What if? Proto-freelance RailCymru…
In North America ‘proto-freelance’ is an approach to model railroads where a respect for railway operation and practice is blended with make believe to create a plausible ‘what if’ railroad. Although some do stretch the limits of believability the best are household names (Virginian and Ohio, the Allagash and the Southern Alberta). This is not an approach we embrace in the same vein in the United Kingdom…
Whilst I have lost count the number of Great Western ‘might have been’ branchline termini, the development of ‘shortline’ equivalents seems more restricted to just narrow gauge modelling. In today’s British railway scene we have a variety of private and public operators, the perfect breeding ground for a new concept?
I’ve often mused out loud, usually after being nearly driven off the road by another Mansel Davies milk tanker or Pontrilas Sawmill logging truck on our Welsh trunk roads (those familiar will recognise that these are trunk only in name) why doesn’t the Welsh Assembly lead by example and create a nationalised open access operator able to develop and encourage the movement of this traffic to rail, even if loss making… as an enabler for the country and economy - and most importantly the environment?
This feels like a discussion that needs further development, but the combination of James’s comments yesterday with this basic idea further with a chat to Chris and I pondered whether TerraTransport could feasibly expand across the Atlantic (as Wisconsin Central and Genesee and Wyoming did or have), perhaps the Transport for Wales offering becomes unsustainable and is sold off, and RailCymru is the result?
You can imagine the excuses for plausible traffic on my Cambrian project… an expansion of logging trains, perhaps slate waste, could we see food brought in on swap bodies to Aberystwyth and perhaps at a stretch Porthmadog? The energy that this slightly bonkers idea has generated for me has gone some way to recharging my mojo. Expect to see more rambling, in the meantime does this feel too much, or by adopting the same approach as I have with the Canadian development of the TerraTransport story are we onto something? Until next time…
Good point. Frelance, standard gauge, model railways used to be a thing back in the 1950s, but have long since vanished. I wonder why? Your designs suggest it's time for a re-visit of the concept.
ReplyDeleteTreading the line of plausibility is key isn’t it, could that traffic actually be made to work, are the structures and clearances adequate, how could it fit around existing services…
DeleteThe gateway here is the fact that TFW could buy the pair of ERTMS fitted 37/5s from West Coast, and have a ‘go anywhere’ ‘train’ that could haul logs on the Cambrian on Friday, logs from Swansea on Monday, Slate from Llandudno on Tuesday etc etc… a small step to then build up a sustainable collection of traffic from which to spring board into slightly left field ideas… milk would be interesting if it could be made to work? Would you need to containerise it?
One of the best known historic examples https://www.railwaywondersoftheworld.com/model-railways.html
DeleteI like the idea of an American company buying a suitable branch and running it with a shortline ethos - perhaps with governement incentives for businesses to build premises alongside to keep freight off the roads. A 37 in Wisconsin and Southern livery?
ReplyDeleteGo for it!
DeleteHmmmmmm I think you mentioned that within the Terra Transport concept, the Newfoundland line is completely containerised? Perhaps Terra would be able to use the expertise in container handling gained on that line to develop short haul container traffic...
ReplyDeleteTim
Tim I need to put together a more considered post together detailing the traffic flows, but yes containerisation is the key. Wales is tiny though, so we’re talking short haul. It’s more about the environmental and social benefits of removing lorries from our small roads.
DeleteHi James
ReplyDeleteAgain this is an interesting post and I can see it would be a interesting concept. However, not wanting to be a “party pooper”, the problem for me is in the idea of “proto-freelancing”. In North America, regional and shortline railroads are common and often have acquired “spun –off” portions of the class-one systems with or without state help. So there is the prototype base to start ones freelance modelling from. There is almost no equivalent in the UK so you are attempting a parallel universe. It’s not that an individual can’t do that, but for me I need what happens in the real world as the inspiration. I have enough trouble with the “it’s all freelance” approach to logging railroads by US modellers without inventing a new world in UK modelling.
I know back in the 1970’s I was first introduced to the idea of captive short line railroads ( i.e those owned by the companies generating the traffic ) reading “Mixed Train Daily”. It seemed so common there and so alien in the UK. Industries in the States understand having a rail service reduces their costs and encourage operators to service their plant or own to the rail system/shortline itself. This does not appear the same in the UK. There are maybe a few examples, the cement works at Hope in Derbyshire is one, and the Mendip Rail quarry operations get sort of close, but nothing like the US/Canada.
Best regards
Alan
I never said anything about ‘short lines in the UK’, I said open access freight operators, that is the parallel to me, proto-freelance needs to be plausible and you’re quite right, ‘short lines’ do not and could not exist in todays system in the UK. Open access operators do, and could plausibly do more…
DeleteAlan, it might have been me who mentioned the short line model. But it was the ethos I had in mind, of serving a number of businesses built deliberatly close to the line. Perhaps using their own lo-cost handling of the containers rather than one dedicated terminal with expensive, but shared, infrastructure. I was thinking of MPVs for most traffic . They were used for trials with timber being transported to Chirk.
DeleteYou see this is another tangent. I had in mind traditional freight, terminal to terminal (as wagon load just doesn’t work no matter how you look at it on our small island). That said, a terminal could handle different traffic…
DeleteWhat’s interesting is that the Aber to Chirk logs come Shrewsbury, Crewe then Chester and Chirk! This strange routing isn’t obvious until you think about the siding at Chirk, which faces Shrewsbury so trains need to be routed that way, I guess also possibly a lack of paths between Shrewsbury and Wrexham, if the steel traffic still runs in the evenings… understanding the constraints of the current system adds to the plausible nature of my RailCymru idea I think…
Hi James
ReplyDeleteSorry if I went down the wrong branch in this and take your point about "open access" operators v short-lines. I also agree that open access operators need to to more to build up a traffic base. Perhaps they need a "short-line mentality" - move a car if the customer needs it- to the final mile in the journey. If there was a greater sign of that in reality then your proto-freelance ideas would work
Best regards
Alan
Don’t worry Alan, sorry if my reply reads snappy, written in haste before I went out to the shops!
DeleteIf you look at some of the small operators in the UK, I think you could imagine another… it isn’t beyond plausability. It will be fun to revisit this properly another time!
I guess "Proto-Freelance" is what I've been doing for some time, with my modern image German narrow gauge model which is (slowly) developing. This is fairly carefully based on German narrow gauge history and modern German freight practice.
ReplyDeleteThe scenario you describe is actually fairly believable in a German context: here we have local authorities running railways including open access freight services.
Also, we have a lot of local wagonload freight, it is possible; I work next to a railway and apart from long mixed freight trains we often see locomotives owned or chartered by local authorities running local wagonload services. Our locally owned rural railway also advertises freight transport services.
Andy good to hear there is more opportunity for freelance wagonload style operation in Europe. Your project is very much in the proto freelance category, it strikes me as a well conceived and plausible ‘railway’, and I’m sure many could be convinced it really existed!
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