In rail freight transportation the terms wagonload or wagonload freight refer to trains made of single

wagon A wagon or waggon is a heavy four-wheeled vehicle pulled by draught animals or on occasion by humans, used for transporting goods, commodities, agricultural materials, supplies and sometimes people. Wagons are immediately distinguished from ...

consignments of freight. In the US and Canada the term carload refers to a single car of any kind, and manifest train refers to trains made of diverse

cars A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarded as t ...

of freight. With competition from

road transport Road transport or road transportation is a type of transport using roads. Transport on roads can be roughly grouped into the transportation of goods and transportation of people. In many countries licensing requirements and safety regulations e ...

rail freight transport is increasingly operated as

unit train A unit train, also called a block train or a trainload service, is a train in which all cars (wagons) carry the same commodity and are shipped from the same origin to the same destination, without being split up or stored en route. They are disti ...

s, with wagonload less able to compete with road haulage. As of 2012 in Europe wagonload freight represents 30 to 40 percent of freight carried in many countries including France, Italy, Germany, Belgium; in other countries, including the UK and Romania, wagonload freight is a very minor aspect of rail freight transport representing less than 5% of rail freight transport.

Overview

Wagonload traffic typically consists of individual wagons load with goods at separate locations (

goods shed A goods shed is a railway building designed for storing goods before or after carriage in a train. A typical goods shed will have a track running through it to allow goods wagons to be unloaded under cover, although sometimes they were built ...

), transferred to

marshalling yards A classification yard (American and Canadian English (Canadian National Railway use)), marshalling yard (British, Hong Kong, Indian, Australian, and Canadian English (Canadian Pacific Railway use)) or shunting yard (Central Europe) is a railway ya ...

where the wagons are sorted by destination, then transported to a destination marshalling yard where individual wagons are separated and collected into trains per destination.

By country

Europe

Wagonload is a diminishing sector of rail freight transport in the EU, - the percentage of rail freight transported as wagonload diminished from 45% to 35% from the late 1980s to 90s. The relative extent of wagon load traffic within the Europe varies considerably; in the 1990s within the EU an EFTA wagonload traffic accounted for approximately 40% of rail freight, whilst in eastern European counties the percentage was higher, around 60%.

France

In France wagonload freight (equivalent term « wagon isolé »), though unprofitable continued to be operated by

SNCF The Société nationale des chemins de fer français (; abbreviated as SNCF ; French for "National society of French railroads") is France's national state-owned railway company. Founded in 1938, it operates the country's national rail traffi ...

(2010), wagonload freight was responsible for a significant operating losses in the SNCF group in the first decade of the 21st century, with low productivity levels, including freight terminals that were inactive over periods of months. As a result, SNCF began to seek solutions for the profitability options, including considering the use of US style "shortline" operators on branch networks. In 2009 approximately 50% of SNCF's railfreight was wagonload. A 'multi-lots, multi-clients' contracting system was introduced in 2010 in an attempt to move towards more profitable freight work, and cut on demand wagonload services on lightly utilised routes.

Germany

In Germany wagonload traffic decreased by 10% from 1994 to 2010, but still represented 30% of railfreight in Germany.

UK

In the United Kingdom the wagonload system was reduced by the consequences of the implementation of The Reshaping of British Railways report. Cuts to the system included the closure of marshalling yards (reduced by over one third by 1965), and 60% of freight stations - though the initial cuts had no effect on volume of freight carried. Wagonload freight was still loss making in 1965 despite the closures - making a loss of £40 million (from a £54million loss in 1961). No improvement in profitability had been achieved by 1966, despite the economies, and in part exacerbated by the cuts. In 1967 wagonload freight produced two thirds of

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

's freight revenue. Further reductions of the systems were made, 4,000 miles of line were closed between 1965 and 1973. By 1972 the number of marshalling yards had been reduced to 124 from over 600 a decade earlier. These cuts had a limited effect of freight traffic, reducing freight by only 13%. Introduction of

type

merry-go-round A carousel or carrousel (mainly North American English), merry-go-round (List of sovereign states, international), roundabout (British English), or hurdy-gurdy (an old term in Australian English, in South Australia, SA) is a type of amusement ...

services and Freightliner intermodal services introduced from the 1960s onwards also shifted rail freight transport away from the wagonload workings, but could not total replace it; the economic future of wagonload services remained uncertain in the 1970s, despite the introduction of a new airbraked higher speed service named

Speedlink Speedlink was a wagonload freight service operated by British Rail from 1977 to 1991 using air-braked wagons. History Background, 1970s In the late 1960s British Rail (BR) was loss making and government supported; government and British Rail ...

(trialled in 1972, formally introduced in 1977). In 1976 wagonload freight was still making a loss of £30 million pa. The loss making Speedlink operations ceased in 1991. In 1992 wagonload traffic carried by BR in the UK was 15.2million tonnes, approximately 10% of freight traffic. Some residual wagonload operations including international freight work continued to be operated by

Railfreight Distribution Railfreight Distribution was a sub-sector of British Rail, created by the division in 1987 of British Rail's previous Railfreight sector. It was responsible for non-trainload freight operations, as well as Freightliner and Intermodal services ...

(RfD), in particular as part of its ''Connectrail'' service; RfD was also unprofitable, and when privatised in 1997 the acquirer, EWS received significant subsidies (over £200 million over 8 years). Minor wagonload services were operated in the post privatisation period, including EWS's 'Enterprise' service, which carried 3 million tonnes of freight in 1999.

Other

As of 2010 wagonload freight is a significant part of the rail freight transport business in Switzerland (38%), Italy (35%), Poland (34%) and Spain (30%) ''(by tonne-km)''. In Romania (2010) single wagonload traffic represents less than 10% of the rail freight transportation.

North America

In the US and Canada the term manifest train refers to trains made of diverse

of freight, moving from rail hubs to rail hubs to save costs and gain in efficiency. (As of 2000) In the USA Class 1 railroads act as trunk route operators with

s representing ~30% of freight, whilst ' Short line' operators act as branch and feeders to the trunk lines - the short line operators have lower operating costs.

References

Sources

External links

{{portalbar, Trains Rail freight transport