Rail freight

New government is committed to rail freight

01 July 2015Clare Moriarty, director general of the Rail Executive at the Department for Transport, discusses the role that freight can play in supporting economic growth in CP5. The new Conservative-led government says its priority for this next Parliament...

Start of a long 'psychological evolution' in EU railway interoperability

01 July 2015Richard Lockett, head of the cross acceptance unit at the European Railway Agency, discusses the challenge of interoperability. The fourth railway package is a set of aims to remove the remaining barriers to the creation of a single European rail...

Delivering high levels of freight network performance

01 July 2015Paul McMahon (pictured, centre), director of freight at Network Rail, discusses the success of Britain’s rail freight sector and what Network Rail is doing to support this. Rail freight is vital for the British economy. The Rail Delivery Gr...

Council refused permission to appeal Radlett freight decision

30 June 2015The Court of Appeal has refused to give St Albans City & District Council permission to appeal the dismissal of its recent court challenge against the proposal for a strategic rail freight interchange (SRFI) at Radlett.       &n...

New £18m railhead approved for West Midlands freight company

26 June 2015A new £18m railhead has been given the go-ahead connecting a freight firm to the Chase Line in the West Midlands. Freight company Pentalver are to create a new road-rail interchange facility. The project includes new railway sidings, a...

DB Schenker to cut more than 200 rail freight jobs in England

22 June 2015DB Schenker is to cut 234 rail freight jobs due to the decline in demand for coal. The company, whose UK headquarters are in Doncaster, said the losses would mostly be felt in the north of England as the coal demand had declined much faster than...

Ministers want freight on passenger rail to expand

16 June 2015Rail freight growth could be achieved through expanding schemes to carry goods on underused passenger services, the government has suggested. In a speech to the Rail Engineers Forum Technical Seminar at the Institute of Civil Engineers, the rail...

Rail freight sector still has a lot to learn – RFG Conference

04 June 2015Rail freight performance is expected to continue growing at apace in CP5, but the industry must work much more collaboratively to solve and overcome potential pitfalls to growth, delegates were told at yesterday’s 23rd Annual Rail Freight Gr...

Transport for the North calls on business to help produce freight strategy

01 June 2015Transport for the North (TfN) is calling for businesses to contribute to the development of a Northern Freight and Logistics Strategy. The body, set up to transform connectivity across the north of England and drive economic growth, has issued a...

Government research played down benefits of rail freight to road network

27 April 2015Government research has played down the potential benefits of the transfer from road to rail freight, the Campaign for Better Transport has claimed. The group says that the government research has only been looking at national averages across all...

DB Schenker to continue operating Royal Mail services

27 April 2015DB Schenker has won a new contract to continue to operate rail services for Royal Mail. The freight operator retained the contract it has operated since 2010 in the face of strong competition. The new deal begins on 1 June 2015, for a minimum of...

DB Schenker launches carbon neutral rail freight

17 April 2015DB Schenker has become the first company in the UK to offer their customers carbon neutral rail freight. Eco Neutral from DB Schenker Rail UK enables customers to compensate in full for the CO2 emissions generated through their rail freight servi...

RAIB investigating another incident of a container falling from a train

17 April 2015The Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) has announced it is investigating the second incident of a container being blown off a freight train in a month. The organisation is already looking into an incident on 7 March in Cumbria where high w...

Council refuses to end fight against Radlett freight interchange

14 April 2015St Albans City and District Council (SADC) has confirmed that it will seek permission to appeal the dismissal of its recent court challenge against the proposal for a strategic rail freight interchange (SRFI) at Radlett.       ...

High winds ‘blew freight container off train’ in Cumbria

27 March 2015High winds blew a 30-foot container off a freight train travelling at 75mph on the down mainline in the vicinity of Scout Green, Cumbria, earlier this month, investigators have said.  The empty container, blown off an FEA(B) wagon that forme...