Enabling freight’s potential

“You don’t have to be carbon-focused to see the [environmental] message is getting out there,” said Great British Railways Transition Team Programme Director (Freight Reform) Helen McAllister.

Reiterating the benefits of moving freight off lorries and on to trains, McAllister (pictured) said that the freight carriers have shown how they could deliver, even during the troubles of COVID-19 and Brexit, and had “helped remove road tailbacks, not just carbon [emissions]”.

McAllister said the WilliamsShapps Plan for Rail contained “really good things if you looked at in the right way”, noting that the Government will set a growth target for rail freight.

“Now we absolutely want the private sector to do what it does best,” she said.

McAllister admitted that rail freight “can’t move everything across the UK”, but called for recognition of how it fits into the bigger logistics area.

She asked for the freight growth target from the Secretary of State for Transport to be accompanied by a “statement of intent”, concluding: “Crucially, we need to get good ideas over the line” [contract awarded] to drive market development.”

Intermodality Managing Director Nick Gallop highlighted society’s growing awareness of ‘green’ issues, saying: “It’s no longer just Greta or Attenborough, no longer just activists and academics.”

He recalled that despite losing so much coal transport business (due to the decline in the mining industry), the freight industry survived. He called for export/ import companies and shippers to make greater use of the Channel Tunnel, noting that currently only four freight trains per day use it.

“It’s a pity it took Brexit and COVID-19 to rediscover [a focus upon] the Channel Tunnel,” he said, pondering how line access for freight would fare against that allocated for passenger traffic in the future.

Gallop concluded that missing past targets for freight growth had deterred future investors. But looking to the future, he asked: “How do you make a rail freight strategy great? By stabilising funding, improving efficiency, cutting costs and bureaucracy, by working with freight operating companies and their customers.”