The Future of the Railway

Freight on Rail welcomes the opportunity to comment on the Future of the Railway

The format of our response is a short introduction with a definition of Freight on Rail , its members, recent statistics on rail freight and then responses to specific questions

Definition of Freight on Rail

The members are as follows:-
Rail Freight Group, EWS, Freightliner, GB Railfreight, RMT, ASLEF, TSSA and Transport 2000

Rail freight traffic has grown 51% since 1994, and now commands 12 per cent of the surface freight market in the UK. Freight on Rail supports the Government’s ten-year Transport Plan target of 80% growth in rail freight throughout the UK in the period 2000 – 2010 and believes without this growth, the government will not reach its congestion or pollution reduction targets, nor comply with EU air pollution regulations.

The simple statistic showing that an average freight train can remove 50 HGVs from our roads1 clearly and simply illustrated what rail freight contributes to our economy and society.

The use of rail relieves the road network of thousands of lorry movements per day, thus easing road congestion. As well as the economic benefits of rail freight derived from road congestion amelioration, there are significant environmental and social advantages. Society has to shoulder the external costs of road and air transportation. International Railway Union (UIC) 2000 research shows that rail freight’s external costs, ie excluding congestion are eight time less per tonne kilometre than air freight and four times less than road.
 

1. Is the Regulator right or is rail an outmoded form of transport

The railways form a key element of the infrastructure of our country and are vital to our society in terms of job creation, tourism, regeneration. social inclusion and commercial links both within the UK and to external European and world markets. Rail freight plays an important part on the shared railway.
 

The case for Rail Freight

1.1 Overview of rail freight activities

• Rail freight carries coal to 16 UK power stations in 800 trains a week;
  
• The country’s steelworks and automotive plants are kept running;
  
• Materials are supplied to build UK infrastructure – road, buildings and rail;
  
• Local authority domestic waste is transferred by rail;
  
• Rail freight is a major rail industry service provider including engineering trains for Network Rail;
  
• Wagons and containers are moved for a broad cross-section of UK industry, with international rail freight traffic through the Channel Tunnel.
  
• The rail freight industry has investigated over one billion in the industry since 1995.
   

1.2 The benefits of UK rail freight

• Since 1997 it has kept off the roads:
  
• 600 million tonnes and 89.9 billion net tonne km of goods;
  
• two million tonnes of pollutants;
  
• 644 deaths and serious injuries
  
• 6.4 billion lorry km/31.5 million lorry journeys;
  
• £800 million of congestion costs; plus
  
• £1.2 billion of environmental costs (pollution, noise and accidents)
   

1.3 Rail freight pays its way and is not expensive

The Rail Regulator's review of track access charges, accepted by Network Rail, confirms that rail freight does pay its way and meets its marginal costs.

The Regulator's new regime for track access charges ensures that charges levied on freight trains fully reflect their weight and impacts on the infrastructure dispelling the myth that freight trains are often particularly heavy and impose severe wear and tear costs.
 

1.4 Job creation and economic regeneration

The rail freight industry is an important direct employer as well as stimulating work in manufacturing, retailing and the supply industry across the country.
 

Examples of new flows to rail freight and economic regeneration

Regeneration

Cargo Durham Port of Seaham
A re-connection to the rail network and the provision of modern high quality warehousing has made a major contribution to the revitalisation of this North East port. The largest user of the rail facility is Lafarge with over 200,000 tonnes per year coming through the railhead which removes two million lorry miles per year from the road network. Plans to increase the terminal’s current twin railway lines capacity to cope with increasing demand are under way.
 

New Retail customers

Asda is transporting mixed cargoes of ambient goods and clothing six days a week from Daventry to Grangemouth in partnership with WH Malcolms and DRS Rail Services.

Superdrug has started using intermodal express rail services from the port of Felixstowe to Wakefield.
 

New terminals and flows to rail freight

New Selby terminal for Potter Group
The new £ 8 million MSC Medite contain terminal and Roseby’s national distribution centre at the Potter Group’s terminal at Selby serves trains from Felixstowe five days a week.

New Preston docks terminal
TotalFinaElf is to construct a new terminal for transportation of bitumen traffic which had closed in 1995.

New contract with Plasmor to move lightweight building blocks from Yorkshire to Bedfordshire and Bow in East London.

New domestic waste flow for East London Waste Authority from Dagenham to Buckinghamshire

Ports
The ports are another rail freight success story with 80 per cent served regularly and 50 per cent of all rail freight being port based. Immingham handles 20 per cent of UK rail freight with 66 trains a day in each direction. Felixstowe is another example served by three operators. Freightliner now has 15 trains daily in and out of the port which removes around 1,000 lorries off the A14 daily. GB Railfreight, has recently doubled its container services for Medite Shipping out of the port and EWS is expanding its services there.
There is also a general recognition now of the importance to UK PLC of developing rail connected links to existing and new ports.
 

