Poodling down the M6 yesterday I spotted three Eddie Stobart lorries. Nothing unusual in that, but these ones were in full Stobart livery, but had "Irlam" above the windscreen, and were pulling James Irlam trailers. These two companies have been rivals for years, so has there now been a merger/takeover?
Stobart/irlam
- Thread starter emmerson2
- Start date
Yes, Stobart bought out James Irlam some time ago.
They also run a load more trucks under other liveries such as St Gobain Glass, which have no visual link to Stobarts.
They also run a load more trucks under other liveries such as St Gobain Glass, which have no visual link to Stobarts.
Stobart are also into rail freight as well ....
http://www.eddiestobart.co.uk/News/News_Article.php?id=19
http://www.eddiestobart.co.uk/News/News_Article.php?id=19
Thanks chaps. I'd not seen them with both names on before. Is it true that the whole of the Stobart group is now owned by DHL?
No, they are still independant Emmo, but are on the acquistion trail and getting bigger all the time.
They claim to be increasing their fleet by one hundred trucks per year.
Won`t be any road left for the rest of us.........
They claim to be increasing their fleet by one hundred trucks per year.
Won`t be any road left for the rest of us.........
They merged with westbury property fund ltd last year on a reverse take over & now known as stobart group. Eddie stobart sold to his brother william several years ago.
stobart have also bought a haulage firm who carry containers,they are called o'conner from widnes,they still have the same colour as before but on the door is signed "part of the stobart group"
stobart have also got a huge contract with coca cola,so has irlams but coca cola have said that they dont want all the hgvs in stobarts colours so for the time being you will still see irlams hgvs around
also stobarts do most of the haulage for knauf plasterboard and there colours are sky blue,just have a look at the drivers door and you will see......part of the stobart group
hgv dave
stobart have also got a huge contract with coca cola,so has irlams but coca cola have said that they dont want all the hgvs in stobarts colours so for the time being you will still see irlams hgvs around
also stobarts do most of the haulage for knauf plasterboard and there colours are sky blue,just have a look at the drivers door and you will see......part of the stobart group
hgv dave
stobart do not own theire own rail company they use direct rail services to haul tesco branded wagons as part of tesco's drive to be more economical and enviromental.
the class 66 diesel locomotive (66 411) is owned and operated by DRS but they have agreed to have the stobart livery through out the contract.
tesco have now contracted another train to run removing yet another 300,000 lorry miles from the road, this contract has again been awarded to stobart who in turn are once again using DRS to supply and operate the locomotive and wagons.
the class 66 diesel locomotive (66 411) is owned and operated by DRS but they have agreed to have the stobart livery through out the contract.
tesco have now contracted another train to run removing yet another 300,000 lorry miles from the road, this contract has again been awarded to stobart who in turn are once again using DRS to supply and operate the locomotive and wagons.
Icemaker - I have been preaching this for years - get the heavy freight off the roads and back onto the railways terminating at local feeder distribution points thereby reducing the amount of HGVs on our roads. This will reduce both the amount of vehicles on the highways, repair bills for maintaining the highways, traffic snarl ups, etc. The feeder wagons from the distribution points need not then be so large - get the 44 tonners off the highways. A system similar to America could be adopted whereby the freight containers could be unloaded off the trucks straight on to lorries and off to their destination - no need for unloading each truck thereby reducing man hours as well.
how come puting more freight onto the railway would mean less journeys by road?
