Railways: Freight

(asked on 7th June 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, following the announcement that DP World will operate 775-metre long freight trains between Southampton and London Gateway, whether they have asked Network Rail to make similar adjustments elsewhere in the interests of higher productivity.


Answered by
Baroness Vere of Norbiton Portrait
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
This question was answered on 21st June 2021

The Government supports increasing the productivity of the rail freight sector, including by investing in infrastructure enhancements to enable Freight Operating Companies to run longer trains, to enhance rail freight’s competitiveness and in turn lead to modal shift of freight from road to rail, delivering significant environmental and economic benefits.

Between 2014-2019 the Government invested over £235 million in the Strategic Freight Network and continues to make investments, to improve its capability and capacity for freight users, including facilitating longer freight trains. In addition to the longer services operating from the Port of Southampton, as a result of the recently completed Southampton Freight Train Lengthening project, the Department has also funded several infrastructure enhancements which have enabled other longer services to operate. These include upgrading the Ipswich Railway Chords (Bacon Factory Curve) to allow 700m length freight trains to run to and from the Port of Felixstowe and the extension of the Darlington sidings, which concluded in December 2020, to allow longer intermodal freight trains to operate from Teesport to access the East Coast Mainline.

Furthermore, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Network Rail (NR) has worked alongside the rail freight industry, with the support of the Department, to allow longer and heavier trains to run on the network whilst the number of passenger services has been lower. As a result of the reduced passenger timetable, NR implemented a number of timetable alterations to allow, for example, 775m trains to run between Southampton and Leeds, Birmingham and Manchester, and between Daventry and Grangemouth. NR is actively looking at opportunities to continue scheduling such services and to further opportunities to run longer trains, to continue driving higher efficiency and productivity for the Freight Operating Companies and their customers.

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