Welcome Aboard The Black Pig - Shipping & Freight Blog

What a Boring Life We Lead - UK Freight Can't Match the Foreign Johnnies

First off - Apologies yet again for not blogging as often as we should.

It's not that nothing's happening - quite the reverse in fact.It's just been so busy here at the Handy Shipping Guide the Captains chance to pontificate his usual arrogant rubbish takes a bit of a back seat in the light of 16 hours on each and every of the seven days.

Anyway - Onward and Upward.

All human life is here, the 'here' in question being the old (apologies to Sutiya)freight and logistics industry, but today's story in the HSG about Pakistan Railways got the skipper thinking as it changed from the dry 'look we've got two new trains" stuff into a web of criminality, murder and intrigue.

Ah Ha! Interested now are we?

A glimpse into the murky world of the sub continent just shone a bright one on how civilised this old game of ours is back in blighty.

The story in question started with some strong hints by our correspondents in Pakistan that there was more than first met the eye regarding the refinancing of the rail system there.

A simple story, railway runs badly, too little income, too little service, state support runs out, fuel suppliers don’t get paid, fuel suppliers switch off the pumps, rail bosses go cap in hand to government for a sub to get the locos back on the tracks.

Then the intrigue starts.

The joy of a personal blog is that we can speculate on things that we really shouldn’t print in the official organ. Pakistan Railways asked for the money. Government prevaricated and wouldn’t commit to putting in more public cash into what they see as a financial black hole (you can up the clichés in a blog as well). So who do you turn to when Daddy won’t lend you the rent money? – why the local neighbourhood money lender of course!

This is where the tale takes a spectacular twist.

Apparently PR went begging to one Dawood Ibrahim, not by all accounts the most salubrious of characters, not that he drinks with the Captain you understand, but this bloke went by twenty seven aliases at last count.

Alright, we may have all done it, you want a competitor’s freight rate so you ring up and pose as someone else but you don’t go on to finance terror and have Osama on speed dial surely?  

(What a nice bloke-not.Since this video the guy set up the terror attacks in Mumbai in 2008!)

What is astonishing about this is the fact that here in the West we hear constantly about the mythical ‘War on Terror’ but it now appears not only that one side fires all the shots but Government backed commercial organisations can actually approach known Mafia figures for a bit of spare change when they are a tad boracic.

Now we don’t know if the fact PR turned to Mr Big influenced the fact that suddenly public dosh became available to pay the diesel bill, nor whether any outside influences ‘persuaded’ the government of Pakistan that they did have the funds available.

All I do know however is that when we look round the world at how industry, and our industry in particular is run, we have a lot to be thankful for.

We might have to put up with air freight cartels and the occasional corner cutting employer but compared to some we often don’t realise how lucky we are.

The Handy Shipping Guide Site Races Past 1000 Twitter Viewers!

Having crawled from our various pits after the very worst flu epidemic ever to infect our little empire we look forward to the New Year with both hope and expectation whilst reflecting on another excellent twelve months for all at the Handy Shipping Guide and, who’d of thought it, the Captain is experiencing new heights of techy induced ecstacy – our humble little website now has over 1000 followers on TWITTER whilst publishing in 212 countries!

Looking through our followers, you’ll find they are the most up-to-date and influential trend setters amongst (the usually more youthfulsections of) the world of freight. All of them of course get the added benefit that they can read the real freight news, as published by our team on the site, and not this junk as lorded over by yours truly. But if you’re not a twitter-er, you can always subscribe to our news alert HERE.

Whilst bigging up the technological side of the business you can look forward in 2011 to some new features being added to the site making it even more important that you get your company news published by lodging it with The Handy Shipping Guide in the 'Press Releases' section - but nothing too boring please. nor, Heaven forfend anything not related to the shipping world. If I get many more spam e mails from people trying to push their own non freight related, scatterbrained schemes I shall not be responsible for my actions.

To reiterate then, many thanks to all the more technologically advanced amongst you for the Twitter reaction (oh and Facebook etc., etc.) we shall endeavour to continue to bring you the best of transport news during the next year whilst constantly updating the Freight Directory to enable you to find new and reliable suppliers no matter what branch of the logistics industry you require them in.

