The popular perception of the goods train has as much contact with reality as Thomas the Tank Engine. This, though, is not our fault. In the UK and in many parts of Europe, the universal road sign for a level crossing shows a silhouette of a steam engine. Two points to make. Anyone who passed their UK driving test in the last sixty years is unlikely to have seen a steam engine on a level crossing. Second, there should be a warning that trains come from all directions to ambush you, not just out of the sun.
Spool forward to the loveless reality of twenty-first-century railway operations. What might you actually encounter at a level crossing? In the pragmatically monocultural North America, drivers get by with a written “Railroad Crossing” sign. Well, literate drivers anyway. No matter which side of the Atlantic, drivers with any native language will certainly not encounter a steam-hauled wagonload pick-up goods service, crawling between numerous sidings, shuffling wagons individually before moving on to the next stop a few miles (1.6 times a few kilometres) down the line.
The changing landscape
Why has that picture changed – if that picture ever existed at all? Looking around, there are clues. No longer are drivers from Bristol or Berlin, sitting at that level crossing while the air-cooled engine in their VW Beetle slowly overheats. The butcher, baker and candlestick maker shops on the other side of the tracks are now hairdressers, coffee shops and estate agents. As is so often overlooked, it’s not just the railways that have changed in isolation. The rest of the world has moved on too.
If those drivers at the level crossing – now automated, half-barriered, and flashing-lit instead of a signalman unlocking a pair of wooden gates – are heading for the out-of-town supermarket, then you have the reason why wagonload freight is as endangered as full-fat milk and carrying cash.
Europe catches up with Britain’s decline
Cutting to the chase, wagonload traffic across Western Europe is under strong structural pressure. Growth and investment are being concentrated on intermodal and block-train traffic, while traditional wagonload systems are being rationalised, reorganised, or wound down. In Britain, that meant the cessation of the former British Railways Speedlink service in 1991.
It’s taken mainland Europe a long time to catch up (or join the race to the bottom, depending on your point of view). However, in Germany, wagonload is in steep decline. The government-backed Deutsche Bahn has publicly presented reorganisation plans amid industry and political backlash, because DB still handles the lion’s share of German wagonload rail freight.
Road takes the spoils
Germany, like everywhere else – and Britain in particular – is reaping the harvest of surrendering wagonload to alternative means of transport. That almost invariably means truckload. What are – in rail terms – small consignments are just about right for the articulated lorries (semi-trailers) of British motorways, German Autobahn and Italian autostrada. Britain, despite thinking it’s still a big player, remains a small archipelago where the costs of transhipping from road to rail to road just don’t add up for wagonloads.
Truth is, if you’re sitting at that level crossing today, probably in your Wi-Fi-connected electric VW Golf, it’s an intermodal block working that’s speeding by, point-to-point from port to inland terminal. Only on arrival there are repacked shipping containers transferred to waiting trucks for the ‘last mile’ to the final consumer destination. More than likely, it’s the out-of-town supermarket to which you’re so patiently waiting to drive.
Survivors and reinventions
In this block-train and clock-face-timetabled world, could there be a future for wagonload freight? Well, before we get ahead of ourselves, the species is not quite extinct. It’s not even entirely disappeared in Britain – although one has to stretch a point to say, for example, the short-formation nuclear flask trains represent wagonload freight.
Players are attempting to bring small consignments back to the rails. InterCity RailFreight runs under the mainstream radar, carrying high-value packages (usually medical supplies) around on the passenger network. Varamis Rail, a full-fledged operator, has its own trains and carries individual logistics packages between Birmingham and Glasgow. Both are hybrid operations that deserve recognition, even if their description as wagonload may, again, require a little latitude.
Continue to wait – another train may be coming
Still standing at the level crossing. The barriers are down, the lights are flashing, and the road traffic is halted. A train passes. It’s long, fast, and containerised. It is the image of modern rail freight. It’s efficient, consistent, and utterly unlike the stop-start pick-up goods of the past. Thomas the Tank Engine would be feeling a little bit intimidated.
As the last wagon vanishes into the distance, there’s a moment to wonder. The lights are still flashing. Is another train coming? Could it be a modern reincarnation of the wagonload – adapted to today’s economy, powered by digital logistics, and filling the gap between intermodal giants and delivery vans? Perhaps. For now, though, the rails ahead are clear, and the only sound of the future is the distant hum of a motorway autostrada that never sleeps.