Response to the rail freight section of the RAC Foundation report: 'Motoring towards 2050'

9th May 2003

The rail freight element in the RAC ‘Motoring towards 2050’ report has been appraised by Freight on Rail members and found to be frequently factually inaccurate. It appears to be based on outdated prejudices rather than a proper analysis of the relevant statistics. The report also demonstrates a poor knowledge of today’s rail freight industry.

Rail freight has been one of the transport sector's success stories of recent years and the RAC Foundation's rehashing of various misleading myths about rail freight cannot be allowed to go unchallenged. This leads the report to a series of conclusions which are mostly unjustified and sometimes contradictory.

We summarise the main conclusions of the report and Freight on Rail’s response below, followed by a detailed analysis of the rail freight element of the RAC report.

(Please note that statements taken directly from the RAC report are initalics)

Executive Summary of Freight on Rail’s response to the rail freight section of the RAC report ‘Motoring towards 2050’

Two thirds of existing rail freight is bulk commodities like coal, metals, construction, oil and petrol which have been in decline over the 1990s.
It is correct that about two thirds of existing rail freight is bulk commodities1 - and transport of some bulk commodities, by all modes, has declined. However it is not accurate to suggest that rail transport of bulk commodities have been in decline in recent years.

Construction traffic has experienced a 45 per cent increase in volumes lifted since 1997. Coal traffic fluctuated in the 1990s but there is no overall pattern of decline with the 41 per cent increase on billion tonne-kilometres carried for the year 2001/2 against an average figure carried for the 1990s. Metals traffic did decline slightly during the nineties but has now regained its 1991/2 figure.

Coal, a quarter of all tonne kilometres, will decline further, although the SRA's plans show growth from bulk traffic. However much bulk traffic is trainloads over short distances, often not sharing track with passenger trains and not up against capacity constraints.

Coal traffic figures for 2001/2 show that coal carried has increased by 41 per cent compared to average figures for the 1990s. Much bulk traffic is trainload but is not over short distances. The average journey length for EWS freight trains is now 102 miles with its average bulk traffic journey now 79 miles.

The vast majority of freight trains do share track with passenger trains and are therefore up against capacity constraints of varying degrees of severity. The report contradicts itself by stating here that freight trains often do not share track with passenger trains and are not up against capacity constraints. Yet again shortly afterwards the report incorrectly states that increases in freight traffic disproportionately reduce the capacity for carrying passengers.

The planned increase is concentrated on construction and general freight traffic, but rail is really only competitive over long distances ideally from siding to siding. General traffic does not meet these criteria and the benefits of rail are rapidly eroded by journeys to and from rail depots.

The argument that rail is only competitive over long distances is one of the most commonly propagated myths about rail freight. Break-even distances are market specific. Traffic like aggregates and waste can be profitable over distances as short as 19 miles shown by the following examples:-

19 miles – aggregates from Greenwich to Kings Cross
27 miles – waste removal from Edinburgh to Dunbar
40 miles – waste removal from Cricklewood to Bedfordshire
60 miles – container traffic between Felixstowe and Tilbury

We also note that the assertion that rail is only competitive over long distances is flatly contradicted in the report's earlier conclusion that much bulk traffic is 'trainloads over short distances.' Rail freight is already competing successfully in non-bulk cargoes including premium parcels, first class mail, high value car components and food stuffs.

Figures for 2001/2, where the railways carried 3.5 billion net tonne kilometres of domestic intermodal freight, prove that the benefits of rail are not eroded by journeys to and from rail depots.

Both the existing and potential rail freight distribution centres are private-sector enterprises which could not exist if rail was unable to provide a competitive service.

The cost of carrying freight by rail is high and will become higher. Railtrack has argued that rail freight does not meet the marginal costs of carrying freight by rail. Freight trains are often particularly heavy and impose severe wear and tear costs. Nevertheless rail access charges have been reduced to short run marginal costs yet the Freight Transport Association maintains that rail freight is too expensive for it to increase its market share significantly.

If the cost of carrying freight by rail was so high as to be uncompetitive then rail freight wouldn't have expanded its market share (compared with road) from 8.5% in 1994 to 11.5% in 2001.12 Nor would rail freight have attracted more than £1 billion of private investment in locomotives, wagons and facilities since 1995.13

Rail freight does meet its marginal costs as the Rail Regulator’s review of track access charges means that access charges do cover marginal infrastructure costs, which has been accepted by Network Rail. The Regulator's new regime for track access charges ensures that charges levied on freight trains do reflect their weight and impacts on the infrastructure.

