DDRF ANNUAL CONFERENCE
“ It’s right and proper that we have debates about the cost of the industry, and that we spend time and effort trying to be more effi cient, but can we please just decide something and then stick to it?”
Simpson explained: “Do we want vertical integration, don’t we vertical integration? Do we want devolution, regional devolution, Network Rail devolution? Do we want deep or shallow alliances? Are we going to renationalise it or are we not?
“We’re now at a point where the rail regulator has concluded they won’t be looking at geographically-broken up access charges now – but they might do in the future.
“You’re about to spend £80m building a rail connected warehouse, in the future you don’t know if that’s going to be on a cheap route, or an expensive route and worse, you don’t know if your competitor’s warehouse round the corner is going to be on a cheap or expensive route. Why would you put your money in? You won’t.”
Other instances of this included the
confusion around incentives, where FOCs had previously been encouraged to load up trains to maximise productivity, but are now penalised for damaging the track with their heavy vehicles.
Above: The site where the London Gateway dock is to be built, which Simpson calls a “game-changer” for intermodal freight.
“It’s right and proper that we have debates about the cost of the industry, and that we spend time and effort trying to be more effi cient, but can we please just decide something and then stick to it?” (see panel, left, for more on access charges)
Learning to share
Freight operators must also get better at sharing resources, Simpson said, to avoid some locos sitting around unused, while other companies are “scrabbling around Europe, desperate to get their hands on any traction they can”.
“It’s madness,” she said. “Why can’t we have one person running a train into a terminal and somebody picking up the loco and running back out? We’ve got such a long way to go on sharing resources. It’s the bread and butter of the road industry; they do it all the time.
“We haven’t even got 2% of the answers when it comes to the logistics sector. We’ve got to get out and try to make those links.”
New hope
A third of rail freight business today is coal, which is projected to decline as the UK starts to look towards different sources of fuel, especially with the next wave of European directives on emissions due in 2016 and the Energy Bill currently passing through Parliament. Simpson said: “This is a really important matter for the
“Inevitably freight is probably a bit behind where we are with passenger,” she admitted, “but we’ve got to start now making provision, and trying to think about how we can do that.”
Maggie Simpson FOR MORE INFORMATION
The ORR’s conclusions can be seen here:
www.rail-reg.gov.uk/pr13/PDF/freight- conclusions-jan-2013.pdf
rail technology magazine Feb/Mar 13 | 25
“We’re starting to make some really good progress, we’ve got some really enlightened people out there, but the number of major logistics companies in the UK who use freight routinely is very small.
“We’re very good in rail at being quite siloed, we think that we’ve got all the answers and we haven’t.
“There are some brilliant terminals out there, but there are many out there which are not effi cient, they can’t handle the length of train that’s necessary and they need to work to be able to allow themselves to compete.”
Rail is still “a bit of a niche” when it comes to the logistics sector, and the industry must work to get it into the mainstream, to take advantage of the opportunities available there.
operators.”
However, there was hope for freight in the renewables sector, particularly considering biomass. If the big coal generators in the UK decide to convert to biomass this could be “a huge opportunity” for the rail sector.
HS2 could also have signifi cant implications for freight, with Greengauge21 research indicating that if some, not even all, of the capacity on the West Coast Main Line can be freed up by phase 1 for freight, this could add 55% to the direct carbon savings of the project.
“Even if we only got half of that it would be worth having,” she added.
The future is electric
The most modern electric locomotive available to freight today is now 20 years old, and Simpson made the case for electric rolling stock to meet future demand.
“If we’re going to start looking at
electrifi cation for freight, and I believe we have to for environmental and capacity reasons, areas like locomotive traction strategies have got to be looked at.”
This will involve considering how such freight would be serviced, what the gaps in the electric network are, and whether there’s a business case to do anything about them.
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