©Rail is sidelined and rail freight is misunderstood, misaligned and missed out in a comprehensive study document produced by the UK Government. Once again, the ministers in Westminster have failed to query the mandarins in Whitehall. They have let rail freight, the backbone of industry, be left out of future planning. The time to act is now, if the sector is to be at the top table for the future of Britain, says UK Editor Simon Walton.
The UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy is a 160-page document with a front cover logo that comes straight from the same poundshop printing press as the Great British Railways logo. It’s cheap-looking but probably expensive, and as inspiring as its railway counterpart. Much the same can be said of the body of the document. The emphasis on “Great” underplays nationhood and speaks to grand ambient over practical reality. The UK government has much work to do to bring the rail freight industry back onside.
Give us the tools?
Megaprojects and big ambitions, but very little on the practical end of the achievable scale (unless you include a promise to close some level crossings around Wrexham). Hundreds of billions are proposed for headline-catching high-speed and powerhouse plans. Meanwhile, modest improvements and readily implementable plans are few and far between. The UK Government’s new Modern Industrial Strategy is presented as a long-term plan to reshape the economy, drive clean energy, and back key industries. It talks of certainty, stability and ambition.
These are the tools that business needs to invest for the future. However, for all its detail, one glaring omission stands out. Guess what that might be? You got it: rail freight. An industry already delivering productivity, decarbonisation, and resilience, barely gets a mention. For a sector that should be integral to the government’s own goals, its absence is as disconcerting as a last train cancellation after the staff have gone home.
Rail freight is an afterthought, as it often is. The strategy gives space to rail, but only as part of the passenger agenda. HS2 is cited as transformational – insert your interpretation of that here, especially if you are from the betrayed north of England, where high-speed trains will never run. Northern Powerhouse Rail? The proof will be in the laying of the first track – until then, it’s a crawl through Manchester’s Castlefield Corridor.
New connections in Wales and Scotland are promised – but only vaguely. A reference to “rail upgrades in Wales” is even more broad-brush than “support for the Edinburgh-Glasgow Central Belt” – two cities already connected by four routes and sometimes more than ten passenger services an hour (Manchester and Liverpool look on with incredulity). Freight, by contrast, is consigned to passing references, often lumped together with ports and logistics.
Will we finish the job?
The Railway Industry Association was less than enthusiastic, but perhaps maintained a more civil level of response. “There is some mention in the Industrial Strategy for rail,” they said. “We remain concerned that this Strategy does not include transport and rail as significant enablers to growth, either for the eight specific sectors mentioned or for UK industry and the economy more widely.”
Rail is a large and growing industrial sector in its own right, claims the RIA. They’re right. They say it’s already supporting around 640,000 jobs, providing £43bn (€51bn) Gross Value Added, and providing over £14bn (€16.5bn) Treasury revenues annually. With the Chancellor Rachel Reeves scrabbling to find new ways to tax Britain into submission, perhaps recognising that the Government’s original aim of “growth, growth, growth” might be better served by recognising the contribution that the rail industry already makes to her coffers.
It’s often quoted that for every pound spent in rail, £2.50 is generated in the wider economy. For every rail job created in rail, four jobs are supported beyond rail – and plenty of that is driving exports. Not that transport-related exports get much of a mention, even though UK Export Finance has helped secure major overseas rail project contracts for the UK.
That framing treats rail freight not as an industry in its own right, but as a side effect of infrastructure. There is no freight sector deal, no recognition of its manufacturing base, and no place among the eight industries singled out for targeted investment. It is a narrow view — and a wasted opportunity.
Targeted industries for investment – the “IS-8”:
Advanced Manufacturing – including aerospace, automotive, and other high-tech engineering.
Creative Industries – film, TV, music, gaming, cultural production.
Life Sciences – pharmaceuticals, biotech, health data.
Clean Energy Industries – renewables, nuclear, emerging low-carbon tech.
Defence – security, defence technology, dual-use innovation.
Digital and Technology – AI, quantum, sovereign computing capabilities.
Professional and Business Services – finance, consultancy, digital adoption.
Financial Services – banking, fintech, investment.
Rail freight (and the rail industry more generally) is not among these eight. Automotive and aerospace industries are given bespoke pathways to electrification, alternative fuels and digitalisation. The ambition is clear, and the support substantial. Yet rail freight, which already offers four to five times lower carbon emissions than road haulage, is left outside the clean growth story. The most obvious decarbonisation lever in the logistics system — shifting lorries off the road and goods onto rail — goes unmentioned. The omission is all the more glaring given the government’s own net-zero targets. A genuine clean growth agenda should start by backing the transport mode that is already cleanest.
Time to put rail freight on track
Industrial strategies are not about everything everywhere. They are about choices. However, if the UK is serious about clean growth, productivity and resilience, choosing to leave rail freight out is the wrong call. A modern industrial strategy should not only plan for passenger connectivity but also put freight at the heart of mobility, clean energy and logistics policy. By failing to embed rail freight into its “Grand Challenges”, the government has left a gap that industry must now fill.
Rail freight must keep making its case, loudly and persistently. If Britain is to build a strategy fit for the 2030s, rail freight cannot remain on the margins. It needs to be brought centre stage — where it belongs.