Increases in freight traffic disproportionately reduce the capacity for carrying passengers. Freight trains are usually slower than passenger trains and often cross over passenger routes to a great extent, thus reducing the system's ability to carry passenger traffic. Since freight traffic by rail has less effect on road congestion than switching passenger traffic, there is a strong social, congestion and environmental case for increasing the effective carrying capacity of the railways to carry passengers by replacing freight trains by passenger trains on most routes.

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

Independent research for EWS into the net social, environmental and economic benefit of different types of train shows that freight trains always deliver a positive benefit. Although peak passenger trains give a higher value, off-peak passenger trains deliver a negative benefit. This is because off-peak passenger trains are less well-used than trains that run at peak times and do not relieve congestion on the roads.17

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 A14.18

The reduction of road congestion likely to be achieved by shifting freight to rail is small and will be achieved much less cost-effectively. The average subsidy cost of saving a vehicle hour of road congestion is £25 a year, compared with £11 for passenger rail, and £5 for direct investment in road improvement (source: DETR 10 Year Plan, Background Analysis).

Although it is true that rail freight is unlikely to make much impact in reducing light van traffic (which makes up the majority of road freight trips) it can make significant in-roads into long-distance HGV trips. Only 10% of HGV trips are more than 150 kilometres yet they account for nearly 50% of total lorry mileage and half total tonne kilometres.19 It is these HGVs trips which most affect the trunk road network and contribute towards traffic congestion.

Apart from reducing road congestion the case for subsidising freight largely depends on the adverse environmental impacts of HGVs by comparison with rail. If this were to change as trucks become more fuel efficient and cleaner, the case for rail freight subsidy would be much reduced

Rail freight currently enjoys considerable environmental and social advantages over road haulage. The International Railway Union conclude 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.32

The shipping industry is moving towards 9'6" containers as standard, which cannot be carried efficiently by rail under the existing load gauge. The investment to modify bridges and tunnels, particularly for rail lines to ports, to enable these containers to be carried is significant but is generally viewed as a worthwhile investment. More and more freight is of a low density requiring large vehicles to be carried efficiently and the industry would ideally like the rail loading gauge to allow 3m high pallets to be carried, which would require an even larger gauge than for 3.1 metre containers.

As with other forms of transport, rail has some constraints in the size of the loads it can carry. However, the rail freight industry, through innovation and judicious investment, is constantly opening up more of the network to larger loads.

Overall the prospect for significant switch from road freight to rail is therefore unlikely and rail should focus on moving bulk products where it has a significant advantage.

Rail freight has grown by 50% (in tonne-kilometres) since 1994 – the new traffic alone is equivalent to over 300 million lorry miles removed from the roads every year.34

The RAC's pessimistic conclusions cannot be justified as:

Based on recent trends there is every prospect that the shift from the HGV to the freight train will continue
Rail's significant advantages are extending beyond bulk freight and into general freight. This is due to both worsening road congestion and improvements to rail freight competitiveness that flow from more than a billion pounds of investment since 1995.

1. ‘National Rail Trends’ SRA Dec 200212 'Delivering the rail freight challenge - presentation to national rail conference', Strategic Rail Authority, January 2003
13. Railfreight Group
17. 'Comparative valuation and analysis of train paths', Arup Transport Planning, 2002
18. Freightliner Ltd
19. Freight on Rail analysis of DfT Transport Statistics
32. UIC, 200034 Transport Statistics GB 2001/02

Detailed response to RAC Report ‘Motoring towards 2050’

1. Two thirds of existing rail freight is bulk commodities like coal, metals, construction, oil and petrol which have been in decline over the 1990s.

It is correct that about two thirds of existing rail freight is bulk commodities, and transport of some bulk commodities - by all modes, has declined. However it is not accurate to suggest that rail transport of bulk commodities has been in decline in recent years.

Coal traffic (measured in tonne-kilometres) fluctuated during the 1990s but there was no overall pattern of decline. In the last few years coal traffic has increased to a higher level than for any single year in the 1990s, with 6.2 billion tonne-kilometres carried in 2001/2 against an average of 4.4 billion tonne-kilometres a year during the 1990s.1

Metals traffic did decline during the nineties from 2.4 billion tonne-kilometres in 1991/2 to 2 billion tonne-kilometres in 1999/00 but has now recovered to 2.4 billion tonne kilometres.2 There is scope for further increases as rail freight begins to compete for new types of metals traffic - such as semi-finished products.

