Value andimportance of rail freight

Our vision for travel and the economy

networkrail.co.uk

Network RailKings Place90 York WayLondon N1 9AG

01

Britain relies on rail freight

In recent years rail freight has undergone arenaissance, with freight volumes increasing by50% since 1995.

In 2008/9 alone rail moved 100 million tonnes offreight throughout the country. It has a marketshare of 11% of all surface freight transport.

Between 1999 and 2007/8 the number ofcontainers passing through Felixstowe – thelargest container port in the UK – increased by118% but the number transported by railincreased by 165% demonstrating the growingmarket share of rail. Over the same period thenumber of trains serving the port daily has almost doubled.

The continued growth of rail freight Enabling rail freight to expand and thrive is a keyresponsibility of the rail industry, especially if rail isto play its part in supporting economic recoveryand long term sustainable growth.

Network Rail has forecast in the 2007 Freight RouteUtilisation Strategy that freight demand will growby 30% over the next decade – the equivalent ofan additional 240 freight trains per day. Lookingfurther into the future and analysing a range oflong term economic scenarios, Network Rail hasforecast that rail freight could increase by as muchas 140% by 2030. Even the most conservativescenario shows rail freight growing strongly.

Rail freight plays a vital role in Britain’s economy. Itdirectly contributes £870 million to the economy butactually supports an output of £5.9 billion, six timesits direct turnover.

Whether transporting raw materials formanufacturing, fuel for electricity generation orconsumer goods for our shops, businesses in the UK rely on rail freight to provide a faster, greener,safer and more efficient way of transporting goods than roads.

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FIGURE 2

Growth in rail freight at FelixstoweFIGURE 1

Rail freight in Britain (1988 – 2008)

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The economy relies on rail freight

During the last decade, rail freight hasundergone a transformation and hastaken an increasingly important role in thetransport of consumer goods. Over thepast six years alone, consumer goodscarried by rail have grown by 46%, thegreatest growth of any freight market.

Road congestionRail freight also supports the economy byhelping to reduce road congestion. Eachfreight train can typically take around 60lorry journeys off Britain’s roads.

ReliableThe ability to rely on goods and materialsbeing delivered on time is critical tobusinesses.

Road freight is frequently delayed bycongestion. Every year thousands of hoursare lost due to congestion on Britain’sroads and over a quarter of all road freightjourneys are delayed. Analysis by theDepartment for Transport found thatcongestion was the biggest external costimposed by road freight.

The Eddington Study estimated that roadcongestion reduces gross domesticproduct (GDP) by around £7-8 billion everyyear and that it could amount to as muchas £25 billion by 2025.

Compared to this, rail provides a disciplinednetwork in terms of planning andmanagement with sophisticatedtimetabling and signalling systems designedto optimise reliability. More than eight outof every ten freight trains complete theirjourney on time and, for premium deliverygoods trains such as the Stobart services forTesco, punctuality is at 98%. In manyinstances rail can match and often beatroad freight in terms of reliability.

Rail freight plays an important role inreducing the number of lorries on thenation’s roads. Owing to the greatercapability of rail each freight train cantypically replace around 60 of them. In2007/08 an additional 6.7 million lorryjourneys would have been required if theequivalent of rail’s freight business werecarried by road. This equates to 1.4 billionlorry km avoided or an additional 13,000lorries travelling the distance betweenLondon and Manchester every day of the year.

The more we can reduce congestion byshifting freight from road to rail, the betterin terms of reliability for businesses andcost to the economy.

Cost effectiveMoving goods by rail is increasingly the mostcost-effective way of transporting freight.

Rail haulage is more fuel efficient than roadhaulage. Less fuel is needed to transport atonne of goods by rail than by road, savingboth money and greenhouse gas emissions.

On average a gallon of fuel will move atonne of goods 246 miles on the railway,but only 88 miles by road.

