Freight


‘One of the things freight has always had a problem with is political influence; we’ve never been that co-ordinated around that’


enhancements for its bulk markets, including work in the north-east of England, which would improve its ability to carry biomass more freely. He is hoping that HS2 will free up capacity on the West Coast Main Line too. The rail freight market has grown


enormously since privatisation – in many ways freight has been the real success story of private investment in the railways. But growth is often held up, or prevented, by Nimbyism, with locals not wanting freight yards in their neighbourhood. ‘One of the things freight has always had


company wanted to be vertically integrated, so they’ve decided to buy a steelworks. These days it’s quite hard to build a steelworks, because of all the emissions regulations. The product will initially be exported via Teesport. It’s a very good news story for us and for the area, to see all those jobs generated again.’ GBRf’s other domestic market is


intermodal. It mainly operates out of Felixstowe, a market that is slowly growing. The port’s owner, Hutchison Ports, is building a new rail terminal there for 30-wagon trains, due to open next year. So Smith is hoping to be able to offer even more services out of the port. Like other freight operators, he would


like to see capacity improvements on the network to allow freight to move around more freely. And he would like to see more inland terminals – something that the Rail Freight Group has been pressing for. ‘A lot of inland terminals are quite


restricted; some of them are getting full. You certainly need one in the Manchester, Liverpool, Crewe corridor – there ought to be money aimed towards that. You need


PAGE 30 MARCH 2012


big inland terminals now like they’ve got in Europe that concentrate a lot of modes of transport in one area.’ He also makes the point that various rail


freight facilities across the country, both at ports and at inland terminals, are owned by a single operator. Although rival operators can use the facilities where there are spare slots, they are at the bottom of the pecking order. GBRf has long wanted to operate out of Southampton, but Freightliner owns the main rail terminal there and it is currently at full capacity. DB Schenker runs some services from Southampton by loading up on the dockside, but this slows down turnaround time. ‘At Felixstowe, we have gone from 13


trains to 29 trains in the last seven or eight years, with all operators operating out of there. Southampton hasn’t grown anything like that much. At Hams Hall all operators go in and it’s grown hugely. Birch Coppice, with all operators in, has also grown hugely. Other terminals that are owned by one operator haven’t grown in that way.’ GBRf has been talking to Network Rail about the need for infrastructure


a problem with is political influence; we’ve never been that co-ordinated around that. What people need to realise is that 50 per cent of the electricity in a Pendolino is carried by a coal train, so without our operating these types of services, there’s a lot of other parts of UK plc that wouldn’t function.’ Are there other goods that we will see


being carried by rail in the next few years? ‘In terms of commodities, always. We’ve


just started carrying fuel that was previously on the road, for a company called Greenergy. But what people don’t appreciate is that intermodal boxes already carry so many different things: we export components for jet fighters to India, we import wine from Australia. ‘As the world modernises, you’ve got to


make sure that rail’s integral to that. You have got to get under the skin of your customers to see what their issues are. And that’s what’s fun about freight – it’s not about trains, it’s about the economics of power generation; it’s about the economics of how we all drink a bottle of wine from Australia; it’s about the economics of getting petrol in your car in Aberystwyth.’


n See www.railpro.co.uk/johnsmith for a video of John Smith expanding on some of the points in this interview


www.railimages.co.uk


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