Road to Rail

[MOGUL]

Does anybody know roughly how many lorry loads of timber it takes to load a 12 wagon timber train? I am trying to figure out what a good ratio of trucks to wagons would be so I can calculate how many lorry miles Coillte saves a year by using rail.. Any help would be greatly appreciated..

[Flying Scotsman 4472]

If you go by tonnage a 6 axel unit and trailer's maximum loaded weight is 44ton. Take away roughly 16-18ton for the weight of the unit/trailer and hiab crane and your left with about 26-28 ton of load per truck. So if you know how much a wagons gross weight is you should be able to work it out. I would say looking at the size of the wagons in relation to the trucks about 2/3 trucks per wagon. But this is only a guess.

[MOGUL]

Thanks Anto,

Each timber wagon has a capacity of 38 tonnes and a GVW of 63 tonnes. So based on tonnage the equivalent would be 16-17 trucks.

My problem is that I think round timber like the type Irish Rail haul for Coillte would be a volume sensitive product so when loading you would Cube out before Maxing out, with volume being the critical consideration.

So assuming identical width and loading height of road and rail timber equipment,which might be a big assumption, then length would be the only difference in volume capacity. Based on length of loading areas I think it works out at about 13-14 trucks per train.

Like you said it takes a bit of a guess really. Unfortunately I cant use guesswork for academic work:(

[Riversuir226]

I ll check in Waterford for you on Monday if it ll be any good for you?

[Flying Scotsman 4472]

Thanks Anto,

Each timber wagon has a capacity of 38 tonnes and a GVW of 63 tonnes. So based on tonnage the equivalent would be 16-17 trucks.

My problem is that I think round timber like the type Irish Rail haul for Coillte would be a volume sensitive product so when loading you would Cube out before Maxing out, with volume being the critical consideration.

So assuming identical width and loading height of road and rail timber equipment,which might be a big assumption, then length would be the only difference in volume capacity. Based on length of loading areas I think it works out at about 13-14 trucks per train.

Like you said it takes a bit of a guess really. Unfortunately I cant use guesswork for academic work:(

 

 

 

Timber is a hard one to work out when it comes to weight. Newly cut logs would be quite heavy as they contain a lot of moisture there for it makes the load heavier. When I used to haul kiln dried timber from B/fast docks back to the yard about 16 bales had us on our limit sometimes a ton or two over I don't know if IE weigh their wagons while loading to see if they are over there running limit. Probably the best one to answer your question will be Noel if anyone has an idea it will be him. As I said I'm only guessing at the amount of trucks per wagon going on a visual side of things.

Edited April 7, 2013 by Anthony

[dave182]

An interesting question! Here's a link http://www.coford.ie/media/coford/content/links/transport/Road%20Haulage%20of%20Round%20Timber%20Code%20of%20Practice.pdf

If you were going on visuals- most Artics and Road-trains seem to carry 3 to 4 bales of timbers. (they appear to be cut to 3 to 3.5m lengths). The 60' wagons carry 5 of these bales. By volume the bales appear to be roughly the same road and rail). My estimate then would be 18 to 20 trucks, about 600 tons a go?!

[aclass007]

Thanks Anto,

Each timber wagon has a capacity of 38 tonnes and a GVW of 63 tonnes. So based on tonnage the equivalent would be 16-17 trucks.

My problem is that I think round timber like the type Irish Rail haul for Coillte would be a volume sensitive product so when loading you would Cube out before Maxing out, with volume being the critical consideration.

So assuming identical width and loading height of road and rail timber equipment,which might be a big assumption, then length would be the only difference in volume capacity. Based on length of loading areas I think it works out at about 13-14 trucks per train.

Like you said it takes a bit of a guess really. Unfortunately I cant use guesswork for academic work:(

 

If it's something important that you can't use guesswork for, I'd suggest trying to contact someone in Ballina, or one of the other loading points. I'm sure by now, considering the volume of timber they've loaded over the years, they could give you a pretty accurate answer......

[Railer]

A fully loaded timber train would be about 900 tons then?, taking the wagon weights into account. I remember reading somewhere that the loaded tara mines trains were the heaviest in the country at about 1,000 tons, don't know how accurate that was. The timbers aren't too far off if that's the case but the 071s always sound like they are working hard on the timbers compared to the taras.

[MOGUL]

Thanks to all who have responded to this.. if you can check in Waterford that would be great riversuir.

I think what you were saying Anto is part of the problem, I don't think IE do weigh their wagons but rather it is done using the trucks used for transhipment.

Thanks for that Dave, good article I've read before, written by one of my lecturers co-incidentally.

 

For a rough weight to volume calculation, I know that in 2012 60000 tonnes were moved by Irish Rail and the volume was 69000m3, so each metre cubed is about 1.15tonnes, obviously this is only an average with the mass changing by season due to weather/moisture content as Anto said.. Based on 160 train loads that's only about 375 to 400 tonnes per train though.. plus 300 tonnes of wagons so trailing weight is 675 to 700 tonnes. The max allowed is 780 tonnes when hauled by a 071 or 201, except DFDS liners can have 830 tonnes trailing.(according to the WTT, but you didn't hear it here).

[ttc0169]

On average between 18-22 lorry loads of timber come into either Ballina or Westport stations on a day that a timber train is being loaded,but bear in mind that some of the timber is stockpiled beside the train while some others are loaded directly onto the train so an accurate figure for truck load directly to train can't be given,

It also depends on the distance the truck has to travel from the forestry to the railhead-e.g cut logs in Connemara travels to Westport while north Sligo/Leitrim has gone to Ballina.

As of this evening there is a large stockpile of timber at Westport station which would probably fill five wagons,

The first of the trucks will start to arrive from 06:00 tomorrow and may finish up to 23:00 tomorrow evening.

[Southern Yard]

A fully loaded timber train would be about 900 tons then?, taking the wagon weights into account. I remember reading somewhere that the loaded tara mines trains were the heaviest in the country at about 1,000 tons, don't know how accurate that was. The timbers aren't too far off if that's the case but the 071s always sound like they are working hard on the timbers compared to the taras.

 

Agree about the 071s working hard as I always estimated timber trains to be 600-700 tonnes. A good location to observe how heavy these trains are is from the road bridge in the centre of Claremorris. All loaded timbers stop in the station so the straps on the wagons are checked. To tackle the climb out of Claremorris the driver will be in notch 8 as he passes under the road bridge which significantly vibrates from the noise! I observed this last Wednesday with 086 in charge and the noise was deafening.........heaven!

[Railer]

I'd love to be standing on that bridge with 082 in n8 passing underneath. The sound from that loco is unlike the rest of the class.

[MOGUL]

The answer is 18!! thanks to all who have contributed to this.. The load is about 450 tonnes per train plus the tare weight..

Edited April 13, 2013 by MOGUL