COMMODITY FULLY LOADED EQUIVALENTTRAIN POTENTIAL NUMBER OF

HEAVY GOODSVEHICLES

Coal 1,500 tonnes 52

Metals and ore 1,000 to 2,500 tonnes 60

Construction materials 1,500 to 3,000 tonnes 77

Oil and petroleum 2,000 tonnes 69

Consumer goods 600 to 1,100 tonnes 43

Other traffic 1,000 to 1,500 tonnes 43

FIGURE 3

Potential for a fully loaded freight train to remove lorries

CASE STUDY

Supporting the car export marketRail freight contributes to the Britishexport market delivering cars such asMinis, Land Rovers and Jaguars to ports sothat they can be shipped abroad. The useof rail helps enable the secure safe deliveryof these prestige goods.

Jaguar operates railheads at both itsHalewood and Castle Bromwich plantsenabling more than 70%of its productionto travel by rail. Jaguar estimates that theserailheads save 4.5 million lorry miles a year.Jaguar also credits rail with improvingdistribution efficiency as it allows Jaguar toavoid the disruption associated with roadcongestion. Twenty-two cars can betransported in each rail wagon meaningthat 176 cars can be carried on a typicaleight wagon train. This same load wouldrequire 22 lorry transporters.

Cars for export to Europe are carried to PortDagenham for transfer onto ships. Carsdestined for further afield are transportedby rail to Southampton from where theycontinue their journey to markets in Asia,America and the Middle East.

The unique role of rail freightIn a number of instances rail providessolutions not practical by road.

CASE STUDY

CorusCorus is Britain’s largest steel producer andgenerates high volumes of semi-finishedproducts for inter-works movements. Anexample is the transport of steel slab andcoil between Margam and Llanwern. Thesteel is loaded and moved on rail wagonsat temperatures up to 400°C – somethingthat could not be safely contemplated viaroad transport.

Rail therefore boosts the Corus productionline by;

• Moving the hot steel quickly tominimise stock levels

• Delivering the steel whilst still hotwhich reduces the need to re-heat forfurther rolling, saving money andcarbon emissions.

Rail:

• is competitive on price in many markets

• mitigates the impact of fuel priceuncertainty as less fuel is used pertonne transported

• builds resilience into supply chains byincreasing the number of deliveryoptions

• reduces operating costs by removingaround 60 lorries per freight train

• can help keep goods secure from theftand damage

• reduces carbon emissions and helpscompanies meet sustainability targets.

Rail freight is an indispensable part of the Britisheconomy. Every year it transports over a 100 milliontonnes of goods worth around £30 billion.

Rail freight has traditionally been associated with thetransport of heavy bulky goods and constructionmaterials. It continues to be extremely important forthese markets but its role today is much broader.

246 MILES

88 MILES

FIGURE 4

Distance a tonne of goods can travel on a gallon of fuel

04

People & communities rely on rail freight

The wide range of goods moved by railincludes:

• Royal Mail letters and parcels

• mineral water, with some bottlestransported all the way from LakeGeneva to the Midlands by rail

• wine and Scottish whisky

• cars such as Minis and Land Rovers forthe domestic and export markets

• fresh fruit direct from Spain to London.

Rail freight also makes towns and villagesacross the country more pleasant places tolive and work by reducing the number oflorries on Britain’s roads.

Lorries contribute to a disproportionatenumber of accidents on our roads per kmtravelled. Department of Transport figuressuggest that between 1999 and 2008 therewere 117,000 accidents involving HGVs.

By reducing the number of lorries on ourroads and transferring freight to rail,people would benefit not only fromimproved safety in their local communitiesbut a reduction in noise and pollution.

CASE STUDY

Rail Freight and the Olympics

At the Olympic Park in East London theOlympic Delivery Authority (ODA) iscommissioning a range of venues andassociated infrastructure within a totalbudget of £9.3 billion on 2.5km2 of land.This means that millions of tonnes ofmaterials must be delivered to the site inStratford. By January 2010 65.7% ofconstruction materials (by weight) hadbeen brought in by rail minimising theimpact of lorries on the local community.

Two railheads have been built near theOlympic site to enable the efficientdelivery of construction materials. Thesehave seen 3 - 4 trains going into theLondon Olympic site and adjacentStratford City development most dayscarrying approximately 1,350 tonnes ofmaterial per train. As the constructionramps up the railheads have the potentialto cater for six to eight trains a day. ODAestimates that each train replacesapproximately 75 lorries, so in total rail hasthe potential to remove 450 to 600 lorriesa day in each direction.

