Air Network

[calum1502]

In the very early days of our dispute Royal Mail had been banging on about "reducing " the Air network significantly. CWU also were communicating this to members regularly.

This doesn't seem to have been spoken about recently in any updates . Is this because it has been accepted by CWU and Royal Mail are keeping quiet also because of commercial confidence ?

[KnowItAll]

Without any inside knowledge, rail is obviously slower than air, so this pushes the later starts agenda. Great for RM plans, doesn't support CWU vision.

[calum1502]

Very true . Just wondered why the "proposal" is not being mentioned in any of the more recent Comms

[wandle]

Without any inside knowledge, rail is obviously slower than air, so this pushes the later starts agenda. Great for RM plans, doesn't support CWU vision.

But is it, though?
A 12-car train carrying 650+ yorks can reach Warrington from PRDC in 3h44m, Shieldmuir in Glasgow in a few minutes under 8 hours.

[Binsey]

There is also the green taxes and airports reducing flights.

Then you get onto carbon emissions reduction etc.

[SpacePhoenix]

The class 325s (the electric mail trains) are getting on a bit, maybe their eventual replacement might have a higher top running speed, if it were 125mph then somewhere between 5-6 hours from London to Glasgow might be possible. Overnight it'd probably get green signals all the way

[HTPostman]

My gut feeling is the class 325s would be dispatched later.

[Tickson]

Firstly, didnt we have mail trains back in the day with 5am starts or whatever? (Forgive me I'm relatively "new" compared to some lol) So why do they have to be so late now? Not sure exactly what the details are but anything less than overnight running would surely be held up by other carriages right?

Also, what happens for instance if the train/network staff are on strike (lol imagine that).

I've read that RM contracts a single airline just for themselves. Why dont they just share the cargo hold with maybe two or three commercial flights going the same way instead? That would reduce emissions right if the planes already going there anyway?

When the company talks about emissions etc they conveniently forget that they were the ones who brought 10,000 vans in to replace rounds down on bicycles 10 years ago. Now that in a lot of cases the big parcels are segged to later parcel runs, they could go back to bikes, why not? Save on sheer fuel costs as well.

This obviously is all just a hypocritical smokescreen for the rest of the BS of course, but have they thought any of this through? We saw what the big revision was like, do we really this management team could pull this off even if they got it. Sheer wasteful carnage.

[SpacePhoenix]

Firstly, didnt we have mail trains back in the day with 5am starts or whatever? (Forgive me I'm relatively "new" compared to some lol)

We did used to have mail trains, they were the Travelling Post Office trains (probably more commonly known as TPOs). They transported the mail but in addition to transporting the mail, it was also sorted on route (in a few cases down to walk level). Some DOs would collect their mail direct from the stations that the TPOs would call at. I believe that there's also for many years been mail trains (long before the class 325s were introduced) that were purely for transporting mail between big stations.

[Tickson]

Firstly, didnt we have mail trains back in the day with 5am starts or whatever? (Forgive me I'm relatively "new" compared to some lol)

We did used to have mail trains, they were the Travelling Post Office trains (probably more commonly known as TPOs). They transported the mail but in addition to transporting the mail, it was also sorted on route (in a few cases down to walk level). Some DOs would collect their mail direct from the stations that the TPOs would call at. I believe that there's also for many years been mail trains (long before the class 325s were introduced) that were purely for transporting mail between big stations.

The good old days I take it

I'd assume that the new proposals are nothing like this then, just yorks of massive parcels with not enough room to swing a cat lol, just hulking the lot around.

Why are they going for this again if they decided it was too expensive and less efficient before?

It cant be all about emissions surely, RM dont actually give a toss about that obviously.

[SpacePhoenix]

I'd assume that the new proposals are nothing like this then, just yorks of massive parcels with not enough room to swing a cat lol, just hulking the lot around.

I believe that the proposals are that it's basically everything that currently goes by air within the UK (excluding Northern Island though that could go by ferry instead) would go by rail. I believe that locally probably over 90% of what we get through from other MCs goes by road anyway

It's not a case of sharing the cargo hold, they physically remove all the seats and the cargo containers go into the passenger cabin.

By switching to rail it would eliminate issues such as lithium batteries not being able to go by air and any other "no fly" item

[Tickson]

"no fly" item

Oh that's what that means, I thought it was some euphemism for "dont chuck the f***ing thing" learn something new every day!

Well if 90% of stuff goes by road anyway what are they getting in such a flap about, and why do we have to start 3 hours later for it?

remove all the seats

That's interesting, didnt know that! Still that's sorta why I said replace with 2 or 3 in the hold, idk.

[Nickvilla20]

The class 325s (the electric mail trains) are getting on a bit, maybe their eventual replacement might have a higher top running speed, if it were 125mph then somewhere between 5-6 hours from London to Glasgow might be possible. Overnight it'd probably get green signals all the way

The 325s can already do 100mph. most trains on the west coast main line can only do 110mph. Probably need extra capacity over speed as they would have to give to way to passenger services anyway.

[SpacePhoenix]

"no fly" item

Oh that's what that means, I thought it was some euphemism for "dont chuck the f***ing thing" learn something new every day!

Well if 90% of stuff goes by road anyway what are they getting in such a flap about, and why do we have to start 3 hours later for it?

remove all the seats

That's interesting, didnt know that! Still that's sorta why I said replace with 2 or 3 in the hold, idk.

Years ago RM had a couple of planes that they owned (well at least were painted in RM colours), don't know if they've still got them

The class 325s (the electric mail trains) are getting on a bit, maybe their eventual replacement might have a higher top running speed, if it were 125mph then somewhere between 5-6 hours from London to Glasgow might be possible. Overnight it'd probably get green signals all the way

The 325s can already do 100mph. most trains on the west coast main line can only do 110mph. Probably need extra capacity over speed as they would have to give to way to passenger services anyway.

Maybe RM could look into getting them re-geared for 110mph running

[Nickvilla20]

DB cargo run the trains for Royal Mail. They have a top speed of 100 if they get there is a different question.

I know Amazon have converted some 319s to cargo trains which are basically the same units as the 325s