Construction traffic is tied to national economic cycles and fluctuated during the 1990s, but overall has increased from 2.5 billion tonne-kilometres in 1991/2 to 2.8 billion tone kilometres in 2001/2.3 In terms of tonnes lifted, growth in the last five years has been even more impressive: rail handled 16 million tonnes of construction aggregates in 2002 – an increase of 45 per cent on 1997 volume. There is scope for rail to increase its share of existing bulk aggregate flows as well as for rail to move into new markets like secondary waste, including china clay waste and slate waste.

Oil and petrol traffic has been declining (from 2 billion tonne-kilometres in 1991/2 to 1.2 billion tonne-kilometres in 2001/2).

This is largely due to changes in the way the oil industry operates in the UK - with the big oil companies now pooling refinery outputs to reduce transport costs.

The statistics clearly demonstrate that bulk rail freight is not in overall decline. Nor is it expected to decline in the future. Demand modelling for the SRA suggests an increase by 2010 of between 12.4 and 21 billion tonne-kilometres in bulk traffic.5

2. Coal, a quarter of all tonne kilometres, will decline further, although the SRA's plans show growth from bulk traffic. However much bulk traffic is trainloads over short distances, often not sharing track with passenger trains and not up against capacity constraints.

Coal traffic has not been declining (see above) - and is not expected to decline significantly in the short to medium term.

Much bulk traffic is trainload but is not over short distances. The average journey length for EWS freight trains is now over 100 miles (102 miles in 2002 compared with 95 miles in 2000). This includes lengthening journeys for bulk traffic, including metals traffic (average journey length increased from 60 miles in 2000, to 79 miles in 2002) and coal traffic (average journey length increased from 92 miles in 2000, to 106 miles in 2002).6

The vast majority of freight trains do share track with passenger trains and are subject to similar capacity constraints of varying degrees of severity. The report contradicts itself by stating that freight trains often do not share track with passenger trains and are not up against capacity constraints. Yet later, the report incorrectly states that increases in freight traffic disproportionately reduce the capacity for carrying passengers and that freight trains are usually slower than passenger trains. This theme is developed further in section 5 below5.

3. The planned increase is concentrated on construction and general freight traffic, but rail is really only competitive over long distances ideally from siding to siding. General traffic does not meet these criteria and the benefits of rail are rapidly eroded by journeys to and from rail depots.

Rail competitive only over long distances?

The argument that rail is only competitive over long distances is one of the most commonly propagated myths about rail freight. In reality break-even distances are market-specific. Traffic like aggregates and waste can be profitable over distances as short as 19 miles, and there are many examples across the network of short, viable freight journeys including containers between Felixstowe and Tilbury, aggregates from Greenwich to Kings Cross and waste removal from Cricklewood to Bedfordshire7 and from Edinburgh to Dunbar.

Rail cannot compete effectively for general traffic?

Rail freight is already competing successfully in non-bulk cargoes including premium parcels, first class mail, high value car components and food stuffs. Rail is often the preferred mode where fragile prestige goods such as cars need to be delivered in perfect condition.

For example:

Almost all Jaguar X-type exports go by rail
BMW's new Mini cars go by rail from Oxford to Purfleet
Body panels for MG Rover move from Swindon to Longbridge by rail

As road congestion grows the greater reliability and speed of rail freight will enable rail to compete for more non-bulk traffic. This is one reason why demand modelling for the SRA suggests growth in non-bulk traffic of between 6.5 billion (base case) and 26.6 billion (best case) tonne-kilometres by 2010.8

The benefits of rail are eroded by journeys to and from rail depots?

In 2001/2 the railways carried 3.5 billion net tonne kilometres of domestic intermodal freight. This makes it the biggest single market sector after coal and greater than any of the bulk oil/petrol, construction or metalssectors.9

Freightliner Ltd carries more than 600,000 containers a year which are collected from, or delivered to, its inland terminals. Detailed assessment of the environmental benefits gained from the rail trunk haul shows that these advantages considerably outweigh the disadvantages of the collection and delivery movements by road.10

Further growth can be expected as more freight shippers take advantage of rail's ability to provide a fast and reliable long-haul service to regional distribution centres - where goods can then be delivered to their final destination by road.

Evidence for this can be found in the growing number of successful rail freight distribution centres, as well as a wave of proposals for future similar developments. Both the existing and potential rail freight distribution centres are private enterprises which could not exist if rail was not providing a competitive service.