All the very best for a Happy New Year!

Blood on the Tracks - A Look at Rail Associated Problems

Somewhat serious note this week folks.

The article today in the Handy Shipping Guide regarding the funding and developing of High Speed Rail in the United States touched on the fact that we get daily news coming through the Captain’s Office with various tales of woe regarding freight trains around the world.

In the US this week and by its own admission the Government is not doing enough to protect the population from rail related deaths. Deputy Secretary John Porcari at the biennial Operation Lifesaver Symposium said:

"The charge is clear: We know we're heading in the right direction on rail safety, but we must do better."

To quote the Department of Transport’s own blog:

“Operation Lifesaver has been one of our staunchest allies in the fight to raise public awareness about rail safety. For nearly four decades, this group has been educating people about the dangers of rail crossings and railroad rights-of-way. As the Obama Administration expands--and speeds up--our nation's rail system, we need their work now more than ever...”

Some of the freight rail reported incidents this month alone.

1st September Motorist killed on level crossing Wee Waa, New South Wales, A 20-year-old man was struck and killed by a freight train in west suburban Lombard near Chicago in an apparent suicide.

4th September a freight train derailment along the Lakeshore West train line near Toronto, pedestrian killed in Seffner, Florida by freight train.

5th September Two men jumped to safety as a freight train on the North Australian coast ran over their four wheel drive Toyota.

10th September two freight trains collided in Fontana, California leaving two seriously injured, including a conductor who had his arm amputated in order to free him from the wreckage.

13th September A BNSF train derailed losing thirty one cars, some hitting a factory in Wisconsin closely followed by three more owned by Illinois Railnet leaving the tracks in Yorkville.

17th Septembers A man apparently laying on the track was run over and by a Union Pacific freight train in the Los Angeles area. He may possibly have been dead before the incident.

Today (21st September) a t least 22 dead and more than 50 injured as a freight train struck a passenger rain in Badarwas, India. Plus of course the dozens of other accidents and fatalities world wide that do not enter our news feed systems, many in underdeveloped parts of the world.

Now if you want to see actual footage of a train crash, a staged event not the transport equivalent of a snuff movie, take a look at this. 

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And if you really want watch without being too ghoulish and to study what happens when a locomotive hits a freight train this is the one for you, again a bloodless test. 

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Bit like a silent porn movie for the railroad that one.

With good communications to the outside world plus a rail system that is plagued by underfunding, outdated equipment and manifold staffing problems from the top down India appears to be world number one in the realm of train crashes.

150 dead in May when a passenger train left the tracks and hit a freight train, 60 more in July in West Bengal, the list goes on and on.

The chronic overcrowding of passenger trains plus the parlous state of the infrastructure has caused innumerable deaths over the past fifty years including over 1500 in three accidents in 1981 alone.

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On a lighter note there's this............

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Or you could go for the Silver Bullet vs Thomas the (considerably bent) Tank Engine........

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Footage of actual crashes is of course rare but if that be to your taste the following will no doubt impress you. Again - no fatalities, but don't park an artic on rail tracks!!!

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In the UK we still suffer from occasional fatalities when people use unmanned level crossings, and no matter how the technology improves one can never eliminate the problems caused by Darwinian limitations (stupidity), bad luck and circumstance.

Either way the US authorities must think long and hard about how they push through their High Speed rail schemes lest they leave themselves open to criticism should the margin for safety be insufficient.

Progress beyond our Wildest Dreams

Firstly, the apology.

Regular readers have been asking why the usual erratic publication of the Black Pig Blog has been even more so of late.

The explanation is simple, no time.

As we all have to do in our busy modern lives the Captain has had to prioritise of late – there simply aren’t enough hours in the day to do it all and the demands of the Handy Shipping Guide have meant 7 days a week working from the whole team (well except the four days we all bu**ered off to Yorkshire).

For those that don’t know the Guide operates from five main centres, three in the UK, one in France and the other in Thailand (the lucky ones).

As half the Thai office are in the UK this month everyone has been busy proving how efficient they are and time has been very short.

As to the title of this blog, the truth is we always expected the Guide to be successful, just that most didn’t foresee how fast we would get so far.