1.5 Economic benefits of rail freight

Relief of road congestion
Congestion on key parts of the trunk road network is already high. About 7% of the strategic network currently suffers heavy peak, and occasional non-peak, congestion, and a further 13% suffers heavy congestion on at least half the days in the year. These congestion levels are expected to worsen. 'Transport 2010', Department for Transport, 2000. The latest Government figures2 bear this forecast out with traffic volumes increased by 2.5 per cent for 2002, of which 0.9 per cent growth was for goods vehicles. Motorway traffic levels in 2002 were 1.9 per cent higher than in 2001. Lorry registrations have increased by 6.2 per cent in this year to June. The Freight Transport Association estimated that road congestion cost the UK economy £20 billion per annum in 2000.

The following organisations use rail freight to avoid congested roads because it is faster:-
- Omega sends international and national premium parcels on a daily basis from Walsall in the West Midlands to Glasgow and Aberdeen on a high-speed rail freight service on timings that could not be matched by road. Trains complete the journey to Aberdeen in just over 7 hours; the equivalent road journey takes nearly 13 hours. Plans are in hand to expand the Express freight network to serve new destinations such as London.
- Safeway distribute food and drinks products within Scotland by intermodal rail services travelling at 75 mph.
- Direct services between Scotland and Paris travelling at 75 mph which takes only 9 hours provides the main users of the service, whisky producers, with fast and direct access to European markets in a journey time which lorries and ships cannot compete with.
 

1.6 Environmental benefits of rail freight

Air pollution
Nearly 40% of CO2 emissions from road transport came from buses and lorries though only representing 12% of vehicles on the road, (of which buses would represent about 3%). Motorists' Forum 2000

Compared with the equivalent journey by road, freight by rail produces: one seventh of the carbon monoxide: one quarter of the nitrous oxide: one fifth of the particulates: quarter of the carbon dioxide.

During 1998/99, 26 billion gross tonne miles of freight were carried by rail, resulting in the emission of 503,690 tonnes of CO23. If the same amount was carried by road, the total emissions would have been 5,388,405 tonnes of CO2.Over 10 Times the amount or 4.5 MILLION TONNES more.

Lorries also cause significant damage to the roads. In 1998/9 central and local government spent £2.1 billion on maintaining the road network, of which local authorities spent £1.6 billion. (National Road Maintenance Condition Survey 1999 DoT 2000) Lorries are almost entirely responsible for road wear and tear. A 40 tonne, 5 axle lorry causes tens of thousands of times more damage than an average car. (Design Manual for Roads and Bridges Highways Agency 1994)

The high environmental, safety, congestion and road maintenance costs of lorries has led most independent assessments to conclude that lorries impose a net cost on society.

For example Oxford Economics Research Associates calculated in 1999 that heavy goods vehicles only pay for around 59% to 69% of the full (including the social and environmental) costs they impose upon society. These costs include greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution, noise, congestion, accidents and deaths.
 

1.7 The safety benefits of rail

Transport accident figures for 2001 show that 32 people were killed on the railways, not including trespassers and suicides while there were 3,450 people killed on the roads in same period

HGV’s are up to eight times more dangerous than cars in terms of fatalities per mile travelled. T2000 research 1995
 

1.8 Lower land take

The width of land surface taken up by a double railway line is only 12m compared with 47m for a three lane motorway4 , which is a key issue with a shortage of space in the UK.
 

2 Is the present network the right one; if not, how should it be changed?
 

2.1 Regulation

Freight on Rail believes that independent regulation is crucial with the current industry structure of many parts so that there is an independent impartial arbitrator.
 

2.2 What rail freight needs from the network

Flexibility to allow 24/7 availability so that JIT traffic always runs
Flexibility to allow for variations in customer demand
Maximum train-lengths to exploit rail’s carrying capacity
Pathways throughout the network to link distant suppliers with end-users
Availability of diversionary routes
Pathways to the heart of Greater London and other connurbations to reach end users located in centres of demand
Access to ports and the Channel Tunnel to link inland locations with continental and overseas suppliers and customers
Clearances for high-cube containers to allow maximum payloads of lighter-weight but bulkier goods
 

