Network
New train classification rules, along with changes to timetable and train path ‘ownership’, would make rail freight more economic and attractive.
That’s the conclusion of former Rail Operations Group and Class 93 programme leader Karl Watts, now MD of consultancy Railmotive, who argues in a discussion paper that limited network capacity is largely a “myth”.
Drawing on his practical experience of ROG’s pilot 100mph Anglo-Scottish high-speed parcels service, where Network Rail’s 5hrs 30mins planned journey was regularly achieved in 4hrs 30mins, Watts says this is typical of the network constraints.
He says the network is, in theory, ‘full’ because of the many paths claimed by non-passenger operators that are not used, “preventing the railway from filling its fundamental purpose of supporting the UK economy”.
Underpinning the problem is that many of the systems and processes that determine how the railway is run are “not fit for purpose”.
Watts cites the Network Code, written in the 1990s in preparation for privatisation, and which he says “doesn’t represent the railway of the future”.
He adds that mandatory train planning and scheduling has evolved into a “suite of 80,000 overly complex and, in many cases, irrelevant train planning rules”.
All this results in intermodal trains with a 75mph top speed only running at an average of 25mph across all services -“far slower than several decades ago”.
Watts says the increase in costs of extended journey times means that profit is marginal, l
