LMS Route: Birmingham New Street to Nuneaton LMS Route:
Birmingham New Street to Tamworth
Lawley Street Goods Depot: mrls667
View of Lawley Street Goods Depot showing the overhead
electric travelling crane and the use of containers to facilitate more a
flexible method of transporting goods on 10th July 1967. Container traffic had
started to be implemented during the early part of the 20th century offering
considerable advantages when it came to transferring goods from rail to road
and visa versa. It was not unusual for goods to occupy wagons for several days
at either end of the journey so the ability to speedily transfer loads meant
that the railways could increase the level of service whilst decreasing
significantly the capital costs tied up in wagons.
The use of travelling cranes in yards as seen above also
started to be introduced at the beginning of the twentieth century no doubt
linked if not the reason for the rise of container traffic. However, container
traffic still could not compete with the expansion of road traffic which
offered point to point transfer and today this type of traffic is now seen only
with export and imports with larger containers being handled by ports and
specialist inland 'freightliner' terminals.
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