Thought on emerging and future risks to UK rail freight operations? [open discussion]

[davidknibb]

The source of the freight disappearing i surely a pretty big risk. Obvious example being movement of coal - often from the minehead to the power station

The source of the freight disappearing is surely a pretty big risk. Obvious example being movement of coal - often from the minehead to the power station

The source of the freight disappearing is surely a pretty big risk. Obvious example being movement of coal - often from the minehead to the power station

And does mail count as freight. Thats going. And are there any newspaper trains left. Trains full of fish from the ports. Or even strawberries in the season. all gone.

 

[mwmbwls]

Green Signals

News Commentary Podcast · 1 Seasons · Updated weekly

podcasts.apple.com

Richard Bowker's interview with Tim Shoveller of Freightliner is an excellent introduction to the challenges of the rail freight business.

 

[Andrew1395]

Relaxing planning that might allow even larger road based distribution complexes linked to the motorway network. Removing sustainability tests on all planning applications.

Enabling larger lorries on Uk roads.

Increased National Insurance on UK based employers.

Cuts in DfT and devolved government budgets.

 

[Indigo Soup]

Increased National Insurance on UK based employers.

That might go either way, I should think. While it's easier to employ non-UK drivers for road haulage, rail freight presumably uses less labour per unit of cargo.

 

[HSTEd]

That might go either way, I should think. While it's easier to employ non-UK drivers for road haulage, rail freight presumably uses less labour per unit of cargo.

For things like hauling thousands of tonnes of coal, yes.
But for more normal cargoes, I am not sure the advantage is in favour of rail - or if it is, that it is strongly so.

The entire Royal Mail rail operation can apparently be replaced with only 30 additional lorry driver jobs after all.

 

[The Planner]

For things like hauling thousands of tonnes of coal, yes.
But for more normal cargoes, I am not sure the advantage is in favour of rail - or if it is, that it is strongly so.

The entire Royal Mail rail operation can apparently be replaced with only 30 additional lorry driver jobs after all.

Intermodal is becoming/is the norm, you aren't replacing that with 30 lorry drivers.

 

[Dr Hoo]

Intermodal is becoming/is the norm, you aren't replacing that with 30 lorry drivers.

No, but there are a lot more crane operators, tug drivers, shunters and so on. Particularly at inland terminals they add more costs than throughout road movement to and from ports.

 

[james_the_xv]

Waving access charges for 6 months for new flows is a good start, but to achieve a modal shift the govt need to subside rail freight (or tax to discourage road haulage that can be done by rail) at a substantial level. I don't think there is the capacity on the network until HS2 phase 1 (and probably 2a) for this to be a reality though...

 

[furnessvale]

No, but there are a lot more crane operators, tug drivers, shunters and so on. Particularly at inland terminals they add more costs than throughout road movement to and from ports.

If that adds more cost why are containers moved by rail in such numbers?

When measured by tonnes/kms, which is the only real world measure of freight moved, rail moves more than 50% of the container freight from the major southern container ports.

 

[Dr Hoo]

If that adds more cost why are containers moved by rail in such numbers?

When measured by tonnes/kms, which is the only real world measure of freight moved, rail moves more than 50% of the container freight from the major southern container ports.

On longer distance flows the ‘terminal’ element of costs is a lower proportion of the total ‘package’.
Shorter flows obviously generate fewer tonne km. These are the ones where rail struggles on cost.

 

[HSTEd]

Waving access charges for 6 months for new flows is a good start, but to achieve a modal shift the govt need to subside rail freight (or tax to discourage road haulage that can be done by rail) at a substantial level. I don't think there is the capacity on the network until HS2 phase 1 (and probably 2a) for this to be a reality though...

Rail freight is already subsidised to a very large degree.

Unless you believe that railfreight existing costs Network Rail only £53m a year in wear and tear and capacity..... (p184/214)

 

[furnessvale]

Rail freight is already subsidised to a very large degree.

Unless you believe that railfreight existing costs Network Rail only £53m a year in wear and tear and capacity..... (p184/214)

As you are well aware, road haulage is subsidised to an even larger degree, thanks to the largesse of the private motorist. It is government policy. Any subsidy to railfreight only levels up the figures slightly.

 

[Merle Haggard]

If that adds more cost why are containers moved by rail in such numbers?

When measured by tonnes/kms, which is the only real world measure of freight moved, rail moves more than 50% of the container freight from the major southern container ports.

