UK rail freight can answer the truck driver crisis
Image: Logistics UK. Professional Images/@ProfImages
Railfreight operators say they have the solution to Britain’s long-term truck driver shortage. A permanent solution to the supply chain shortfall in drivers would be a radical adjustment to make much more use of rail freight. That change could be almost immediate, thanks to capacity released by pandemic-reduced passenger travel, and rolling stock now available for conversion.
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Yes but the British Government won’t invest in more electrification &capacity despite all their talk on zero carbon emissions by 2050! It’s all talk and NO action!! Rail freight capacity projects have been cancelled .Ely- Soham doubling is one such project put on the shelf to gather dust.No electrification for Felixtowe – WCML (Nuneaton) .No electrification Southampton to WCML (particularly 3rd rail upgrade for class 92 Southampton – Basingstoke and overhead electrification Basingstoke-Reading.
With joined-up thinking between infrastructure and land use planning, this can be achievable.
Those of us who follow the rail industry understand well that rail is environmentally superior and trunk haulage of goods by rail makes sense on many counts. But the public is largely unaware. We need to put rail freight in the spotlight in the media so that when Sky or BBC talk about climate change or HGV driver shortages the question is put: why not switch permanently to rail? Everyone knows about green public transport but we don’t choose rail-delivered goods in the supermarkets!
Rapid light freight and parcels services would obviously help bridge some of the extra traffic generated by online shopping etc but would need to be carefully focused on a few suitable routes. But what is practically happening? One or two converted vehicles, several optimistic announcements but nothing in service anywhere yet.
Yet the time is right!
Politicians do keep blocking rail electrification and capacity improvements on the railways. They won’t let Manchester have an underground station purposely to cripple the city’s economy. Perhaps they have an interest in doing so? Westminster only seems to serve London so I cannot see any change without a national disaster to trigger it.