High-speed freight trains emerge as fresh alternative to trucks in UK

Every weeknight, an ageing electric commuter train pulls out of Birmingham International station, near the city’s airport. Quickly reaching a top speed of 100mph, the train travels to Shieldmuir, on the southern edge of Glasgow, arriving at around 4am.

But the converted trains that start-up Varamis Rail uses for the service no longer contain the seats and other passenger facilities they did when they were transporting commuters on routes in Essex and East Anglia. They are, instead, full of “roll cages” — the wheeled, wire containers used for moving stock for shops and other small-scale logistics operations.

The service is, for the moment, the only rail freight service in the UK competing with trucks at moving time-critical goods such as food and medical supplies. Even in parts of the world where rail has a higher share of freight movements, such as the US, there are few such high-speed services. Trucks and aeroplanes dominate the market for moving goods quickly.

However, Varamis is due in May to introduce another nightly service between Birmingham International and London Liverpool Street, carrying parcels and light freight for distribution to central London shops. The operator and many others in the UK logistics industry are convinced that some kind of fast rail service — able to cover distances far faster than trucks and running on clean electric power — should be able to establish an important market niche.

Phil Read, Varamis Rail’s chief executive, says the company has a significant advantage in operating largely between passenger stations or old Royal Mail facilities, rather than the often remote depots that more conventional freight operators use.

In Birmingham, Varamis uses a platform adapted decades ago for use by the then British Rail’s parcels services, while the facility in Shieldmuir was built for Royal Mail.

“The unique service offering is the speed and efficiency with which we move goods not only between two railheads but between two urban locations,” Read says.

Tim Shoveller, chief executive of Freightliner, the UK’s second-biggest rail freight operator, says there is “no doubt” that moving light goods by rail works and makes sense.

“There is also significant enthusiasm in the market from both retailers and many large third-party logistics companies,” he says.

However, Maggie Simpson, director-general of the Rail Freight Group, an industry association, says customers are often reluctant to shift modes.

“The challenges that we’ve got are persuading people over the line in a market that’s risk-averse,” she says.

Would-be customers have to co-ordinate their schedules for receiving goods and delivering them to trains so that they can consolidate shipments on a single rail service, Simpson adds. In current market conditions, companies are reluctant to go to the trouble of making such arrangements, she says.

“The economy being pretty soggy, it stops people taking risks,” Simpson says. “So a world where people take risk — ‘Maybe we’ll give it a go’ — people can’t do that when the market is suppressed.”

Yet there is no doubt about rail’s fundamental strengths for fast freight. Trains used to be the default means of delivering time-critical items such as letters and newspapers. Even though flexible trucks have mostly taken over, trains continue to attract interest.

France’s national postal service for more than 30 years until 2015 used a variant of the country’s TGV high-speed trains to move mail around the country. The UK’s Royal Mail stopped using rail to move some parcels only last year, citing the prohibitive cost of renewing its fleet of trains. Varamis’s service is one of several efforts in the UK to establish fast freight services, by using trains that are nearing the end of their useful lives for carrying passengers but can still run at 100mph.

The trains are not only much faster than a truck but carry far more, while requiring only a single driver. Each of the eight carriages in the Varamis trains has the same capacity as one-and-a-half trailers for a road heavy goods vehicle (HGV), according to Andrew Lowery, UK managing director for Carousel Logistics, one of Varamis’s biggest customers.

“The Birmingham to Glasgow service is around three hours faster than an HGV on the road — time which makes a key difference for our customers in the life sciences and agricultural sectors, or those taking delivery of critical spare parts,” Lowery says.

It took more effort, investment and time to get the rail route started than a traditional road route, Lowery adds. But the positive impact in terms of reducing carbon emissions and accelerating delivery times has been “considerable”, he says.

“We fully intend to expand the partnership with Varamis Rail and hope to work with them adding more routes to their network,” he says.

There remain issues for high-speed rail operators looking to launch more services.

Shoveller acknowledges a perception that rail can be unreliable and says the industry should work to limit closures of lines because of problems such as extreme weather.

Read says it is “very, very” difficult to integrate with customers’ road-based logistics networks.

“That still proves to be one of the biggest barriers,” he says.

Nevertheless, Freightliner is planning to join Varamis in operating fast rail services, for a high-street retailer that Shoveller declines to name. Like Varamis, the service will use old passenger trains.

In Freightliner’s case, the trains have been converted by leasing company Porterbrook and modified to run on diesel power when on non-electrified lines.

“I’m really excited about the opportunities this brings,” Shoveller says.

According to Simpson, there are likely to be more such expansions of fast freight services by rail.

Varamis has proved it is possible to meet the demanding requirements of logistics customers, she says: “You can make a freight train fast enough and reliable enough to meet the demands of that market.”