Still, the best kind of pressure is that which means you have too much to do rather than too little – especially when times are hard.

One of the joys of web publishing is that you can continue to work no matter where you are on the globe.

Well that’s what the manual said.

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 Biggest load of BS along with the paperless office and your cheque’s in the post.

The Paperless Office (Not)

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In the last few months the Captain has seen more communication breakdowns than the West Bank. The internet is a wonderful tool just like a petrol strimmer, except of course when the petrol runs out. . . . . A word of advice. If you ever need a suitable photo to illustrate a comment like that last one, don’t type ‘Broken Tool’ into the Google Image Search with your adult content censor switched off.

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I did and I had to go and lie down after the first three pictures showed up.

The UK is a wonderful place to live and work, a fact we who live here tend to forget (Clue: If lots of people want to move from their country to your country you are probably luckier than you realize).

The problem is our office enjoys a fast efficient broadband service, a must when you do what we do for a living. When away into the wilds  (have you BEEN to Yorkshire) using the dodgy old roaming, mortgage your daughters by the minute, steam driven web connection can drive one potty.

I appreciate that it’s nice to be busy, and it’s simply fantastic that the Guide is now read in 212 countries.

I’ve been in the freight game for over forty years

(Blimey, how old is this guy?)

and I wasn’t even sure there WERE 212 countries, and there are at least 20 of them I can’t even spell.

So for any of our many readers who don’t know exactly what ‘potty’ means here is my excuse to demonstrate.

We won’t be away so long next time.

Airships - I Think Not !!!

Firstly apologies for the lack of blogs lately.

The pressures of keeping the Directory current have necessitated neglecting something and the blog was it (alright, alright the Captain has just left the bridge for an extended period).

I hope we shall go back to regular rants at the world.

Starting Now.

According to a report in yesterday’s Guardian we in the shipping world are about to see a revolution in transport logistics.

Apparently we are on the brink of starting to use ‘blimps’ otherwise known as airships to ferry our cargoes around the world.

Now call me a cynic, and I know many of you do, but this must surely have been written by Phil Space, he of Private Eye fame. The final paragraph of the guardian report ends “The craze for blimps came to an abrupt halt after the death of many people when the Hindenburg caught fire in New Jersey, US. However research and development languished but never halted."

The clue would seem to be right there - that bit about death just somehow catches my eye.

Now if any of you don't know the fate of the Hindenburg, it prompted one of the most evocative, and famous, pieces of radio journalism in history.

And therein, Ms Juliette Jowit author of this sterling piece, lies the clue.

The problem with your article is it is patently written by someone with little or no knowledge of logistics after reading a report by someone who is being paid to investigate any way possible to cut carbon emissions, no matter how crazy the notions.

But what about that friendly looking Goodyear blimp?

That never has a problem does it?

Take a gander sweetheart.

Yes, blimps can lift a lot of weight, yes they can travel relatively quickly these days.

The problem is dear JJ that they have the aeronautical qualities of the same Helium balloons you let go of at country fairs which then fly off to be found by a child in Ethiopia or Tunbridge Wells or, far more likely to end up starving a sea turtle who thinks they’re a jellyfish.

They not only don’t come close to the tiny percentage of world freight shipped by air in terms of delivery times, there is no guarantee you can launch them in even a mild blow.

Just imagine, in recent times we have seen ships carried miles inland by the force of storms, we have seen New Orleans devastated, Haiti ruined all by the power of nature.

How much will it cost Ms Jowit to get you out from behind your laptop and onto the end of an airships mooring rope in a relatively moderate force six?

Or you might face unforeseen and fatally mysterious problems like the one which destroyed the USS Macon as shown here in this hitherto unseen video......

I am sure there is room for a little more use of dirigibles in transport but the only way to find out the limitations is liable to cost more in terms of financial investment, and more particularly human life, than most would think worthwhile. As a sales pitch to draw the ever ready save the planet vote blimps may be fine, but for moving cargo in quantity and to make a REAL difference let’s just concentrate on practical ways to shift our goods around the world, use local sources wherever possible and leave it to the experts who haven’t got a vested interest. So I leave you with one last video which is symbolic, if not accurate when traditional shipping methods are faced by the "new" technology of airship logistics.