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• In May the Freight Transport Association and the Confederation

8th June 2000, Page 47
8th June 2000
Page 47
Page 47, 8th June 2000 — • In May the Freight Transport Association and the Confederation
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

of British Industry launched a campaign to promote strategic investment in rail freight and called for Lsbir to be spent on rail infrastructure over the next ro years.

The significance of this cannot be overstated—should the road haulage industry take the bull by the horns and work in alliance with the rail-freight sector? For the haulier, how realistic is it to embrace the world of rail freight? Railtrack recently gave its backing to a Lzoom terminus west of London, projected to take Goo million tonne/km of freight off the road each year (CM 18-24May).

Born out of the privatisation of British Rail in the mid-t 99 os, English, Welsh and Scottish Railways was formed when an international consortium, led by US rail freight operator Wisconsin Central Transportation Corporation, merged the former BR divisions to form a single nationwide freight company.

Through its Enterprise wagonload service EWS tackled declining freight volumes by targeting retailers, manufacturers and logistics companies.

In 1997 it snapped up the last remaining piece of British Rail's freight business, Railfreight Distribution, which gave the company access to the Channel Tunnel. EWS now handles roo million tonnes of freight each year which, it says, takes more than nine million lorry journeys off the roads—but this still only accounts for about 8% of the UK's total freight movements.

Recently EWS has criticised Government moves to help the road haulage industry, such as the introduction of 44-tonners and reduced VED, as rail-unfriendly. In March the company's planning director Graham Smith said: "Heavier lorries will generate more traffic on the roads at a time when they are not paying their full social and environmental costs and will give the road haulage industry an immediate productivity uplift. We are looking for similar measures for rail. This will help us to deliver the government policy objective for major growth in rail freight."

Mutual benefits

However, the FTA sees the introduction of 44-tonners as a benefit to both road and rail. "A .0-tonner is more able to work on multi-modal traffic," says FTA spokesman David Russell. "The introduction of this should be a major benefit to multimodal operations."

Russell goes on to explain why the road haulage industry should not be alarmed by the FTA's call for more spending on rail; We want to see measures taken by the government that make rail attractive to logistics companies. That doesn't automatically mean that that's going to damage the road haulage industry because even if you have substantial increases in the amount of freight going by rail, it's so small now that it wouldn't have a major impact on the road haulage industry."

Sarah Crockford, the FTA,'s European logistics manager, recognises that in recent years the rail-freight industry has lost ground because of poor reliability and performance. One of the things we have been discussing with the rail industry as part of this campaign is how it will improve its performance," she explains. "There has been a recognition by EWS that the cuts in resources and staff have gone too far and that it needs to look at the management and the overall culture of the business to turn it from an engineering business to something that delivers on the customer's promise."

In some ways the recent success of rail in attracting growing passenger traffic has added to the problems faced by EWS. The freight services have to share an increasingly congested network with the passenger companies: making a substantial spend on infrastructure vital if rail freight is going to deliver on its promise of reliability. Both Railtrack and EWS say that the Bbn spend will deliver a significant increase in rail-freight capacity, at least doubling the level of freight that it could carry.

In order to Idck-start growth in rail freight we need to be thinking far more strategically about the infrastructure," says Crockford. "It should be able to offer advantages where the distance and the speed is right and where it can achieve the level of reliability that the customer needs. It's the government's responsibility to ensure that UK industry has access to a reliable and efficient means of transport."

Peter Stirling, director of Peter D Stirling, operates a rail-freight terminal at Bellshill, Motherwell and runs a fleet of r8 road vehicles. The company opened the terminal 20 years ago and has weathered the demise of the rail industry.

"Various services were scrapped, and that affected our business because rail couldn't service us properly," says Stirling. "There were all sorts of service problems and wagons getting lost."

With the advent of FWS, Stirling is now optimistic that rail freight has turned the corner. His company has plenty of room for expansion on its 70-acre site and has plans to spend born on upgrading its operation." With that in mind we are waiting to hear about freight facility grants; we are hoping to know in the next month or so," says Stirling. He believes that there

is plenty of scope for getting more freight off the roads and feels hauliers need to take a close look at their operations. 'The big operators should reduce their fleets and get some loads off the road and onto rail," he says. "A train can take 1,000 tonnes at a time—the equivalent of4o truck loads.

Legacy problems

Richard Fry, transport manager at Somerset-based Framptons International, agrees that some freight could be moved onto rail but adds that only a small percentage of the total would be suitable and that a lot of freight users are put off by the uncertainty of deliveries. He is also not convinced by the environmental arguments. "The public are waking up to the idea that rail terminals create a lot of noise, dust and dirt and that they could have 2.4-hour operations going on in their back yards," he says. "And in that one concentrated area you would also tend to get a heavy influx of trucks."

Framptons runs so vehicles on national and international work and Fry insists that rail will have to tackle its reputation for unreliability: "We know our customers don't like the idea of rail because of the uncertainty of delivery—they want delivery on time every time?

With a Victorian infrastructure and a reputation for unreliability the rail-freight sector needs all the help it can get. The EWS 10-year investment plan may be on the right track but rail freight needs to work with the road haulage industry if it is to reach its destination.


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