Rail freight’s serious problems…

Rail freight has been under relentless pressure from competing road transport. It has been outperformed and is (in real terms and by any measure) now a small player in the total freight market.

The cost base is far too high. It needs to be seriously reduced if it is to be competitive.

The largest cost in running a freight train for a day is the cost of the locomotive and wagons. For road haulage, the largest cost is fuel, followed by driver wages. Train drivers are paid 60%-70% more than lorry drivers.

The government will not increase fuel duty on road vehicles because that will stoke inflation, which it wants to reduce. This means that inflation in the road freight industry is likely to be less than that experienced by rail freight, because it is being protected from inflation in fuel (road haulage’s biggest cost).

Of equal importance is the need to increase asset productivity by massive amounts. The deployment of ‘self-aware’ technology on traction and rolling stock resources, to minimise downtime and maximise revenue, is essential. The costly and slow processes of new equipment design, certification and acceptance are arcane - and a real brake on rail’s potential.

The access charging regime for freight needs to be recast. At present, rail is charged per movement. This compares poorly with the annual flat fee for road transport, which does not reflect the mileage travelled by the vehicle.

This puts rail at an immediate commercial and operational disadvantage. Resolving this would require the intervention of an incoming administration.

It can take between three and five hours to strip and reload an intermodal train in a terminal. A reach stacker can position itself to lift a container, adjust the spreader, lift the container, and deposit it to an adjacent trailer in 45 seconds. Therefore, stripping and loading a train using a single reach stacker takes 34 minutes.

Where does the rest of the time go? When train wheels are not turning, it is not earning.

And when a train does get onto the network, its average speed is less than 30mph, despite being cleared for 75mph.

The attachment of any incoming administration to net zero suggests the need for a consistent rolling programme of electrification. This could be implemented at much lower cost and more rapidly than recent UK schemes.

This would reinforce rail’s green and energy credentials, to secure real commercial gain and simultaneously respect shippers’ primary focus on cost competitiveness. This is a key aspiration and an achievable industry initiative.

Battery and hydrogen propulsion for rail freight are not credible options for freight and are distracting blind alleys.

The sector needs to consider the use of alternative lighter, faster, shorter push-pull and possibly self-propelled train formations as a credible supplement to existing locomotive-hauled trains.

Linking this to a ‘toolkit’ to allow rapid and cost-effective rail connections to existing or proposed logistics development sites, and the need for a rail component to be part of any new-site planning proposals, would seriously enhance rail’s capabilities.

Simple, austere intermodal terminals in areas currently underprovided for (the West Country, Wales, East Anglia, South Midlands) could act as ‘pioneer’ developments for lower-cost credible market testing.

The development of ‘pop-up’ freight transfer points at major passenger stations, to service key urban zones, could add a further dimension for palletised traffic and small-lot logistics.

The entire issue of governance, organisation and intra-sector relationships needs to be fixed, to avoid the constant volatility to which the rail sector has long been subjected. Competing modes are not subjected to this sort of continuous disruption.

An incoming administration could set out agreed actionable targets for modal shift and market share.

The roles of the Department for Transport, Office of Rail and Road and other related agencies that have a bearing on rail need to be clearly defined. They should not have any influence on or involvement in routine commercial and operational decisions, or vehicle and technology detail. The role of Network Rail in a unified railway model also needs to be clarified.

The key questions revolve around why potential users would select rail, given the availability of credible, attractive and competitive alternatives.

This implies the need for a rapid response mechanism to incorporate train path planning, scheduling, routeing, terminal access and resource allocation, to support commercial and operational requests - including complete transit loading gauge compliance.

The sector has resisted adopting this sort of initiative in the past. Freight train path allocation within wider timetable planning needs to be more flexible and responsive.

To give rail competitive freedom on a par with the road freight sector suggests the need to replace the arcane requirements of driver route knowledge with an in-cab real-time advisory system for drivers on speed limits, signals, and key infrastructure locations and status. This would enable drivers to operate trains safely over routes not previously traversed, and endow rail with the flexibility that road transport exploits fully.

Within the life of one administration, developing a core network of services able to rapidly transport tri-axle semi-trailers safely on trains between major conurbations would be a huge breakthrough.

Trailers are the preferred workhorse of the UK freight and logistics sector, but road transport is likely to come under increased pressure in terms of emissions and city access.

Rail currently cannot transport trailers owing to infrastructure constraints (bridges, tunnels, power supply). This would be an ambitious long-term aspiration that would potentially transform rail freight’s capabilities.

In summary, “more of the same” does not appear a tenable option. Radical re-positioning is required - and some of it is within the gift of the sector to resolve without excessive involvement by government.

Phil Mortimer is a director of several small UK research companies focused on new transport technologies, including rail and intermodal freight, terminal operations and port-related transport.