British rail freight needs to turn “would be” customers into “will be” customers. That was the message that brought invited “would-bees” together with the industry just a few days ago in London. The Demystifying Rail Freight workshop was modestly attended. Even so, it achieved its modest ambitions, and dispatched some new-found advocates for modal shift to rail freight.
Embracing the mechanics of getting freight onto rail was the purpose of the Demystifying Rail Freight workshop, promoted by Logistics UK, the all-embracing trade body. It was hosted by Great British Railways Transition Team (GBRTT) at their offices within Waterloo Station, London. GBRTT has been set up by the UK government to manage the transfer of the railway network to public ownership and to help realise the government-mandated growth in the rail freight sector.
Low baseline, high potential
Opening remarks by Guy Bates, the Head of Freight Development at Network Rail, reiterated that rail freight has a tiny proportion of overall freight movements. By most metrics, rail commands only about ten per cent of the market. His address emphasised that opportunities for rapid growth exist, and that a low baseline makes even a modest modal shift towards rail a radical improvement.
Certainly, the myths were demystified. The story of one trader in Asian foods from the north of England was quoted. Their produce generates one container per month, sent to market by rail. It made the point that to use rail freight does not require custoimers to use a train. “We’re not all the poster child of rail freight,” opined one attendee, referring to the supermarket chain dispatching multiple branded intermodal trains daily.
Six million containers
“I think there are preconceptions that people bring,” said Jonathan Walker of Logistics UK. The expectation that rail freight is expensive, slow and unreliable is held by those who have not engaged with the industry. Conversations like those at the workshop in Waterloo prove otherwise, and although it was a self-selecting group, it has yielded a new cohort of advocates for the rail freight industry.”
Steve Freeman is a board member of the Rail Freight Group, which represents the industry in the UK. He is also the co-founder of RailX, a system for matching containers to spare capacity on scheduled intermodal trains. His presentation revealed that British ports land six million containers every year. “Ninety per cent of these imported containers are delivered by road,” he said. “Only ten per cent by rail, [for a] value to Rail around £1.4bn.” That’s a missed opportunity, he said, to take a larger slice of the remaining £12.1bn.
In his closing remarks, Guy Bates said that Network Rail was eager to work with anyone seeking to enter the rail freight sector, even if their traffic generated just one container a week. That was a point not lost on one convert to the cause, and present in the room. Rail freight is about to say hello to another retailer that may be a familiar name: Amazon.