it will need a road journey from the factory to the railhead and a road journey from the railhead to the end user
so using rail would mean two hgvs where before only one hgv did the job
the system in america works because of the distance involved and freight has priority over passenger trains because most people use airlines to travel
do you really think that would happen in the uk
also the rail network in the uk could not cope with a 10% increase in freight traffic because it has not got the rolling stock and passenger trains have priority over freight trains
and if you think the roads are jammed up...just see what would happen to the rail network if more freight was transfered to rail....the rail network is bad enough as it is
hgv dave
it will need a road journey from the factory to the railhead and a road journey from the railhead to the end user
so using rail would mean two hgvs where before only one hgv did the job
the system in america works because of the distance involved and freight has priority over passenger trains because most people use airlines to travel
do you really think that would happen in the uk
also the rail network in the uk could not cope with a 10% increase in freight traffic because it has not got the rolling stock and passenger trains have priority over freight trains
and if you think the roads are jammed up...just see what would happen to the rail network if more freight was transfered to rail....the rail network is bad enough as it is
hgv dave
Dave - the number of lorries on the road if heavy freight was transported by rail would possibly increase, not definately, - the Ford engine plant in Bridgend had a new rail link constructed so that they would not solely rely on road transport. The steel works at both Llanwern and Port Talbot and the Metal Box factory in Neath all have dedicated rail links direct to the plant. The size of the distribution lorries at each end would also be smaller. There would not be the 44 tonners rolling up and down the country. It seems to be working for Tesco as they have increased their rail haulage at the expence of road transport - if they can make it work I am sure other companies would also be better off. The rail structure in this country is such that the majority of freight is carried over night when there is very little passenger traffic. Regarding the railways not being able to cope there is the alternative argument that the increased revenue from the extra freight haulage could be ploughed back into the system to improve the network. Mind you it will probably end up in the pockets of the fat cats as bonus for incresed revenue being earned by the railways.
To add to what hgv dave has written .Not far from here there is a proposal to build a new freight terminal. Taking lorrys off the road is used as an argument in its favour.However it is estimated that there will be 3,000 lorry movements a day ,200 per hour at peak times and there will also be 2652 car parking spaces for those working there.All this on already overcrowded country roads.
Madness in anyones book but a few
Madness in anyones book but a few
Brian why does it necessitate over 2000 car parking spaces? There should be very few people working there. The points and signals would be operated by Network Rail staff as for the entire country, shunters would be employed by the freight terminal depot - these would only be needed for coupling/uncoupling of trucks, etc. crane drivers for unloading of containers direct onto flatbed lorries, no lorry drivers as these would be employed by the haulage firm at their depot and not the freight terminal. There would probably be some admin staff and also staff for canteen work, etc. Assuming one person per car would mean over 2000 people working there - heck that is definately OTT. With that amount of car parking the figure quoted would assume over 2000 workers per shift if it is to be operating on a 24 hour pattern. Regarding lorry movement that would depend on the type of goods being handled at the depot but again I find it hard to believe 3000 lorries per day and especially 200 lorries per hour even on a 24 hour working pattern. Again would these lorries be of the 44 ton size or smaller fixed wheel flat bed? It would appear to me that there is a definate sign of empire building going on.
Reading the article Brian it appears that there would be five large distribution warehouses on the site as well as the freight terminal. Would this be over and above what surrounding industry are at present using? There is aslo reference in the article that 80% of the site would be landscaped - how the heck will this be achieved on a development of this magnitude - I am a chartered building surveyor and to say that 80% of the site would be landscaped leaves very little for the actual commercial/industrial development. I think this proposal, in my opinion, will be definately turned down at the planning appeal as being very poorly thought out. The person acting for the developer appears on a few occassions to be shooting him self in the foot and is contradicting himself. The other way of looking at this report is that the media is once again exagerating and scare mongering - are the facts as per the printed article or have the media hyped it up once again?
Brian on your initial posting I found the figures very hard to swallow, however I was not in any way having a personal go at your self and now reading the article I fully understand where you obtined your facts from. I hope you did not think I was having a personal go at you - if this was your opinion I must apologise.
Brian on your initial posting I found the figures very hard to swallow, however I was not in any way having a personal go at your self and now reading the article I fully understand where you obtined your facts from. I hope you did not think I was having a personal go at you - if this was your opinion I must apologise.
