In a freight context new infrastructure
in the period of the High Level Output Statement (HLOS) for the next
decade is likely to relate to the connection of new facilities at
ports to reflect the changing nature of world trade, and the
re-instatement of freight avoiding lines to provide grade separation
on busy passenger routes.
Gauge enhancement will also feature to
allow the increasing number of 9ft 6in high maritime containers to be
carried on standard height platform wagons.
The pattern of train services is
dominated by bulk point to point flows which have become increasingly
standardised in terms of payload as operators have chosen the Class
66 type supplied by General Motors for haulage, a type now being used
in many European countries as well.
The attraction of the Class 66
locomotive is a robustness of design bringing high availability and
low operating costs but it is not ideal in use on the busy UK mixed
traffic railway, as relatively low point-to-point timings have to be
allowed on gradients. There is though scope for the use of different
power units that change these adverse characteristics.
Electric traction has fallen out of
favour because the lack of electrified lines often restricts through
working of locomotives but FCP believes that there are circumstances
where the surplus pool of modern Class 92 machines could be more
widely deployed by new operators.
There is also the opportunity presented
by the Freight Multiple Unit. Innovation in railway operation is a
painfully slow process largely because significant investment has
been made in assets that reflect the status quo of large trainloads
operating at relatively slow speeds.
The FMU, for which FCP organised trials
on behalf of Assystem UK, and Forest Enterprise, has operating
characteristics that in cost terms equate to road haulage operations
and the ability to win paths because of the high power to weight
ratio of the trains. We think new entrants to the rail operating
market should develop business plans that include the use of this
product to differentiate themselves in terms of competitive haulage
activity.