For example, the Potter Group now has three rail freight terminals (East Anglia, the North East and the North West) handling products as diverse as paper, timber, food, coal and hazardous chemicals. As one of the largest independent terminal operators in the UK, it competes in a market dominated by service levels and cost, and combines intermodal handling and conventional wagon transhipment with shared-user warehousing, stock management and distribution. It currently takes the equivalent off around 100 lorry loads of the roads per day and has ambitions to raise this to 350.11

Where appropriate rail freight providers are also finding new ways to reduce terminal costs to win new traffic.

In the Highlands some timber traffic is now loaded onto trains from temporary terminals alongside the running lines. This negates the need for sidings as freight can be loaded onto freight trains during the long gaps between passenger trains.
One of Britain's premier freight trains is operated for Securicor Omega Express which carries overnight parcels from the West Midlands to Scotland at speeds of up to 110 mph. Despite the high-quality nature of the service the Walsall terminal is basic and functional consisting of a canopied platform. Road vehicles simply reverse up to the platform so that pallets can be transferred to and from the train.

New technologies and innovations could also boost rail's ability to compete for general traffic.

Projects currently being trialled include:

the 'cargo sprinter' - a freight train similar to a multiple unit passenger train - which carries freight containers between two driving units. This gives more flexibility to carrying smaller loads by rail.
The 'minimodal' system which allows small containers to be carried by rail. The containers can be unloaded at station platforms by conventional forklift trucks.

These systems create all sorts of new opportunities - for example opening up the potential for freight to be brought into the heart of major cities by delivering freight to major stations at night.

4. The cost of carrying freight by rail is high and will become higher. Railtrack has argued that rail freight does not meet the marginal costs of carrying freight by rail. Freight trains are often particularly heavy and impose severe wear and tear costs. Nevertheless rail access charges have been reduced to short run marginal costs yet the Freight Transport Association maintains that rail freight is too expensive for it to increase its market share significantly.

The cost of carrying freight by rail is high and will become higher?

If the cost of carrying freight by rail was so high as to be uncompetitive then rail freight wouldn't have expanded its market share (compared with road) from 8.5% in 1994 to 11.5% in 2001.12 Nor would rail freight have attracted more than £1 billion of private investment in locomotives, wagons and facilities since 1995.13

There is no reason to suppose that the cost of carrying freight by rail will increase. In fact the reverse should be true as new locomotives and wagons increase rail freight's speed and reliability whilst reducing operating costs. So, for example since 1996 EWS has undertaken productivity measures to increase the workload by half.14

Rail freight does not meet its marginal costs?

Rail freight does pay its way. The Rail Regulator's review of track access charges means that access charges do cover marginal infrastructure costs. The Regulator's decisions have been accepted by Network Rail.

Rail freight pays its marginal costs because much of the cost of providing the rail network is attributable to passenger services. For example, stations and signalling are predicated on the provision of high speed passenger trains and have no relevance to rail freight.

Freight trains often particularly heavy and impose severe wear and tear costs?

The Regulator's new regime for track access charges ensures that charges levied on freight trains do reflect their weight and impacts on the infrastructure. This should encourage the use of more modern wagons which have less impact on trackwork. New 'track friendly' wagons are now available which reduce damage to trackwork as well as causing less noise.

Since kinetic energy varies with the square of the speed, high speed passenger trains place very considerable strains on track and structures. Heavier freight trains run at lower speeds and will often do less damage.

5. Increases in freight traffic disproportionately reduce the capacity for carrying passengers. Freight trains are usually slower than passenger trains and often cross over passenger routes to a great extent, thus reducing the system's ability to carry passenger traffic. Since freight traffic by rail has less effect on road congestion than switching passenger traffic, there is a strong social, congestion and environmental case for increasing the effective carrying capacity of the railways to carry passengers by replacing freight trains by passenger trains on most routes.

Increases in freight traffic disproportionately reduce the capacity for carrying passengers?

Substantial investment in the rail freight industry has led to significant improvements in freight train speeds. Some mail trains run at 110 mph (and preparations are underway to raise the speed of these trains to125 mph) whilst the latest intermodal trains reach 90mph and new coal wagons are designed for operation at 75 mph. In terms of track capacity utilisation, the typical freight train is now equivalent to a semi-fast passenger train, and certainly sterilises less capacity than either the typical stopping passenger train or high speed passenger train.

