foreign freight in Britain

[Roman Kochnowski]

In Central Europe it is normal to see eg.a lot of foreign  freight cars,German, Czech,Austrian or Slovakian in Poland.Do foreign freight cars go in to Britain with ferry or through Eurotunnel  ?
regards,
Roman

[dodger]

Through traffic from Europe is via the tunnel now. The last ferry on the Dover-Dunkirk crossing was taken out of service just after the tunnel opened. The Harwich ferry ceased to operate in the mid 1980's.

Dodger

[edwin_m]

There isn't very much through freight using the Tunnel these days, partly because most European wagons are too large to run on most of the UK network so special small-sized wagons are needed.  Also there were a lot of problems a few years ago with security and illegal immigrants trying to get into the UK by hanging onto the underneath of wagons.  Recently howevever freight was permitted to use the high speed line at night so there are now a couple of trains that can bring Continental wagons as far as the Dagenham area in East London. 

[EtchedPixels]

There's about 1.5million tons of it... there was a lot more but then they tried to put the tunnel fees up massively and traffic levels crashed. For 2012 it averaged something like 6.5 trains/day in freight.

HS1 now allows freight as far as Ripple Lane near London. Video of the first run (Wroclaw to Ripple Lane) at


1st Freight on HS1 92009 4Q21 Poland -Ripple Lane

One of the other complications is that few locomotives are cleared for the tunnel and HS1 currently, although work is underway to certify more including the Siemens Vectron and Alstom Prima II.

There is also a "hidden" freight service in that the Eurostar carries parcels of high speed high value items. In fact from what I've heard they could do with a much bigger parcels space for that business. In theory in a few years we will instead have the parcels TGV service.

[OwL]

SNCF have already demonstrated a TGV yellow Post version through the tunnel. There used to be alot of freight through the tunnel but the train loads proved un economical, hence places like Willesden Euro yard being largely redundant.

[Roman Kochnowski]

So,may I use Vectron loco on a British layout?Hobbytrain makes such one.
regards,
Roman

[EtchedPixels]

So,may I use Vectron loco on a British layout?Hobbytrain makes such one.
regards,
Roman

Well at the moment it's been for a test drive up and down HS1 and that is it. It is certainly expected that the locomotive will end up in use on HS1 but not anywhere else on the UK network (where it wouldn't fit the tunnels etc)

Alan