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wagons, but there are proposals to create the capacity to do this on the East Coast mainline from Edinburgh down through Newcastle towards the South East of England. That would certainly be a strate- gic benefit for Scotland, and an environ- mental benefit. It would give us an alter- native route for Scottish exports, rather than everything having to funnel down the West Coast mainline which isn’t ideal if you’re trying to head for somewhere like Teesport or Humber ports.”


Spaven said he had “three main aims” in his new job: “The first one, which I’m busy on now, is trying to understand better what our Scottish members’ concerns and priorities are for rail freight in Scotland.


“Then we’ll move forward hopefully to raise the profile of rail freight in Scotland among the media and politicians, remind- ing them that it’s very important to have a safe, sustainable and resilient means of moving freight around, not least with the way oil prices are going, and the greater vulnerability of road haulage to increases in oil prices. The third strand is lobbying for strategic improvements to the net- work, either funded by Network Rail or the Scottish Government.”


“Everybody can experience being a passenger themselves, while freight is something of a hidden, mysterious world.”


Image courtesy of Network Rail


large number of long-distance single-track routes, where there are issues of capacity for passenger and freight traffic and even more basic issues; for example, are the crossing loops long enough for a decent economic size of freight train. There are some distinctive Scottish features here which to some extent have been tackled, but we’re not in a situation now where freight trains can go anywhere at any time, and ideally we’d like to move towards that.”


He has some specific ideas on how to do that, he said, needing some investment but also political will.


He explained: “Given the importance of inter-modal traffic on rail, the question of loading gauge is absolutely critical, and quite a few of the lines in Scotland are not of an ideal loading gauge.


“They cannot readily carry, for example, 9”6’ containers on standard rail platform


Rail Technology Magazine has looked in detail in recent issues at a huge Scottish rail project, the Airdrie to Bathgate up- grade, which could also have an impact on freight, Spaven thinks.


“At one level, it could be a useful diver- sionary route from the east to the west of Scotland, but perhaps more critically Bathgate is very close to what one would regard as the centre of gravity for road dis- tribution within Scotland, for example for supermarkets and such companies.


“There is a potential railhead facility sit- ting immediately to the east of Bathgate that was originally going to be a car ter- minal and is now sitting there with direct connection to the mainline, but with no immediate purpose in mind.


“Therefore the ability to run freight trains to and from Bathgate could be quite im- portant for Scottish distribution, but as things stand we don’t have the loading


The rail freight industry is


concerned that billions could be spent on a second Forth Road Bridge.


Bryn_S


gauge clearance into Bathgate. That’s an issue that needs to be clarified with Network Rail, because electrification work normally increases the loading gauge very significantly, particularly in height terms.


“At the moment it’s not absolutely clear what gauge can be got into Bathgate, but that potentially could be quite a useful strategic improvement.”


The RFG has a long-term goal of ‘levelling the playing field’ between road and rail in terms of political support, investment, and subsidy – but it is certainly not there yet.


Spaven explained: “When one looks at the range of environmental benefits from rail – lower carbon, more energy efficient, fewer accidents, less of most air pollut- ants than road haulage – there’s an issue in there of how far rail is being facilitated versus roads.


“We’ve got a situation in Scotland where a second Forth Road Bridge is now being planned, which is going to cost £2.3bn and be extremely useful to road hauliers. One has to ask, where’s the equivalent in terms of making things easier for rail freight?


“For example, loading gauge into and out of Fife, which is potentially an even more important generator of rail freight than it is at the moment.


“There’s no cost estimate as yet, but it would be a tiny fraction of £2.3bn – fairly modest sums of money, maybe hundreds of millions or a lot less than that.


“There are strategic issues in there which are of regional and national importance where the tendency still is for road to get a lot of money and rail not so much.”


David Spaven


FOR MORE INFORMATION Rail Freight Group Visit www.rfg.org.uk


rail technology magazine Feb/Mar 11 | 21


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