Anyone with a brain size of a pea upwards must realise that there are too many lorries on the roads. We are almost at full capacity.
Sorry hgv dave, your argument doesn't hold water about needing more lorries if goods are moved from rail freight terminals.
This is a fallacy that must be put about by the road haulage lobby, a very powerful organisation with a lot of political clout in the right places. Maybe not corrupt like Ernest Marples, the then Transport Ministers days, who had his money in Marples Transport and Marples Construction who built the M1.
They still have their hands in very powerful peoples pockets though.
France, Spain etc. runs the system of the lorry trailer on the back of wagons and a lorry tractor unit then moves the freight locally. This system has worked for years over there with no problems and also most of the freight is moved at night as it could be here. Sit on a French railway station at night, like Lyon or Avignon, and watch how it is done, truly awe inspiring. To see fright trains running two abreast, those that stop for driver relief only stop for one minute, and wagons of lorry trailers carrying everything imagineable, including Spanish fruit, is mind boggling. Even the lengths of the trains, seeming almost a mile long, makes me wonder why transport logistics is beyond this country.
I grin when people post on forums like this how it's a pleasure to drive in countries like France compared to ours, I wonder why. Foreign lorry drivers who come here for the first time must wonder whats hit them once they reach our roads, they must truly believe they are on the Road to Hell.
You say "so using rail would mean two hgvs where before only one hgv did the job".
No, not true. The amount of lorries taken off the roads by one train would negate those figures.
Take just one train of steel coils. Lloyds of Ludlow had a contract to move them from Llanwern to Shotton (I believe) and EWS also moved them by train. Lloyds lorries came through Hereford with one coil on the trailer, the EWS freight train had to coils per wagon with around thirty wagons behind the loco. That equates to sixty lorries off the road.
Contrary to what some would like others to believe we still have an extensive rail network running from Wick/Thurso in the north an Penzance in the south. From Fishguard/Holyhead in the west to Yarmouth/Lowestoft in the east. Even the sparsely populated mid-Wales has it's rail link.
I apologise if it seems that I'm shouting for people to lose their jobs but I'm trying to see this problem using my head rather than let my heart rule my brain. Something HAS to be done, it is already out of control and it is ruining the country in both pollution and other damage to the infrastructure of the U.K.
Sorry hgv dave, your argument doesn't hold water about needing more lorries if goods are moved from rail freight terminals.
This is a fallacy that must be put about by the road haulage lobby, a very powerful organisation with a lot of political clout in the right places. Maybe not corrupt like Ernest Marples, the then Transport Ministers days, who had his money in Marples Transport and Marples Construction who built the M1.
They still have their hands in very powerful peoples pockets though.
France, Spain etc. runs the system of the lorry trailer on the back of wagons and a lorry tractor unit then moves the freight locally. This system has worked for years over there with no problems and also most of the freight is moved at night as it could be here. Sit on a French railway station at night, like Lyon or Avignon, and watch how it is done, truly awe inspiring. To see fright trains running two abreast, those that stop for driver relief only stop for one minute, and wagons of lorry trailers carrying everything imagineable, including Spanish fruit, is mind boggling. Even the lengths of the trains, seeming almost a mile long, makes me wonder why transport logistics is beyond this country.
I grin when people post on forums like this how it's a pleasure to drive in countries like France compared to ours, I wonder why. Foreign lorry drivers who come here for the first time must wonder whats hit them once they reach our roads, they must truly believe they are on the Road to Hell.
You say "so using rail would mean two hgvs where before only one hgv did the job".
No, not true. The amount of lorries taken off the roads by one train would negate those figures.
Take just one train of steel coils. Lloyds of Ludlow had a contract to move them from Llanwern to Shotton (I believe) and EWS also moved them by train. Lloyds lorries came through Hereford with one coil on the trailer, the EWS freight train had to coils per wagon with around thirty wagons behind the loco. That equates to sixty lorries off the road.