In the case of container traffic from ports handling costs are broadly the same for road and rail - in both cases the container has to be loaded on a wagon. For these flows, rail freigt has less of a disadvantage. Internal (within the country) flows require containers to be both loaded and unloaded for trains, whereas the lorry can carry the container from origin to destination - the economies of moving a large number of containers on a single train being balanced by the terminal costs. Freightliner since its inception about 60 years ago has been making judgments based on those calculations.

Rail freight is already subsidised to a very large degree.

Unless you believe that railfreight existing costs Network Rail only £53m a year in wear and tear and capacity..... (p184/214)

The freight companies pay the track access charges with money they earn.
Fifty percent of track access charges for the 'Inter City' former TOCs are paid direct to Network Rail by the Government, it seems (other threads). The source of the other half is, to say the, least hazy.
For the other passenger former TOCs there's already considerable Government financial support so one might argue that the access charges are included within this subsidy. In other words, the access payments made by the passenger business to Network Rail mainly come from the Government. While it may be true that 'rail freight is subsidised' (because it doesn't pay its true track costs) this applies to all other traffic as well.

Looking at the tortuous routes taken by freight trains one might wonder whether they consume much capacity on lines with dense traffic.

 

[Adrian Barr]

For the other passenger former TOCs there's already considerable Government financial support so one might argue that the access charges are included within this subsidy. In other words, the access payments made by the passenger business to Network Rail mainly come from the Government.

The Network Rail Accounts linked in post #41 show that NR received a Network Grant of £7.5bn direct from government, plus £2.2bn in "franchised network access" (track access paid mainly by TOCs) in 2023.

A Government Rail Factsheet for the same year mentions total government support to rail of around £21bn:

In the FYE March 2023, TOCs received an overall subsidy of £4.2bn from Government
Network Rail received a grant of £7.5bn
Network Rail and HS2 also received a total of £8.9bn in enhancements funding

Unless I'm missing something, this means the TOCS received £4.2bn from the government in subsidy and then paid £2.2bn of it to Network Rail in access charges. This is equivalent to the TOCs getting free track access and then receiving a cash subsidy of £2bn on top.

For passenger rail to operate under the same conditions as freight, with no direct subsidy, they would need negative access charges, where NR would pay them £2 billion for the honour of hosting their trains.

================

Returning to the main topic of this thread, the future of rail freight is reliant on government policy supporting it - for example the cancellation of parts of HS2 is a setback for rail freight, not just passenger. However, there is mostly cross-party support on rail freight, and a "put freight on the road" campaign is unlikely to appeal to the average motorist, in addition to being distinctly at odds with stated government policies.

Bigger threats at the moment come from uncertainty over things like the future of the UK steel industry - while their are plans to build electric arc furnaces at Port Talbot and Scunthorpe, any major global financial wobbles, or a downturn in the steel industry itself, could put this investment at risk (at least until they reach the "point of no return" where the money has already been spent, equipment ordered, plant constructed and so on).

On the political / business side of things I think there is some high-level focus on future risks and strategies, but only some of it will be in the public eye. For example the Freight On Rail campaign or the Rail Freight Group.
There's always security / infrastructure / safety risk to consider on a daily basis, but I suppose the idea of risk management is to look for the things you haven't already thought about...

 

[Egg Centric]

As you are well aware, road haulage is subsidised to an even larger degree, thanks to the largesse of the private motorist. It is government policy. Any subsidy to railfreight only levels up the figures slightly.

Not by what I would consider a reasonable definition of subsidy. That the private motorist pays disproportionately more for the roads than hauliers in relation to the wear they cause is of course absolutely true. But hauliers are not subsidised - they still pay more for the roads than they "use".

This seems like the same definition of subsidy that claims airlines are subsidised because they pay less tax on fuel than cars...

 

[JKF]

The source of the freight disappearing i surely a pretty big risk. Obvious example being movement of coal - often from the minehead to the power station





And does mail count as freight. Thats going. And are there any newspaper trains left. Trains full of fish from the ports. Or even strawberries in the season. all gone.

Oil traffic is also likely to disappear at some point in the next couple of decades as battery vehicles become more prevalent and volume needed decreases to the point that bulk rail loads are no longer needed. I cycled past the Westerleigh terminal at the weekend and wondered how long that branch might have left.