FBJ 4 FREIGHT BUSINESS JOURNAL


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Issue 3 2013 FROM THE EDITOR


Few figures are as reviled in recent British transport history as Dr Beeching. As chairman of the British Railways Board in the 1960s, he is best remembered for the ‘Beeching Axe’ which closed a few thousand miles of unremunerative line, mostly rural branches, many of whose daily traffic figures were in the one man and a dog category. Bogeyman he may be, but I can’t remember his name being uttered in anger


By Chris Lewis


in our household when the local branch line closed down, though in fairness I was only four at the time. My old man was far more preoccupied with his new (secondhand) Ford Anglia and my mum could always get to the nearest big town on the hourly bus. But there is another side to Beeching, points out Philippa Edmunds, Freight on


Rail manager. “Beeching is a much maligned figure for what he did to passenger rail services. It’s easy to forget that he dramatically modernised freight, with containerisation and the promotion of rail for long-distance haulage. It’s a system which has served the industry well and allowed it to thrive,” she says. Without Beeching, there might have been no Freightliner, no bulk deliveries of coal by train; in fact, possibly no rail freight at all.


If nothing else, the Beeching era teaches us that the transport landscape is continually evolving. During his chairmanship of British Rail, the railways were seen as being in (possibly terminal) decline outside London and the South-east. Roads and airports were to be the transport of the future. Forty years on, the railways are carrying more passengers than at any time


since the 1920s – despite Beeching’s rigorous pruning of the network – and freight has made such a strong recovery that serious thought is being given to restoring some of the axed trunk and cross-country routes. Meanwhile, road and air transport is having to contend with ever tougher


green taxes and restrictions. For many companies, environmentalism isn’t a mere window-dressing exercise but fundamentally underpins their entire logistics policy. The FBJ crystal ball is a little cloudy, but we can certainly state that all this is


going to have an effect on the shape of the freight industry of the future. It could mean sending goods by sea as close as possible to the point of consumption. It might mean that through rail freight through the Channel Tunnel at last begins to make a dent in the huge amount that currently goes by road – though that would mean the French Railways offering an attractive and competitive alternative, which at the moment does seem rather unlikely. It only goes to show that decisions on transport infrastructure can have very


long-term effects. Certainly, there are those who wish that the Good Doctor Beeching had been a


little less conscientious with his axe. Today’s unwanted branch line could be the vital freight artery of the future.


Meanwhile, the freight industry itself is evolving. A couple of decades ago, the pallet networks were no more than a gleam if a few entreprenurs’ eyes. Now, they have evolved to the point that, not only is the UK market virtually saturated, but many of them are pushing on into Europe. At the same time, specialist networks such as those for hazardous cargo have evolved, some of which again are developing into Europe. It’s unlikely that the pallet networks will sweep all before them in Europe – the traditional groupage operators are staging a robust defence of their market share – but they add a further option for shippers and a fresh way of thinking about freight.


As we write this, the national media is all abuzz with the news of the passing of one time British PM and scourge of wets and trade unionists, Maggie Thatcher. Even aſter all this time, there are pubs in Liverpool where you cannot utter her name without unleashing a torrent of highly-charged Scouse expletitives. Like her or loathe her, Thatcher’s pro-business, privatising policies changed the industrial landscape of Britain forever and to some extent, we are all Thatchers’ children today. Few of us work in nationalised industries of the traditional type


///OPINION


FBJ has already become established as the only UK and one of the few pan-European Multimodal newspapers. The comments we have received prove there is still room for a hard copy publication with the freighting industry. You don’t have to look at a screen all day!


FBJ boasts the most informative and authoritative source of information with unrivalled in-depth knowledge of the rapidly changing freight business environment.


As the definitive publication within the sea, air, road and rail freight sectors, each issue includes regular news and analysis, in-depth coverage discovering the business decisions behind the news stories, shipper and exporter reports, opinion, geographical features, political and environmental issues.


If you have any stories or letters which should be of interest or any feedback on FBJ, please contact our editor Chris Lewis - +44 (0)208 6450666 chris.lewis@fj-online.com


next issue >>


Our next issue will include features on Malta & Ro Ro, plus our annual


Freight Soſtware Guide. There will also be our regular IT Section and news pages. For further details contact: John Saunders - +44 (0) 151 427 6800 john.saunders@fj-online.com


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FBJ please register by emailing your details to circulation@fj-online. com or fax back the address cover sheet included with this issue.


any more; many of us will have heeded her henchman Norman Tebbitt’s and got on our bikes in search of work, usually somewhere down South. Maybe it’s no coincidence, but the years of the Tory ascendency in the UK


coincided with the massive changes in international freight including the rise of the express carriers, the denationalisation of most of the ports and the privatisation of the airlines. And the decline of engineering and heavy industry meant that trade between the UK and most countries around the world became heavily import-biased, in value if not in volume terms.


You can prove anything with statistics, they say, but should we perhaps take heart from the latest survey of the freight forwarding industry by Transport Intelligence? With the industry showing confidence in a market turnaround for the fiſth month in a row, perhaps the freight industry is on to something – the Cyprus banking crisis and other economic upsets not withstanding. And where the freight industry leads, the rest of the global economy oſten


follows. Dare we hope that this is the light at the end of the tunnel? It’s certainly a good thought Birmingham this April.


to take away to the Multimodal show in


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