Contrary to what some would like others to believe we still have an extensive rail network running from Wick/Thurso in the north an Penzance in the south. From Fishguard/Holyhead in the west to Yarmouth/Lowestoft in the east. Even the sparsely populated mid-Wales has it's rail link.
I apologise if it seems that I'm shouting for people to lose their jobs but I'm trying to see this problem using my head rather than let my heart rule my brain. Something HAS to be done, it is already out of control and it is ruining the country in both pollution and other damage to the infrastructure of the U.K.
Yes but this takes brain,s and we all know our MPs have not got any. Fare to busy looking after them self,s and ripping us off.
As most on here know i drive trains for a living for i see the movement of freight first hand and i can assure you all that we do have the capacity for more freight, in fact a lot more freight. at the moment i know of 4 new freight links being built in to major factories in the northwest alone as the companies who own these factories have realised that it is now cheaper and more reliable to move freight by rail as an example last month the company i work for had a performance figure of 93% of all trains running arriving at theire destination on time which is within 5 minuites of booked arrival time.
last months rail news (the industries own newspaper)had a number of stories of new freight contracts being awarded to rail at the expense of lorries, one of them being a coal train supplying coal to a power station in scotland, the train has 40 wagons with a total weight of 2500 tonnes now if im not mistaken that would require 63 40 tonne lorries and we run 5 trains a day so we have 4 trains carrying 10,000 tonnes per day each train on full power runs at 1, 1/4 mpg but since a train on average runs nearly half its distance on idle it has an equivelant of 18 mpg,split by the 4 trains and you have an average of 4 1/4 mpg where as to move the same load by road you would need 252 lorries all running allmost continuously flat out at an average of 8 mpg and you can see how much more inefficient and enviromentally damaging the lorry is, you are in to gallons per mile not miles per gallon and the train runs at 75 mph where the lorry is 56 mph so again the lorry loses out.
I know its hard for truck drivers and i do feel for them but the truth is people have realised that trucks are ineficient and damaging to the enviroment on a huge scale, any one who has been unfortunate enough to travel over woodhead pass will now how much damage the lorries have done to this once beutifull area which is why we now have not one but two very major companies putting imense pressure on the government to allow the re opening of the woodhead railway line, this will happen as the companies in question have the money to do it all ready without any government help and they have very sound buissness plans which include a train every half hour from the channel tunnel to liverpool docks each train capable of carrying up to 60 lorries on flat low floor level wagons. the trains will call at freight terminals on theire journey from each port to load and off load lorries which will then continue on theire short local journey before returning to the train. network rail have just 2 weeks ago put bootle junction back in at broad green which is the original junction to the docks before it was removed by beaching so that tells me the plans are allmost certainly going to happen.
On top of this the whole of the west coast main line is being re-instated as 4 track again so freight will have another 2 lines to use 24 hours a day for much of the route north to south and again in scotland 2 routes have been re-instated that beeching closed and are running at a profit with capacity to spare.
As for rolling stock my company alone has 180 new trains due in the next 2 years and another 250 are going to other companies round the country, drs have just taken delivery of some more class 66 as have freighliner intermodel and freightliner heavyhaul along with ews freight.
last months rail news (the industries own newspaper)had a number of stories of new freight contracts being awarded to rail at the expense of lorries, one of them being a coal train supplying coal to a power station in scotland, the train has 40 wagons with a total weight of 2500 tonnes now if im not mistaken that would require 63 40 tonne lorries and we run 5 trains a day so we have 4 trains carrying 10,000 tonnes per day each train on full power runs at 1, 1/4 mpg but since a train on average runs nearly half its distance on idle it has an equivelant of 18 mpg,split by the 4 trains and you have an average of 4 1/4 mpg where as to move the same load by road you would need 252 lorries all running allmost continuously flat out at an average of 8 mpg and you can see how much more inefficient and enviromentally damaging the lorry is, you are in to gallons per mile not miles per gallon and the train runs at 75 mph where the lorry is 56 mph so again the lorry loses out.