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, some 1,500 new 102 tonne coal wagons have been put into service over the last three years These allow rail to move coal two thirds faster and using a third fewer trains.16 Whilst rail freight has been getting more efficient in its use of capacity long distance passenger operators are becoming less efficient. Despite increases in passenger numbers, load factors have been declining as operators have increased frequencies, sometimes using short trains (5 carriages or fewer).

The SRA is now taking a proactive role in ensuring that 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. The new SRA plan for the West Coast Main Line is a good example of how limited capacity is being used to enable regular paths for freight trains along with a mix of high speed, semi-fast and stopping services.

Additional capacity for freight traffic can, and is, being brought into play. The Settle and Carlisle, and Glasgow and South Western routes, are two examples of routes which had spare capacity and have now become major freight corridors. The Midland Main Line and North Downs Route are two examples of strategic routes that could take more freight.

There is a strong social, congestion and environmental case for increasing the effective carrying capacity of the railways to carry passengers by replacing freight trains by passenger trains on most routes?

Independent research has been conducted for EWS. This shows that freight trains deliver a positive netsocial, environmental and economic benefit. Although this value is exceeded by peak passenger trains, off-peak passenger trains – by contrast - deliver a negative benefit. Off-peak passenger trains are not as well used as those that run at peak times and are not relieving congestion on the roads. 17

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 A14.18

6. The reduction of road congestion likely to be achieved by shifting freight to rail is small and will be achieved much less cost-effectively. The average subsidy cost of saving a vehicle hour of road congestion is £25 a year, compared with £11 for passenger rail, and £5 for direct investment in road improvement (source: DETR 10 Year Plan, Background Analysis).

Although it is true that rail freight is unlikely to make much impact in reducing light van traffic (which makes up the majority of road freight trips) it can make significant in-roads into long-distance HGV trips. Only 10% of HGV trips are more than 150 kilometres yet they account for nearly 50% of total lorry mileage and half total tonne kilometres.19 It is these HGVs trips which most affect the trunk road network.

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.20 These congestion levels are expected to worsen.

By substituting for long-distance HGV traffic rail freight can make a significant contribution to reducing congestion on key sections of the strategic road network - especially when road capacity is so badly stretched that even a relatively small number of additional lorries can trigger gridlock.

Rail freight also already makes a major contribution to reducing road congestion in parts of the country which generate major flows of bulk traffic - such as the Mendips and the Peak District (for aggregates), and for major ports like Immingham, where 75 trains a day depart from the port at peak times.21

7. Apart from reducing road congestion the case for subsidising freight largely depends on the adverse environmental impacts of HGVs by comparison with rail. If this were to change as trucks become more fuel efficient and cleaner, the case for rail freight subsidy would be much reduced

Rail freight currently enjoys considerable environmental advantages over road haulage. Technological improvements will slowly improve the environmental performance of lorries, but rail freight's environmental performance is also improving, and overall rail will still be significantly 'greener' than road for the foreseeable future.

C02 emissions
Per tonne carried rail produces around 80% less carbon dioxide than road.22 Nearly 40% of CO2 emissions from road vehicles comes from commercial vehicles.23

Although other emissions may fall lorry CO2 performance is unlikely to improve significantly.

Other emissions
When compared with modern lorries, rail freight uses half the fuel while producing:

One third the nitrous oxide
Half the volatile organic compounds
Less than two thirds the carbon monoxide24

Noise and vibration
The research shows that the public rate rail noise as less intrusive than road noise.25

And rail freight's performance goes on improving
Rail freight operators continue to invest heavily in new, state-of-the-art locomotives. For example: compared with a typical ex-British Rail heavy freight locomotive that they replace (a Class 56), new Class 66 locomotives produce:

- 8% of the carbon monoxide
- 47% of the nitrous oxide
- 35% of the particulates
- 21% of the sulphur dioxide26

Not just an environmental case

The case for moving freight from road to rail does not rely solely on the adverse environmental impacts of HGVs. Rail is 27 times safer than road.27 Although accounting for only 6% of vehicle kilometres travelled, lorries are responsible for 18% of road deaths. In 1999 HGVs caused 617 out of 3423 fatalities.28

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.29 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.30

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 calculate that heavy goods vehicles only pay for around 59% to 69% of the full (including the social and environmental) costs they impose upon society.31 These costs include greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution, noise, congestion, accidents and deaths.

