All the supermarkets have long term contracts with road haulage companies and no doubt Swanage supermarkets share a lorry with Wareham etc.
There would have to be a fully costed business case to justify the spend on the railway. The age of austerity means there are also other priorities for DCC.
If the government won't fund it, lets impose a tax on every car registered in the Purbecks. One hundred quid per car seems reasonable. Then we can get cars off the road mebbe and use the railway or walk or cycle. let's ask Drax to do it!!
"The amount of parcel delivery vans in Swanage each day is incredible"
Its perfectly credible in a competitive market economy. When British Railways had a parcel service your item would vanish for weeks, nowadays I order something on line at teatime and receive it the next morning. If the delivery company is no good my suppliers go elsewhere knowing that if they don't I will. If you think it would be a good idea to return to the level of service we had a generation ago think again.
Unloading at the station would not be a problem as Co-op is right next door to the railways warehouse behind the fire station. And unloading would be done with a thing called a " forklift ". Also a few of the companies that could use the railways could maybe pay towards the cost of using it which could be pumped into swanage railway itself.
just a thought.
Why on earth would companies that deliver to Swanage go to any additional trouble and expense. This is really too silly for words
Silly words maybe but you cannot deny that
On average each modern freight train removes the equivalent of between 50 and 60 heavy lorry journeys from our roads.
Freight trains can travel at higher speeds than road vehicles, which are limited to just 100km/h (62mph) - or less.
Sending freight by rail is much safer - 20% of all road deaths can be attributed to goods vehicles, even though they represent just 7% of the total number of vehicles on the roads.
Railfreight is also much kinder on both the local and global environments - per tonne carried, rail produces around 10% of the carbon dioxide produced by road transport,
whilst......road transport requires between 4 to 7 times more energy than rail...
...furthermore, since energy efficiency is directly related to carbon dioxide emissions, this means that (apart from shipping) rail is significantly more energy efficient than all the other modes of transport.
All in all, our railways produce less than 1% of the total UK emissions of carbon dioxide - compared to 21% from road transport (of which 8% is from road freight).
In the ten years prior to 2006 rail freight has grown by 66 per cent.
Rail has 12% of the UK surface freight market (i.e. road + rail) with the industry's measurement of net tonne kilometres showing an increase of 7.5% in the year 2005/06 over the previous year.
Oh and might I add that the Department of Transport give funding to companies to switch to rail freight. This scheme is called Rail Environmental benefits Procurement Scheme (REPS).
No doubt UPS, Citylink and all the other delivery firms whose vans come here every day are aware of all this and find their existing arrangements preferable. Why do you think this is?
Something that would reduce the amount of traffic when the line is connected would be a park and ride service from Holton Heath station which would remove cars from 14 miles of the A351. This would not be contingent on numerous companies changing the way they arrange their operations and would be a lot more effective.
sorry i don't understand, is there a separate railway line to Holton Heath from Swanage or must the trains join the main line still at Wareham? Surely Worgret would be the place. But we already have Norden. Stop lorries entering Corfe then the train can take most of the freight on and gain money for going the "last mile"
Transhipping greatly increases shipping costs.
Most of the worst congestion is between Wareham and the Bakers Arms roundabout. We would need trains running on the "proper" line to be able to have a park and ride far enough away to avoid this. Quite honestly, if you think that goods are going to be put on a train to avoid clogging up Corfe, you are kidding yourself.
Well just putting ideas out there , nice to see what other people opinions are.
So have we all talked ourselves into thinking the rail link is unviable? I understand the Bluebell line are having one and at a much cheaper cost. Might be worth Swanage Railway enthusiasts checking this out and seeing how its done.
Well, DCC have voted in favour of the rail link and it's now up to PDC.
If there are services to Poole and Bournemouth it would be nice to see the scope of over 60s bus passes extended to include the railway. Other places manage this without the sky falling in.
If that means charging the rest of us a fortune, no thank you. It's cheaper to get a taxi than go by bus if there's two of you travelling. Cheap fares for residents subsidised by tourists please
You are paying anyway. The cost of bus passes is paid by councils not by the bus company ticket income so why would it be any different for a train pass? PDC's aim is to get cars off the roads so it is immaterial to them whether this is a change to bus or train.
Help the poor and not the rich.
If some old folk have a nice big fat pension and have a nice big house then there should pay like the rest of us instead of having a free pass.
And if they still have their free pass there should wait in the queue like the rest of us , instead pushing you out the way.
If they are well off they are not likely to be using the bus. Even if they are thats less cars getting in my way when I go out of town.
Or we could put old people in the movies!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opUanfsumEk
Hey David - you will be old once!
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