I know its hard for truck drivers and i do feel for them but the truth is people have realised that trucks are ineficient and damaging to the enviroment on a huge scale, any one who has been unfortunate enough to travel over woodhead pass will now how much damage the lorries have done to this once beutifull area which is why we now have not one but two very major companies putting imense pressure on the government to allow the re opening of the woodhead railway line, this will happen as the companies in question have the money to do it all ready without any government help and they have very sound buissness plans which include a train every half hour from the channel tunnel to liverpool docks each train capable of carrying up to 60 lorries on flat low floor level wagons. the trains will call at freight terminals on theire journey from each port to load and off load lorries which will then continue on theire short local journey before returning to the train. network rail have just 2 weeks ago put bootle junction back in at broad green which is the original junction to the docks before it was removed by beaching so that tells me the plans are allmost certainly going to happen.
On top of this the whole of the west coast main line is being re-instated as 4 track again so freight will have another 2 lines to use 24 hours a day for much of the route north to south and again in scotland 2 routes have been re-instated that beeching closed and are running at a profit with capacity to spare.
As for rolling stock my company alone has 180 new trains due in the next 2 years and another 250 are going to other companies round the country, drs have just taken delivery of some more class 66 as have freighliner intermodel and freightliner heavyhaul along with ews freight.
its funny how this thread started out as a comment about stobarts lol
ok tescos rail terminal which if its the one we are talking about is at crick at the bottom of the m6. i have delivered tescos own brand fizzy drinks there from the factory who makes it which is located in bradford!!...then it gets put onto a train and sent up to scotland where i would excpect that it ends up on another hgv.....as for putting trailers onto trains there is a problem with bridge heights,it can be done but the trailers have to be a special type and due to the cost i think that idea has been binned for now.iso containers are the way to go and that system does work but the same again it needs two hgvs to take one to the railhead and on to its final destination
hgv dave
ok tescos rail terminal which if its the one we are talking about is at crick at the bottom of the m6. i have delivered tescos own brand fizzy drinks there from the factory who makes it which is located in bradford!!...then it gets put onto a train and sent up to scotland where i would excpect that it ends up on another hgv.....as for putting trailers onto trains there is a problem with bridge heights,it can be done but the trailers have to be a special type and due to the cost i think that idea has been binned for now.iso containers are the way to go and that system does work but the same again it needs two hgvs to take one to the railhead and on to its final destination
hgv dave
No its not been binned dave its very much alive and kicking, freightliner have just re-opened the depot at guide bridge which used to be the main depot for the woodhead line before beeching closed it.
The height of the containers used to be a problem untill the french developed a super low floor wagaon for theire lorry on trains service which has been in use for many years now and a feasability study has identified the same wagons as suitable for carrying uk lorries on the present infrastructure, obviousley a few bridges and tunnels will need to adapted but as has happened in the past all network rail do is dig down in to the track bed to gain the height they need.
have a look at the following links,
http://www.translinkuk.com/
http://www.central-railway.co.uk/
http://www.bettertransport.org.uk/
There is of course no doubt that lorries will allways be needed for the final short trip but as has been stated allready they will be much smaller lorries on much shorter trips which has got to be good for the environment and us as human beings.
The height of the containers used to be a problem untill the french developed a super low floor wagaon for theire lorry on trains service which has been in use for many years now and a feasability study has identified the same wagons as suitable for carrying uk lorries on the present infrastructure, obviousley a few bridges and tunnels will need to adapted but as has happened in the past all network rail do is dig down in to the track bed to gain the height they need.
have a look at the following links,
http://www.translinkuk.com/
http://www.central-railway.co.uk/
http://www.bettertransport.org.uk/
There is of course no doubt that lorries will allways be needed for the final short trip but as has been stated allready they will be much smaller lorries on much shorter trips which has got to be good for the environment and us as human beings.
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