Report on the Railfuture summer conference
Date: July 2010Your Chair went to this meeting representing FOSBR. It was a conference organised by Railfuture and there were some good presentations.
John Bird (FGW Interface Manager at Reading) spoke about the project at Reading which will provide 4 extra platforms there, segregate train movements on the lines and reconnect the Waterloo lines with the GW lines. This will improve speeds through what is now a major bottleneck. There will be major possessions of the tracks over Christmas with re routing via Oxford and Banbury to London. He also spoke of the resignalling in S Wales which is ongoing and the cascade to Bristol and Exeter of more stock enabling borrowed stock to be returned to owners and some extra capacity (about 30 units in all).
Charles Varey (Network Rail) spoke about the upgrading of the Southampton to Nuneaton route for taking larger containers for freight which was very interesting especially if you like engineering.
Nick Gallup (Intermodality) gave a very up beat picture of freight and gave some very interesting statistics about rail freight’s green potential. Did you know there has been a 60% growth in rail freight since the mid ‘90’s? That more tonnage is lifted in containers than coal (a huge change in freight flows which is being lead by the supermarkets) and that the SW is likely to see major growth in the near future? (At the end of June the new freight terminal at S Liberty Lane opened and receives 4 trains a week from Tilbury?) A train carrying 28 wagons, using one driver and only 33% of the fuel that the equivalent 28 HGV’s would use? This saves around 3000 tonnes of CO2 on a journey from London to Scotland. It makes economic sense and green sense too!
George Boyle (Railfuture) also spoke of the rail v road freight debate, whilst Keith Walton spoke about the Severnside Community Rail Partnership and Richard Burningham spoke about the Devon and Cornwall Rail Partnership. Both displayed the width and depth of their work and the creativity it has brought to the local railways. All lines have seen massive growth over recent years as well as improvements in service levels.
By the end of the day my head was spinning and I was glad to have the ride back to Bristol to digest the information.