01.01.07
Rail freight promoters support
Immediate start urged for £5 billion super rail freight artery
In an open letter to Gordon Brown MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and to Douglas Alexander MP, Secretary of State for Transport, Kelvin Hopkins MP urges that the nation adopts the eminent findings of Sir Rod Eddington and Prof Nicholas Stern and starts immediate planning of the proposed dedicated super gauge rail route to connect the continent through the Channel Tunnel to London and over essentially under-used or redundant railway to Glasgow.
The effect of this ‘ultra green’ EuroRail freight route will be to add massive savings to the Treasury over the costs of maintaining motorway and trunk roads, damage caused by heavy freight haulage, and offer a major alternative to road hauliers in the form of a congestion-free major rail artery accessed from strategic inland ports placed at main motorway junctions.
“It is in the national interest to invest in a modest £5 billion solution to our trading needs for fast and efficient transport of goods that will pay back for the next 100 years,” said Kelvin Hopkins who chairs the EuroRail freight route group. “We launched this proposal in late spring and have attracted the attention of Government in the UK and EU, as well as both road and rail hauliers, and Network Rail. We have given careful consideration to the economy of construction and we are convinced it will provide a lasting solution to transporting by rail those large freight containers and complete lorry trailers that we need to keep the nation’s economy on the move.”
EuroRail freight route proposals will minimise the carbon emissions of freight haulage and will facilitate the separation of passenger from freight traffic to increase the capacity for both types of traffic and to make better use of redundant or underused railway lines that serve the UK. It is estimated that some 5 million lorry journeys can be removed from the congested road system and more passenger capacity can be released for the two London to Scotland trunk rail routes.
“We have at last come to terms with the reality that we are heading for national gridlock on both road and rail,” he continues. “By investing in an improved public transport system in the way advocated - and EuroRail is a modular low cost scheme that fits both Eddington and Stern very precisely - we have a means of starting joined up thinking in how to bust the congestion costs and pollution spiral.
“We welcome the Eddington and Stern reports as a fundamental planning tool for the nation’s transport needs and we commend the conclusions to the Treasury”, concludes Kelvin Hopkins, MP for Luton North.