Freight in crisis

The amount of freight carried on the national network is at its lowest since the time of the 1980s miners’ strike.

THE amount of freight carried on the national rail network is at its lowest since the time of the miners’ strike of 1984-85.

Office of Rail and Road (ORR) statistics reveal that the total amount of freight lifted fell from 110.5 million tonnes in 2014-15 to 86.0m tonnes in 2015-16 - a drop of 22.2%. The amount of coal lifted in 2015-16 was 19.8 million tonnes - a decline of 54.6% from the corresponding period in 2014-15, and also the lowest since 1984-85.

ORR states that the amount of freight lifted reached its peak in 1988-89, when 149.5 million tonnes were carried. The lowest was 65.2 million in 1984-85 (corresponding with the 12-month miners’ strike), when 14.5 million tonnes of coal was lifted.

Rail Freight Group Executive Director Maggie Simpson said: “These results confirm that 201516 has been a very difficult year for rail freight. The focus now has to be in turning the sector back to growth, and resuming the positive successes of recent decades.”

The total volume of freight moved in 2015-16 was 17.8 billion net tonne kilometres, a decrease of 20% compared with the previous 12-month period. Coal experienced the biggest drop of the seven commodities measured, declining 64.2% to 2.3 billion net tonne kilometres.

ORR stated: “Major contributory factors to the latest decrease in coal moved were the doubling of UK’s top-up carbon tax from April 1 2015 and the gradual move to renewable energy which impacted the amount of coal moved to