Trains de marchandises - Grande-Bretagne : livres - entreprises

The Later Years of British Rail 1980-1995: Freight Special

1980 to 1995 was an extraordinary time for the railways of Britain, especially the freight sector. In 1980 there was a unified, monochrome railway. Freight traffic was still abundant, with marshalling yards active and many branch lines still operating. There were hundreds of collieries.
In the early 1980s, Sectorisation arrived. The freight division was separated from the passenger side and further sub-divided into different freight sectors. New locomotives were introduced, and the older types started to disappear.

As the eighties progressed, the freight sector was constantly changing. The mixed freight train became a thing of the past but new traffic flows developed, particularly in containers and aggregates. The coal sector steadily declined and branch lines became disused.
In the early nineties three new freight companies were created in anticipation of privatisation and then finally privatisation itself arrived, with all freight traffic being taken over by an American company.

It was a period of enormous change and adaptation, and the story is told here through the images of two photographers who were keen observers of the railway scene throughout the whole of this fascinating period.

DB Cargo Locomotives and Stock in the UK

DB Cargo emerged from the government's sell-off of the rail freight sector in the mid-1990s. It has gone through many changes of name and branding since those early post-privatisation days.
Like other companies, it has suffered from the dramatic downturn in coal movement by rail and there are undoubtedly uncertain times ahead. It still claims, however, to be the UK's largest provider of rail freight services despite increasing competition from both road and other rail freight operators.

Diesel and electric locos of classes 60, 66, 67, 90 and, occasionally, 92 all see regular service today. Twenty years on, John Jackson looks at both the large loco fleet at DB Cargo's disposal today and the variety of traffic it continues to handle.
As well as being a major player in the rail freight sector, DB Cargo also provide locos for passenger duties such as Scottish sleeper services, charters and as hauliers for the Royal Family. The full range of DB Cargo locos is covered in this book.

Freightliner Locomotives

Dating back to 1965, Freightliner is still going strong today; a great success for rail freight. It started life moving shipping containers from ports to inland terminals, where specialised cranes were used to tranship from rail to road. These trains serve no fewer than nineteen intermodal terminals across the UK.

With the privatisation of British Rail in 1996, Freightliner's assets were transferred to a new company called Freightliner 1995 Ltd, in readiness for sale. Then in 1999 Freightliner set up the Heavyhaul side of the business as a direct competitor to the bulk rail freight company English Welsh & Scottish Railway (EWS). Today there are major maintenance depots at Crewe Basford Hall, and Leeds Midland Road, while the main marshalling yard and stabling point is at Crewe Cheshire.

With a stunning collection of full-colour photography taken around the country, Dave Smith offers up a fantastic pictorial tribute to this icon of Britain's railways.

GB Railfreight

Formed in 1999, GB Railfreight was one of several new rail freight operators to appear after the privatisation and break-up of British Rail in the 1990s.
After winning a contract to operate infrastructure trains for Railtrack in 2000 the company enjoyed a long period of rapid growth to become one of the UK's principal rail freight companies, later expanding into passenger operations.

Today, with a fleet of over 100 locomotives, the company operates a wide and varied range of services across the UK. This book aims to take a look at the operations and fleet of this successful rail business.

MGR Coal Trains

NOUVEAU

As electricity became more widely used to power and light Britain's towns and cities a number of municipal boroughs built their own power stations. In the early years these were inevitably fed by coal, of which the UK had a plentiful supply.
In the 1960s and early 1970s the government embarked on a programme of constructing new power stations. The majority of these were constructed with direct rail-connected on-site coal handling facilities and thus was born the Merry-Go-Round, or MGR, coal train.

The book features a UK panorama of a wide variety of coal trains on the move, with previously unpublished images from across many years and locations.