Will railways shed freight?
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A GREAT deal of general freight traffic traditionally carried by British Rail will become available to road transport soon, according to Mr Richard Marsh, chairman of the British Railways Board. At a press conference last week, he said that British Rail still tarried a lot of general freight for which it was not suitable and though this traffic had been traditionally carried by the railways, it would have to be shed.
This accords with the policy statement after the publication of the undertaking's annual report and accounts a fortnight ago (CM last week). BR is currently discussing the withdrawal of some 30,000 freight wagons and reducing its freight train mileage as a means of reducing the £158 million overall deficit then announced.
It could be considered surprising, therefore, to find the BR executive director (freight) Mr D. S. Binnie allying himself with Mr Sidney Weighell, general secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen, in an article in the Sunday Times in a statement that there are 200 million tons of general cargo at present carried by road which could be carried by rail.
A spokesman for BR told CM this week that the railway management had been insisting for some time that 200 million tons of long-haul (over 50 miles) road freight should be transferred to rail, but only if there was a proper planning and investment programme for the railways.
Be that as it may, the Department of the Environment seems to have given up trying to persuade 100 companies to switch their traffic from road to rail. The Department has now written to the companies concerned and asked them to contact BR direct if they thought that they had any traffic which could go by rail.
The DoE was unable to give any figures about freight that had actually been transferred to rail through this approach and seems to have otherwise washed its hands of the matter.