2.3 Protection of existing network and scope of network.

Freight on Rail is opposed to any reduction in the size and capability of the network and views this approach as commercially and socially short sighted. We support the SRA’s aim to categorise types of lines and to develop maintenance regimes appropriate to those different levels and mixes of use. However, we are concerned that the categorisation exercise being undertaken by the SRA should not be used as a chance to take an extended maintenance holiday on large parts of the network. Whilst some tempting savings may be possible in the short-term, it is not a long term answer to the costs problem and runs the considerable risk of storing up expensive problems for the future. A “bow wave” in a few years time of maintenance on secondary routes, and preventable renewals arising from neglect would be a disaster. Less has been spent on maintenance over the last decade. From a high of around £1,300m spent on maintenance in 1983, a low of about £650m was spent in 1993/4. By 2000/1 this had risen to nearly £800m but was still well short of the 1983 figure and lagged behind expenditure on renewals5
 

2.4 Capacity Utilisation and enhancements

The SRA is now looking to take a proactive role in ensuring the best use is made of capacity and this should both improve the efficiency of passenger operators and ensure that freight and passenger trains co-exist more harmoniously.

We support the SRA Capacity Utilisation exercise to get the best out of the existing capacity. We also believe that through a combination of the following significant capacity benefits will result.

1. implementation of priority freight enhancement projects as identified in the SRA in its Freight Strategy of May 2001 and Strategic Plan of 2002.
   
2. identification of major pinch points which could be eliminated by building passing loops. duelling, resignalling, upgrading of diversionary loops, some of which could be carried out relatively quickly and cheaply.

The key freight projects are as follows:-

• Gauge enhancements from Southampton to the West Midlands
  
• Upgrades to the North Line and Gospel Oak lines
  
• Improvements on the routes to Immingham
  
• Gauge and capacity enhancements on the Felixstowe to Nuneaton cross country route.

2.5 Freight grants

Confirmation of the reinstatement of rail freight grants from April 2004 is vital to give renewed confidence to industry in rail freight.
 

3. What sort of traffic is the network best used for?

We support the network being a mixed system for freight and fast and slow passenger services. The rail freight industry is a major stakeholder in the railway relied on by many sectors of UK industry.

We would like to stress that freight services can operate harmoniously alongside the various passenger services. In the overview of rail freight we explain the economic, social and environmental benefits of rail freight and illustrate its role in the UK economy.
 

3.1 Freight trains are no longer slow and do not disproportionately reduce the capacity for carrying passengers.

The typical freight train matches the speed of semi-fast passenger trains and thus takes a similar amount of capacity. A freight train sterilises less capacity than either a typical stopping passenger train or high speed passenger train.

Replacing freight trains with passenger trains would have enormous negative social, environmental and congestion impacts. For example more than 250,000 containers are carried by rail to and from the Port of Felixstowe by rail every year - this equates to 1,000 lorries a day removed from the congested A146.

Substantial investment in the rail freight industry has led to significant improvements in freight train speeds. Already express trains and mail trains run at 110 mph whilst the latest intermodal trains can now do 90mph and new coal wagons are designed for operation at 75mph. The rail freight industry has been steadily increasing average train payload and intends to continue to make better use of the network with heavier and longer trains. For example 102 tonne coal wagons are being introduced. These allow rail to move coal two thirds faster and using a third less trains.

As explained above freight trains are much faster nowadays and can offer timings and service reliability that cannot be matched by road. (HGVs are allowed to travel at maximum speeds of 60 mph on motorways, 50 mph on dual carriageways and 40 mph on other roads.

Summary

Rail freight plays a strategic role in the UK economy as illustrated by our examples. The railways provide a vital service to the economy and society and are not an outmoded form of transport, as shown by Continental European rail infrastructure and ongoing investment. Britain has the most car dependent society and congested road network in western economies and this is forecast to worsen. Industry is being damaged as a result. The Freight Transport Association stated that road congestion and unreliability of journey times was the second biggest problem for its fleet managers in 2002.

EU figures show that rail is 27 times safer than road7. The Government needs to confirm the reinstatement of rail freight grants to restore industry confidence. Governmental support for freight is about 4 per cent of its support for passenger services. FFGs lever in significant outside investment: for every pound of grant, on average over 70 pence is provided by the companies involved. The willingness of businesses to put in its own money can be seen in a range of successful applications in 2002.

We do not believe that maintenance work should only be concentrated on the busiest parts of the network at the expense of secondary lines. This would result in deterioration in train performances and progressive increases in journey lines as speed restrictions are imposed.
 

1. How we’re Measuring Up: our statement on social and environmental issues Railtrack 1999
2. Department for Transport Road Traffic Statistics 2002
3. DETR Transport Statistics, Great Britain 1998
4. How we’re measuring Up Railtrack 1999
5. Modern Railways August 2003
6. Freightliner
7. How we’re Measuring Up. Railtrack 1999