close
Maggie Simpson, executive director, Rail Freight Group

Rail freight needs public investment to deliver vital model shift from road to rail

Political view of rail freight as "inconvenient side-effect" of on-going growth in rail, must change, says Maggie Simpson.

The amount of freight transported by rail has grown by 70% in the last twenty years, generating more than £1.5bn a year in economic benefits for the UK. Rail freight takes the equivalent of 7.6M lorry journeys off our roads each year with potential for growth and further modal shift.

The Rail Freight sector has received significant investment in recent years through the UK Government Freight Network and Transport Innovation Fund. This investment is viewed across the logistics industry as "a strong sign of Government's support for the rail freight sector".

But others in the industry are less enthusiastic. As Lindsay Durham, head of rail strategy at Freightliner, put it to the House of Commons Transport Committee in January 2015, Government's support was "fairly low-key".

Railway Engineers Forum Technical Seminar & RCEA Parliamentary Reception 

A New Agenda for UK Rail Freight for the New Parliament

Monday 15th June 2015 from 0830 hrs

The Institution of Civil Engineers,  One Great George Street, Westminster

Parliamentary evening reception on the House of Lords Terrace at 1830 hrs.

To book email: ref@springboard-marketing.co.uk 

Although there has been high-level support from the Government in principle for rail freight, this was not matched by resources or commitment within the Department.

John Smith, Managing Director, GB Railfreight, told the same Committee hearing that "the rhetoric is certainly there, but the intelligent, pragmatic understanding of what is then needed is sadly lacking….. freight could get marginalised as the Department was almost writing timetables [for passenger rail] that the infrastructure cannot support".

As a result, the final debate on rail freight in the last Parliament was left to conclude that “rail freight was viewed as an inconvenient side-effect" by the Department for Transport.

Written evidence to the Transport Committee, held in January 2015, argued that the investment was "still small in comparison to passenger investment". At most, the rail freight investment accounted for just 3.2% of the enhancements fund, while freight trains account for 7.5% of all train miles on the network.

Nigel Jones, Head of Planning at DB Schenker and the freight representative for the Rail Delivery Group, cautioned about separating the funding for freight-specific enhancements from the work on the network as whole. He suggested to the Transport Committee that to gain maximum benefit from freight-specific investment it needed to be implemented alongside the investment on the rest of the network. 

As an example Mr Jones cited the need for coordination between the investment on the freight route from Felixstowe and the Midland Main Line …..rail freight had "played second-fiddle to passenger services for so long", other witnesses called for freight to be treated as a priority when considering rail investment in trans-Pennine links.

The Transport Committee were also told by local government representatives from Lincolnshire,  most UK-manufactured cars are exported through Grimsby, but "none of them" travelled to the port by rail…..all trains coming out of Immingham docks had to go through a junction "still operated by semaphore signalling".

"Delivering a modal shift from road to rail for freight would require a supportive Government policy: through grants, or certainty about access charges."

Although the rail freight operators had been working far more closely with Network Rail through the Rail Delivery Group, delivering "big improvements in performance" since 2010, the sector has seen limited progress in releasing unused train paths.

However, real concerns of the freight companies continue over the proposed increases to track access charges. While the increases were less than originally proposed, the charges have still increased by 17% during the time that road fuel duty—the main charge paid by road hauliers—had been frozen.

It is not just the increases that had affected rail freight, but also the complexity and lack of long-term certainty over the access charges, compared to fuel duty. The Rail Freight Group describes the system as a "hugely complicated beast", noting that "the spreadsheet of track access charges has 4,000 entries for freight". In addition, the current system was set up without an incentive for Network Rail to take measures such as investing in higher-quality track—which reduces damage to the track, allowing for a reduction in track access charges and benefits for all track users.

It is also important to recognise the obstacles to wider electrification of freight lines.

At present, no high-powered electric freight locomotive suitable for the UK is available. The rail freight operators say that a large order of electric locomotives would be required to make the cost of designing and testing a new electric locomotive affordable. Such an order would "require a step change in the electrification of the UK network to either be in place or committed".

"Network Rail needs to "prioritise the right schemes to encourage freight operators to invest in electric locomotives now""

Network Rail needs to "prioritise the right schemes to encourage freight operators to invest in electric locomotives now", arguing that while the electric spine will be useful in the medium term, there are routes for which electrification would have a more significant impact in the short term. GB Railfreight has identified these routes as Nuneaton to Hams Hall and Felixstowe to Ipswich, and for CP6, Ipswich to Nuneaton via Ely.

A further issue with freight rolling stock is that the non-road mobile machinery European Directive requires any new locomotives purchased since 14 December to meet emission standards IIIb—for which there are no compliant locomotives suitable for UK track gauges. The Rail Freight Group warned that "it is difficult to see how manufacturers will respond to this given the small UK market".

Delivering a modal shift from road to rail for freight would require a supportive Government policy: through grants, or certainty about access charges. Quite simply, that none of the freight sector's customers would "choose to use rail freight just for the environmental benefits", and it is a prerequisite that rail freight had to match or better road freight on price.

If you would like to join this important debate on transport logistics and infrastructure investment and want to add your voice to those at the REF Parliamentary Reception please contact Yvette email : ref@springboard-marketing.co.uk 

Maggie Simpson is executive director of the Rail Freight Group.

Railway Engineers Forum Technical Seminar & RCEA Parliamentary Reception 

A New Agenda for UK Rail Freight for the new Parliament

Monday 15th June 2015 from 0830 hrs : Parliamentary evening reception on the Terrace of the House of Lords from 1830 hrs : 

The Institution of Civil Engineers,  One Great George Street, Westminster