2 aſter its


Issue 6 2011


DB Schenker launches inaugural HS1 freight service A


regular weekly container train service between Poland and


the UK carrying European-sized curtain-sided swap bodies has been launched by DB Schenker aſter the first train leſt Wroclaw, Poland for a three-day journey to Barking, Essex, writes James Graham. Three hours


01.00


arrival at Barking, the return leg departed at around 04.00 the same morning. It is anticipated the service will handle manufactured parts, automotive sector components and


an extensive range of goods for the food and retail markets. The significance of the service


is that it is the first regular rail freight service to use the 108km High Speed 1 (HS1) rail route from the Channel to the capital. The significantly larger


capacity


available from the swap bodies, with an internal height of three metres, means two standard pallets can be transported stacked on top of each other. This provides a more efficient and economic means of


transporting the maximum amount of product per train, say the service’s supporters. The work to introduce rail


freight services onto High Speed 1 has been supported by the European Commission’s Marco Polo programme to steer cargo away from road services to alternative modes. Alain Thauvette, DB Schenker


Rail UK CEO said: “This is an historic moment for European rail freight. We have worked hard to introduce services onto HS1 as this opens


High Speed 1 will allow double- deck swap bodies but elsewhere in Britain capacity is limited


line at night. This first regular service demonstrates the demand for such services, and we hope that this is the first of many more.” One issue the service has


European rail-sized haulage to the UK. We will work with our customers in the UK to demonstrate the benefits of using the HS1 rail route to trade with mainland Europe and expect to introduce a number of additional trains using this route during 2012.” DB Schenker Rail UK is to upgrade


five class 92 locomotives, the only rail freight locomotives approved to work on HS1, following the service’s launch. Special signalling equipment is being installed in the locomotives, enabling them to work with the signalling systems on HS1. Industry group Rail Freight


Group (RFG) has also welcomed launch of the service. Tony Berkeley, RFG chairman, said: “This is the culmination of five years hard work to get such traffic accepted on HS1. RFG is supporting train operators in their negotiations with HS1 on allowing more freight trains to operate on the


Freight grants may be ‘money down the drain’ says DfT official M


uch of the money that had been spent on the now


suspended Freight Facilities Grant scheme was wasted, a Department for Transport official told an industry conference. Nick Denton, of the DfT’s Freight and Logistics Division, told the Waterfront Interactive Symposium on Intermodal Freight on 11 November that much of the £2m that had been spent under the scheme had failed to deliver the expected shift from road to rail


or water. Moreover, uptake of the grants was low – a total of £6m had been made available, but £4m went unused. In fact, it was surprising that the National Audit Office had not investigated what was arguably a scandalous misuse of public money. He claimed that 40% of FFG grants were “under- or non-performing”. However, the Revenue Support


Grant, which only pays out when containers are actually moved by rail or water, had been much more


successful and was continuing, Denton added. Delegates to the symposium said


that that was not their experience of the FFG grants, however. Forth Ports’ commercial and development manager Nik Scott-Gray said that of the two grant-aided schemes his company had been involved with, both were well ahead of expectations. He said that a Freight Facilities Grant had been essential in reactivating Kirkaldy Harbour


highlighted is the smaller UK loading gauge. Berkeley is confident that there are solutions to this matter. He says: “For boxes, the key is to be


able to carry 9’ 6” boxes on rail. There are a number of wagons that can do this, but most require the bridges to be raised as has happened this year at Southampton”. The new WH Davis Super Low wagon can though carry the same boxes more widely on the network and is being used for the first time for a flow from Teesport to the North West, Berkeley added. The use of continental wagons


generally requires width at the lower parts which requires a route that does not go past any UK station platforms, which tend to be higher than most continental ones. Currently only the HS1 route to Barking and St Pancras is cleared. At a Waterfront symposium


in London on 10 November, Dr Carsten Hinne, DB Schenker Rail UK’s managing director of logistics hailed the “historic service” which had arrived in the UK for the first time


///NEWS


that night. However, he added: “While we need to exploit infrastructure like the Channel Tunnel, there are still constraints that make it difficult.” Above all, Channel Tunnel track access charges needed to be competitive, he said. Nevertheless, with ten domestic


intermodal services within the UK and three other international routes from Duisburg, Domodossola and Valencia, there was scope to expand international services still further. It could even be possible to link DBS’s new China-Hamburg rail service to the UK via the existing service from Duisburg, he said. But the railways needed to step up their marketing: “If we market trains the way be have in the past, we won’t be successful.” However, there are some


problems in using a rail link that is essentially designed for daytime high-speed passenger trains, pointed out Rail Freight Group policy manager Maggie Simpson. “High Speed 1 will only let you have trains five days a week because they’re polishing the track on the other days,” she told the symposium. “We need to push towards getting more trains running at the weekend,” she said.


for commercial traffic aſter a long period of disuse and “removing 19 years-worth of silt”. Coastal shipping was now beginning to pick up in Scotland and traffic was developing to and from the Thames and Humber region. But it was disappointing that FFGs had effectively ceased to exist. A new fund had been promised for Scotland at some point in the future but it was unclear what form it would take.


UK road pricing ‘inevitable’ T


he UK is almost certainly heading for road pricing, a


Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport expert


told the


Waterfront Interactive Symposium on Intermodal Freight Transport. Michael Woods, who is also head of operations and management research at the Rail Safety and Standards Board told the event in London on 11 November: “I cannot believe that the future will not involve an element of road pricing,


of charging for scarce resources.” The measure, though, “will not be loved by politicians”, he predicted. Later in the symposium, Nick


Denton, of the DfT’s Freight and Logistics Division, said that there indeed firm plans for lorry road user charging but it would be a “cheap-and-cheerful” scheme to charge trucks a flat £10 a day – the maximum amount that can be demanded for this type of scheme under EU rules.


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