Refreshing the Transport Priorities for the West Midlands

Freight on Rail thanks the West Midlands Regional Assembly for consulting our group on the document and is pleased to respond.

General introduction

Definition of Freight on Rail

Freight on Rail, a partnership between transport trades unions, the rail freight industry and Transport 2000, works to promote the economic, social and environmental benefits of rail freight both nationally and locally. It advocates policy changes that support the shift to rail and provides information and help on freight related issues. In particular, it aims to help local authorities through all stages of the process such as planning a rail-freight strategy, accessing grants and dealing with technical matters.

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

Rail freight's role in the economy

Rail freight removes over 300 million lorry miles from the roads every year and now has an 11% share of the UK surface freight market (road and rail)
In 2003 rail moved 43.5 million tonnes of goods to and from UK’s ports, 65 per cent of intercontinental trade to the North of England travels by rail, and over 250,000 containers a year go by rail to and from Felixstowe.
Coal produced 32 per cent of our electricity in 2002, and 85 per cent of it moved by rail.
Some 85 per cent of stone used for construction in London goes by rail and nationally a fifth of all building materials are delivered by rail, as is around half of Corus’s deliveries.
Three new retailers, Asda, Argos and Superdrug have joined rail’s list of customers within the past year. A list which already includes Safeway, M&S, Danone, Whirlpool, Rosebys, DFS and Courts.
Automotive industry users of rail include the Ford Group, MG Rover, Volkswagen, BMW and Jaguar.
Rail freight has attracted around £1.5 billion of investment in locomotives, wagons and facilities since 1995 from the private sector.
Rail freight employs between 8,000 to 9,000 people in the UK

Rail freight has a key role in keeping UK Plc competitive and businesses need a proper viable alternative to road.

Rail freight pays its way

The Rail Regulator's review of track access charges 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. This helps to encourage the use of more modern wagons which have less impact on track work.
Government support for freight is only about 4 per cent of its support for passenger services

Issues facing road transport

Road congestion is causing extended and less predictable journey times
Existing driver vacancies 45,000 with the average age of drivers 43
Working Time Directive is estimated to require another 21,000 drivers and to cost the industry an extra £1 billion per annum
Taxation by distance and tougher emissions regulations coming into force soon.
Digby Jones, director General of the CBI put it succinctly, "British industry is being suffocated by congestion".
The simple statistic which shows that an average freight train can remove 50 HGVs from our roads clearly illustrates what rail freight contributes to our economy and society now and its future potential - Railtrack How we're measuring up 1999

Heavy Rail Infrastructure

1. Southampton to West Midlands gauge improvements – Including the commitment to the £40m gauge clearance route via Reading Oxford Leamington.

Plus in the future diversionary route and additional capacity on this route

2. Donnington
Our discussions with MOD implied there was scope for a shared user terminal here

3. Gauge clearance from Felixstowe to Nuneaton so that Lawley St and Hams Hall can be served direct

4. Stourbridge - Walsall
West Midlands Freight Capacity Upgrades (Sutton Pk Line capacity; R/Oak-Walsall reopening; Brdeley-C/Brom capacity).
(In 2007/08 there is a "window" for potential signalling enhancement of the Sutton Park Line).
Round Oak-Walsall should be a high priority.

5. Trent Valley work including four tracking which will clear bottleneck at Rugby and Stafford which may not actually be in the region but are key to WCML

6. Lack of terminals will become an issue in the next 5 years if volumes carry on increasing.

March 2004
Philippa Edmunds
Email philippa@freightonrail.org.uk 020 8241 9982