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Container delivery on the right lines
November 2007
Phil Hastings, International Trade Today
A series of new UK Government and freight industry initiatives look set to substantially boost the use of rail transport for moving deepsea containers in and out of the country’s major ports over the next few years and confirm the role of that mode as a key element of many export/import supply chains. On the Government-front, for example, a recently-published Department for Transport (DfT) White Paper, Delivering a Sustainable Railway, includes a commitment to £200m of additional investment by 2014 ‘to enable work to start on a Strategic Freight Network (SFN) to provide attractive choices for shippers that do not mean putting more lorries on the road’. That SFN, explained the DfT, would provide ‘an enhanced core freight trunk network, optimised to freight requirements and providing greater capability, reliability and availability’.
Meanwhile at industry level, supply chain solutions provider NYK Logistics has just launched a railfreight operation between the port of Southampton and inland freight terminals at Tamworth and Daventry to help customers ‘avoid port/road congestion and reduce their carbon footprints’.
Currently involving the movement of up to 150 containers per week, the service is primarily being used to ‘support the delivery of product into the UK distribution networks of existing retail customers and is allied to the company’s international supply chain management activities’.
Expanding on the Government’s future plans for the railways, the DfT White Paper claimed freight would be accorded equal consideration with passenger service requirements. ‘It is not in the nation’s environmental or economic interests that passenger traffic should grow at the expense of freight traffic or vice versa. As a result, the Government has made it clear that it will ensure that policies and regulations do not put unnecessary obstacles in the way of future freight growth and that, in specifying passenger activities, the needs of the railfreight industry are considered.’
The White Paper suggested annual UK railfreight volumes were, in fact, set to increase by 30 per cent over the next few years, from a total of 105m tonnes in 2004/05 to more than 130m tonnes by 2014/15. Commenting specifically on inland container operations to and from UK ports, it pointed out that in 2004/05, Felixstowe and Southampton together handled around 75 per cent of the UK’s total of 7.75m TEUs (20-foot equivalent units) of deepsea containers.
‘Freight movement by rail is particularly strong for longer distance movements from those ports, with each having a rail modal share of up to one-third. Felixstowe, for example, is served by 25 trains a day. Rail’s contribution is likely to increase, given expansion plans there and at Harwich and London Gateway.’
Leading UK freight industry organisations predictably welcomed the White Paper, although one expressed certain reservations about the proposed SFN. Lindsay Durham, head of rail strategy for Freightliner Group, described the planned £200m of funding to start developing an SFN as ‘great news’, while Keith Heller, chief executive of railfreight operator EWS, said the White Paper not only set the strategy for the development of a sustainable railway but also showed commitment to providing the necessary enhancements to the network to enable a 30 per cent growth in railfreight by 2014.
Chris MacRae, railfreight policy manager for the Freight Transport Association, also welcomed the planned additional railways freight sector investment but pointed out that £200m was less than two per cent of the £10bn which the Government was committed to spending on enhancing capacity over the whole railway network in that period. He added that it was also ‘less than clear’ at present what the proposed SFN would mean in practice. ‘This could be a very useful initiative but it will need to be a practical development, not just a new label.’
In another recent move specifically designed to boost the use of rail for moving containers to and from ports, the DfT announced that it would contribute funding totalling £18.5m to a programme to enhance the Gospel Oak to Barking railway line in London for freight. ‘The enhancement programme will enable the line to transport more freight from key ports in the South East, particularly from the recently approved Port of London Gateway. The upgrade will allow international-sized containers (9ft 6in) to be moved on the route as well as providing an alternative route for freight trains around London,’ stated the DfT.
It added that the movement of containers by rail represented one of the largest railfreight growth opportunities over the next few years ‘and this network enhancement will result in these boxes travelling on trains rather than the congested road network’.
Coinciding with news of the funding for the Gospel Oak-Barking line, the DfT also announced the awarding of a further £2.1m in grants to five freight infrastructure projects through the Freight Facilities Grant (FFG) scheme. The funding, awarded to three different companies, will upgrade facilities at Tolworth goods yard, Brierley Hill, Southampton Docks, Barry Docks and the Port of Heysham.
Going into more detail about its recently-launched inland railfreight operations out of Southampton, NYK Logistics explained that in managing the flow of both product and information from vendors in the Far East, Middle East and Europe into its customers’ UK distribution networks, the company had ‘complete visibility’ of inbound volumes from point of origin to arrival in the UK. That meant it was able to identify containers suitable for onward transportation by rail, dependent on their destination and how quickly the product was required. NYK would then be responsible for booking containers with the train operators.
NYK international business unit director Philip Brown said: ‘Whilst the use of rail is currently restricted by the lack of infrastructure, the Government recognises the need to invest in the UK’s rail network, both to ease congestion and to reduce CO2 emissions.’
