High Speed Rail: Freight European Parcels Service

Rail freight service at double the speed of road service. A high speed rail freight express parcel service from the Midlands to Scotland enables Securicor Omega Express to offer all its customers throughout Britain a next day service parcel service which is becoming increasingly difficult on our congested roads.

The daily Securicor Omega express service is a brilliant example of the economic, environmental and social advantages of rail freight. Travelling at speeds of up to 110mph the EWS service goes from Walsall in the West Midlands to Glasgow, Inverness and Aberdeen and back in journey times, which cannot be matched by road. Trains complete the journey from Walsall to Aberdeen in just over seven hours; the equivalent road journey takes nearly 13 hours.

As Robin Anderson, Director of Projects at Securicor Omega Express said, “ Our aim is to provide a next day delivery service on all our parcels which is becoming increasingly more difficult on the congested road system where truck speeds are diminishing. Therefore we have been putting the long-distance parcels on high speed trains” It shows how rail freight can deliver a faster service for time-critical parcels and avoid congested roads. HGVs have a speed limit of 56mph on motorways and 40mph on non-urban single carriageway roads so the train can travel at double the speed of a lorry and that is without taking traffic jams into consideration.

Since this service started a year ago, volumes have increased to a full train load and plans are under way to extend the return services from London to Scotland, and the West country to Newcastle, where the speed of the train will be even more valuable to the customer. Other similar companies are also evaluating this service and undertaking trials.

When the Securicor parcels reach the north, they are offloaded on to the platform and directly into the delivery vans then they go to the customers. So the deliveries to the city centres start less than an hour after the train arrives on the platform and the delivery times in the north match the services in the south. Prototype roll cages to speed the loading and unloading process are used.

The depot at Walsall is a simple affair proving that rail freight interchanges do not need hugely costly infrastructure developments, nor require large areas of land. It consists of a six foot wide platform, lights and a canopy beside the railway with room for development. A lorry can back up to the platform and the pallets can be transferred to the train straight away in what is called a cross docking exercise.

The existing congested road network and road traffic increases of two per cent per annum forecast, demonstrate that rail can offer a faster and viable alternative for a range of commodities to overcome road congestion and the unpredictably of journey times. According to the Freight Transport Association, road congestion is the second most pressing concern to its fleet managers this year.

This is an exciting development for a mode of freight transport which has eight times less external costs excluding congestion per tonne carried than air freight and four times less than road. This service alone removes around 22,000 lorry movements a year from our roads.

Please note: inquiries about particular consignments should be made to Securicor Omega direct, Freight on Rail cannot help.