Improving the movement of cargo to/from the rail – The Sprinter Operation

The Sprinter operation, named after the low profile straddle carrier which moves containers across the road from SCT to the Maritime Freightliner Terminal, has now been successfully running for 20 months and has brought major benefits to SCT, Freightliner and our customers.

The Maritime Terminal was previously serviced by a tractor/trailer operation, or IMV (internal movement vehicle) circuit as it was known, operated with 35 trailers, known affectionately as “Primroses” after the original manufacturers name, and five Douglas Tugmasters. This system introduced in 1972 served the Terminal well for many years.  Increasing rail use and demand for space however required a faster more efficient and a less space hungry system at both ends of the circuit. The IMV circuit had reached its operational limit by 2003/4 servicing 9 trains in a 24 hour period handling at best only 100-120 import moves in a 12 hour period.

Sprinters move across the internal dock road through a controlled ‘level crossing’ to the Maritime Terminal, the low profile machine having direct access under the cantilever rail mounted gantries that load and unload the trains. The sprinter system has so far increased the import feed by up to 80% to 180 moves per 12 hour period. With a huge increase in slot utilisation provided by increased storage capacity along side the tracks a very flexible operation has developed. Currently up to twelve trains each day are loaded and unloaded at the Maritime Terminal and 78 x 40fts can be stored under the gantries compared with 20 x 40fts capacity with the trailer system.

Paul Brewster SCT’s Landside Services Coordinator is fully involved in the day to day management of the process and is responsible for ensuring that containers booked for the trains reach them prior to the cut off time.

“At present, from information provided by Freightliner, who in turn receives it from our Customers, we warehouse import containers from our yard into container rows designated by the train destination for which they are allocated. Once the containers have been placed in these rows, Freightliner, using our internal control systems allocates the containers to the sprinter job queue for delivery to their Terminal. Vice versa export containers are discharged from the trains and Freightliner allocates them to the job queue."

"Due to the increased storage capacity at Freightliner and the increased warehousing programme in place at SCT, Freightliner can now bring containers forward to fill earlier trains, giving an added advantage of being able to keep the circuit flexible to match changes in timetable or wagon numbers. Timely information is critical for the success of the rail operation and SCT works closely with Freightliner and our customers to this end”

The sprinter process is continually being monitored and analysed to improve the feed and will continue to be a major focus of  attention to ensure that service levels and throughput capacity can be further improved to meet our customers requirements.