Removing lorries from local roads hasminimised congestion in the area andinconvenience to local residents. Asimulation model was used to estimate thebenefit of rail freight as an alternative toroad. This estimated that rail deliveries tothe two railheads would avoid between250,000 and 380,000 hours of localcongestion in a single year.

Rail freight is an essential part of our everyday lives. It plays apivotal role in supplying food to our supermarkets and deliveringgoods to our shops.

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Daventry InternationalRail Freight Terminal

502km / 312m(14kg CO2)

Mossend Rail Freight Terminal

Method of transport - rail

Journey By Rail

Journey By Road

Method of transport - road

Wellington National Distribution Centre

Cash and Carryin Glasgow

Beans loaded into a container at Wholesalers national distribution centre along with other goods. Moved by road to the rail terminal

Container loaded onto a train for transport to Scotland

Wholesaler takes delivery of goods for final distribution to shops

560km / 350m(66kg CO2)

45km / 28m(5kg CO2)

21km / 13m(3kg CO2)

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The environment relies on rail freight

Rail freight has a vital role to play intackling climate change and helping theGovernment meet that commitment. Withtransport in Britain currently contributing21% of carbon emissions, 7% of thisoriginating from road freight, its vital morefreight is transferred to rail. This is all themore apparent given that per tonne ofcargo, rail freight produces 76% lesscarbon dioxide than road freight.

In the extreme case that all freightcurrently carried by rail was transferred toroad, there would be an additional 1.9mtonnes of carbon dioxide produced eachyear. This is equivalent to the carbonsaved by more than 230,000 solar panels.

Rail freight also produces fewer harmfulgases than road freight in terms of otheremissions that impact upon people’shealth - less than a tenth of the nitrogenoxide and fine particulates of roadhaulage per tonne carried when comparedto road transport.

FIGURE 6

The journey of a tin of beansThe figure shows the journey of atypical consumer item transported byrail. A tin of beans starts off its journeybeing loaded onto a container at thenational distribution centre of a majorsupermarket chain. A number of othergoods such as cleaning products,toiletries and other food stuffs willalso travel with the beans. Thiscontainer is then transported by roadto a rail freight terminal. The containeris transferred to rail for the trunk leg ofits journey before completing the finalmiles by road.

It also shows the CO2 emissions ateach stage of the journey comparingrail or a road alternative. Even afterthe carbon cost of the road legs ateither end has been included, the railoption produces a third of the CO2

of the road route.

The 2006 Stern Review concluded that climate change is a serious and urgent issue and the British Governmentsubsequently set a target to reduce carbon emissions by 80% from the 1990 level by 2050.

0 20 40 60 80 100 120grammes of C02 released per tonne km

FIGURE 5

Road and rail freight – grammes of CO2 per tonne km

FIGURE 6

The journey of a tin of beans

Source: 2009 Guideline to Defra’s GHG Conversion

Factors: Methodology Paper for Transport Emission

Factors, October 2009, Defra

08

The future of rail freight

Over the coming years, the rail industry willcontinue to work with passengers, businessand government to prioritise those freightschemes that deliver the greatest benefitto the economy. Whether this is increasingcapacity for more trains or improving theefficiency of the network by rebuilding ourinfrastructure to enable trains to carrylarger containers, all must provide value formoney.

Our vision is to increase the modal share ofrail and to take freight off Britain’s roads,improving the economy, our quality of lifeand substantially reducing carbonemissions.

Whether it is taking lorries off the roadsand drastically reducing road congestion ortransporting goods that we consume everyday, rail freight is vital to our economy andhelps Britain run better.

For Network Rail and the freight operating companies this is anexciting time. To cater for anticipated future demand and challengethe dominance of road haulage it is important that together withgovernment, we continue to put in place the right plans to allow freightto be a successful part of a vibrant, growing railway. It is importantthat we grow and develop the railway to make this possible.