{"id":324621,"date":"2025-11-28T19:37:38","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T09:37:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.railfreight.com\/?p=67682"},"modified":"2025-11-28T19:37:38","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T09:37:38","slug":"britain-needs-a-new-rail-freight-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=324621","title":{"rendered":"Britain needs a new rail freight strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Britain\u2019s rail freight sector runs on a strategy that is almost a decade old. The Department for Transport\u2019s Rail freight transport strategy, published in 2016, remains the default reference point for the industry\u2019s priorities and national policy framework. It has long been treated as the foundation for modal shift, capacity planning and the business case for investment \u2013 but RailFreight.com UK Editor Simon Walton argues it was drafted for a different era.<\/strong>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

A lot has changed since then. The COVID-19 shock, the reshaping of global supply chains, the rise of containerisation, the growth of new inland terminals, deep-sea port expansion, and the decarbonisation agenda have all shifted freight from a support mechanism for Britain\u2019s sunset industries and a specialist part of the railway\u2019s operations into a national economic issue. A 2016 strategy cannot be expected to survive intact in 2025 and beyond. Yet survive it has.<\/p>\n

The Budget didn\u2019t help<\/h2>\n

The Department for Transport offered a partial refresh in 2023 when it set a new ambition: rail freight should grow by at least 75 per cent by 2050, measured in net tonne-kilometres. That was welcome. It was overdue. However, it wasn\u2019t a strategy. It was a target \u2013 and as any freight operator knows, a target without a path is a diversion, not a destination. Even the government acknowledges that the growth target works only if the entire industry collaborates and embeds the goal into infrastructure, planning and operations.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Dear rail freight. The sector was not on the UK Budget agenda. Image: \u00a9 Kirsty O’Connor\/Treasury<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This week\u2019s Budget didn\u2019t help. Rail barely received a mention \u2013 and rail freight even less. For a sector responsible for transporting goods worth billions, relieving road congestion, and reducing emissions, being relegated to a footnote tells its own story. The Treasury is still not speaking freight\u2019s language.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Network Rail continues to insist \u2013 correctly, in fairness \u2013 that it must put \u201cpassengers first\u201d. The arithmetic supports the sentiment. There are more than 20,000 passenger trains a day, compared with only a little over 600 freight services, giving them an unassailable claim to priority on any given timetable. Also – passengers vote, containers don\u2019t (just saying). That is the reality of Britain\u2019s mixed traffic railway. But it also exposes the weakness of the current policy landscape. Freight remains a tolerated guest on a network still fundamentally engineered for the commuter, not the container.<\/p>\n

Lobby is good, strategy is better<\/h2>\n

We are promised a new public body, Great British Railways (GBR). But the nationalisation programme underpinning GBR is overwhelmingly crafted around passenger recovery, rolling stock ownership, fare reform, service reliability and timetable control. Freight is in the script but not yet on the stage. When rail reform documents talk about \u201ccore customers\u201d, freight is very often written in the margins.<\/p>\n

While the 2023 target is embedded into infrastructure planning for the current control period, it does not amount to a full strategic masterplan. I concede a mixed metaphor, in that a rising tide lifts all boats – and improvements in the network are equally good for freight, but, right now, the national eye is on improvements that make life better for passenger operations, and if freight benefits, all well and good. Let\u2019s not go down the rabbit hole of Ely Area Capacity Enhancements<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Question to be answered<\/h2>\n

Does the sector actually need help to grow into that apparently arbitrary 75 per cent target? The idea that rail freight will scale itself organically ignores several structural obstacles. Freight is still around ten per cent of national tonne-miles. It has a limited voice in the political arena because the numbers look small and the industry lobby \u2013 for all its expertise and effort \u2013 cannot compete with the gravitational pull of the passenger railway (or, whisper it, the road lobby). Representative bodies like the Rail Freight Group<\/a> and the Railway Industry Association do a great job making the economic and environmental case to government, but the sector remains sub-scale, and its lobbying leverage is limited by that fact.<\/p>\n

\"Close
Private sector action. Port of Sunderland is making efforts to engage with rail freight. An example of enterprise. Would a national strategy help “join-up” efforts like this? Image: \u00a9 Port of Sunderland<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The government is not indifferent to freight \u2013 far from it. The growth target and ongoing reforms show freight is being factored into the future architecture of the railway. In reality, though, freight policy remains a supporting act. The private sector is doing exceptional work in driving innovation, winning new traffic and making the case for modal shift. The entry into the UK market of operators and investors such as shipping lines MSC (buying into Maritime)<\/a> and CMA CGM (Freightliner intermodal) shows that international logistics players see opportunity and are willing to put capital behind it. That belief alone is a stronger endorsement of rail freight\u2019s potential than any Whitehall document published to date.<\/p>\n

Action points<\/h2>\n

So would a new national freight strategy help or hinder? Handled badly, yes \u2013 government interference can skew markets, slow decision-making, and turn investment cycles into political cycles. But done well, with industry in the lead, a national strategy could be transformative. It should not be a bureaucratic exercise.<\/p>\n

\n

It should be a clear, joined-up plan that looks beyond incremental improvements and confronts some real questions:<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  • Network capacity and freight-first corridors.<\/li>\n
  • Port and terminal connectivity.<\/li>\n
  • Strategic gauge and axle-load planning.<\/li>\n
  • Long-term rolling stock transitions.<\/li>\n
  • Planning reform and land use for new terminals.<\/li>\n
  • Electrification, decarbonisation and energy policy.<\/li>\n
  • Modal shift support and road freight interaction.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n

    The private sector has shown what it can do. The market is showing confidence. The sector is innovating, investing and expanding. But that is not enough. The current target is not ambitious enough. A 75 per cent increase by 2050 sounds bold until you remember that freight still commands little more than a single-digit modal share. It is a growth plan, not a transformation plan.<\/p>\n

    Britain does need a new rail freight strategy. The 2016 version has served its purpose, but it is no longer fit for today\u2019s logistics landscape. The 2023 target is a statement of intent, not an instruction manual. The Budget made clear that rail freight is still too easy to overlook.<\/p>\n

    If not now, when?<\/h2>\n

    A new strategy must be industry-led, must have government backing, and must move at the speed of the market \u2013 not the pace of statute or civil service process. It needs to set far more ambitious goals, driven by operators, ports, terminal owners, customers and investors. It must be bold enough to put freight at the heart of the national rail network, not a peripheral guest.<\/p>\n

    The foundations are there. The market appetite is there. The need is obvious. It\u2019s time for government and industry to write a new freight strategy \u2013 one that doesn\u2019t accept 75 per cent by 2050 as the limit of our ambition, but as the starting point. Work should begin now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Britain\u2019s rail freight sector runs on a strategy that is almost a decade old. The Department for Transport\u2019s Rail freight transport strategy, published in 2016,\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17847,11313,47,17548,18477],"tags":[12634],"class_list":["post-324621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-friday-freight-forum","category-in-depth","category-rail-news","category-simon-walton","category-strategy","tag-railfreight"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=324621"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":327070,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324621\/revisions\/327070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=324621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=324621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=324621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}