The International Railway Union conclude 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.32

8. The shipping industry is moving towards 9'6" containers as standard, which cannot be carried efficiently by rail under the existing load gauge. The investment to modify bridges and tunnels, particularly for rail lines to ports, to enable these containers to be carried is significant but is generally viewed as a worthwhile investment. More and more freight is of a low density requiring large vehicles to be carried efficiently and the industry would ideally like the rail loading gauge to allow 3m high pallets to be carried, which would require an even larger gauge than for 3.1 metre containers.

As with other forms of transport - rail has some constraints in the size of the loads it can carry. However, the rail freight industry, through innovation and judicious investment, is constantly opening up more of the network to larger loads.

Standard international maritime containers are 9'6" high and 2.5 metre wide - which equates to W10 loading gauge on Britain's railways. Key corridors like the West Coast Main Line are already W10 gauge (the upgrade to W10 costing just £2 million).

There is also a growing market for 9'6" high, 2.6 metre wide 'swap-bodies'. The extra width requires a W12 loading gauge and SRA's freight strategy envisages upgrading key corridors to W12 gauge. EWS estimate that such a network could be established for around £250 million - roughly equivalent to the cost of five major road junction upgrades.

However, special low floor wagons already allow both variants on the 9'6" container to be carried on the majority of the network and these wagons are already in wide spread use.

The SRA may consider higher gauge options - capable of allowing trains to carry lorry trailers (with their suspension systems deflated) on the Channel Tunnel to Scotland corridor and on Trans-Pennine flows connecting with ferry ports.33

In the meantime the industry is finding ways of incrementally improving loading gauges at marginal cost.

Network Rail ensures that all new or rebuilt structures are able to accommodate an even larger gauge (subject to practicability) which would allow lorry trailers to be carried without their suspension systems deflated
During the upgrade of the West Coast Main Line for higher speed passenger services the opportunity is being taken to provide new W12 freight capacity to Manchester via Macclesfield

Wagons capable of carrying 3-metre high pallets are already in use on Britain's railways. These 'hi-cube' wagons use an in-built floor lift to lower the pallets into position. As well as carrying car components for MG Rover, these wagons will soon be in use between the rail freight distribution centres at Daventry and Grangemouth.

9. Overall the prospect for significant switch from road freight to rail is therefore unlikely and rail should focus on moving bulk products where it has a significant advantage.

Rail freight has grown by 50% (in tonne-kilometres) since 1994 – the new traffic alone is equivalent to over 300 million lorry miles removed from the roads every year.34
Modelling for the SRA suggests that this growth will continue with between 18.9 billion and 45.4 billion tonne-kilometres of additional freight carried by 2010, representing growth of between 3% (most pessimistic base case) and 147% (most optimistic scenario.35

Rail's prospects in both the bulk and non-bulk markets are good with the SRA forecasting growth of between 6.5 billion (base case) and 26.6 billion (best case) tonne-kilometres by 2010 for non-bulk products.36

The RAC's pessimistic conclusions cannot be justified as:

Based on recent trends there is every prospect that the shift from the HGV to the freight train will continue
Rail's significant advantages are extending beyond bulk freight and into general freight. This is due to both worsening road congestion and improvements to rail freight competitiveness that flow from more than a billion pounds of investment since 1995.

In conclusion, we are disappointed that the RAC, which has a reputation for service to its members, has published a report which does the disservice of spreading incorrect information about the important and positive role that rail already performs in reducing road congestion and environmental pollution.

1. 'National Rail Trends', Strategic Rail Authority, December 2002
2. 'Transport Statistics Great Britain', Department for Transport, 2002
3. 'Transport Statistics Great Britain', Department for Transport, 2002
4. 'Transport Statistics Great Britain', Department for Transport, 2002
5. 'Freight Strategy', Strategic Rail Authority, 2001
6. EWS
7. 'Dispelling the most commonly held myths about railfreight', Freight on Rail, 2002
8. 'Freight Strategy', Strategic Rail Authority, 2001
9. 'National Rail Trends', Strategic Rail Authority, December 2002
10. Freightliner ltd
11. Potter Group
12. 'Delivering the rail freight challenge - presentation to national rail conference', Strategic Rail Authority, January 2003
13. Railfreight Group
14. EWS
16. EWS
17. 'Comparative valuation and analysis of train paths', Arup Transport Planning, 2002
18. Freightliner Ltd
19. Freight on Rail analysis of DfT Transport Statistics
20. 'Transport 2010', Department for Transport, 2000
21. EWS