[IT letter] Sharp decline in rail freight

[Navan Junction]

Madam- Much of the blame for this huge loss of rail freight at a time when use of the roads by heavy goods vehicles is increasing dramatically must fall on the Government, which refuses to recognise the environmental, social and safety advantages of encouraging rail transport. Elsewhere in Europe grants are offered for rail freight services and terminals - but not in Ireland.

Instead, the sale of freight yards and the wholesale scrapping of freight locomotives is encouraged. The sceptical observer might say this is to prevent any "open access" operators being able to start up in the Republic.

Since the 2005 figures from the International Union of Railways were published, the loss of freight traffic to the roads has increased further. Oil trains which operated for Esso between the Dublin North Wall terminal and Sligo have now ceased (as have services to Claremorris). Bulk cement transport to the Tegral factory at Athy is now carried by road. All keg trains currently operating for Guinness and other major breweries are to cease shortly and the business will transfer to the roads. The bulk cement trains to Cork will cease shortly due to the sale of the terminal at Horgan's Quay for redevelopment. EU policy on sugar beet production has also meant that the operation of the "beet specials" from Wellington Bridge to Mallow has also now run its course.

Cork, the Republic's second city, will shortly have no rail freight services whatever. Until last summer, it was served by three container trains daily, cement trains and daily keg beer trains. The loss of all this traffic in so short a period is some indictment of both Government and Iarnród Éireann policy. The closure of the freight yards in Cork will also prevent any future private operator who may wish to operate in the domestic market from serving Cork.

With fuel costs rising, road congestion getting worse, and EU legislation reducing working hours for HGV drivers, is it wise for Government policy (or the lack of it) to allow the nationally owned rail network virtually to pull out of freight? I think not - and I would suggest that the Government act now to preserve the viable alternative to HGVs before it is irreversibly lost. - Yours, etc,

TIM CASTERTON,

Leighton Buzzard,

Bedfordshire,

England.

[Mark Gleeson]

I wish people would actually find out why freight left before making fools of themselves

Bell Lines (containers)
Asahi (some weird chemical, oil)
IFI (ammonia, fertiliser)
Slivermines (barytes)
Ballinacourty (oil, magnasite, dolomite)
Greencore (beet)

All stopped using rail since they either went out of business or the raw material got used up

[ACustomer]

At the risk of making a fool of myself:

The Irish Times letter was mainly about the loss of Cement, Guinness and container traffic. These businesses continue and the raw materials are not used up (Thank goodness in the case of Guinness!). The demise of Bell was significant in the overall decline of containers, but only in respect of the traffic originating in Waterford. The only area in which the letter is mistaken is Beet where external factors were at work.

The unequal fiscal treatment of trucks and trains with respect to coverage of track costs (never mind fancy "externalities" such as environmental and congestion costs) is huge factor. Other countries take these things into account in framing transport policies: our politicians and civil servants are either too witless of too craven ("there are no votes in rail freight") do so.

[Mark]

Leighton Buzzard.. that's west Cork isnt it?

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

Asahi (some weird chemical, oil)

Isnt that a Japanese beer?

[Mark Gleeson]

Point is simple the arse fell out of the freight business, there is no scale as a result

Irish Cement have pulled out as its cheaper go by road, Diageo are talking the same story. The wagons on the Sligo Oil train where not compliant with modern safety requirements

The primary reason why freight died was EU rules which forced IE to produce 3 accounts, passenger, freight and infrastructure. At this point the suspect cross subsidisation where money allocated for provision of uneconomic passenger services where syphoned off to bank roll the freight business had to stop.

As a result passenger services show a significant improvement as money was no longer shifted to places it wasn't meant to go. Bell Lines, Asahi, IFI, Slivermines, Ballinacourty and Greencore would almost certainly still be shipping by rail if they hadn't all ceased trading.

Despite all the hype about there being demand no third party operator has gone on record publicly stating an interest, we know of one company which has expressed an interest but they have never operated a revenue earning freight service in the UK.

Government has to stump up the cash. It was unacceptable that monies for passenger services for many years where spent elsewhere that situation cannot be tolerated anymore

[ACustomer]

Mark: At one level what you say is true: EU rules, etc. But there are other rules we have signed up to. One of them is Kyoto, and if you look at recent news reports you will see that (a) greenhouse gas emissions from transport in Ireland have increased at six times the rate for the rest of the EU; (b) the Irish Government (i.e. the taxpayer) faces payment of large fines or costs of pruchasing carbon emission rights as a result of this. In some cases the payment may be made by the industries concerned, but in the case of trucks the payment will not be made by the (FOFF) truckers, but by you and me. So having refused to treat trains and trucks consistently with respect to track costs, they are now going to pay good money for truck emission rights which they could have paid for rail-freight infrasctucture.

Crazy, and if EU rules really force then to do this then EU rules (not for the first time) are crazy too. As for the disposal of freightyard land: this is so dodgy on planning grounds (and personally I smell a very corrupt rat)

[Mark Gleeson]

Since the EU forced open access for freight Europe wide and since public money is used to subsidse rail services there are rules to follow, note current complaint by private coach operators re Dublin Bus and Bus Eireann its the same thing

The EU position meant that passenger service got every cent they where supposed to get, equally if there was money for freight that would be ring fenced. In the old days it was one single balance sheet so it was lost in the numbers

Its quite fair and open and the passenger has done the very well out it as the money allocated to them is now being used as it was intended.

The key point to note is that freight would actually reduce passenger operating costs as the track maintenance cost would be shared out. Its a win win for both

[PaulM]

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

All stopped using rail since they either went out of business or the raw material got used up

That's no excuse.

A Customer, I would like to see more rail freight and less road freight but if what Mark says is true (which i suspect it is) the passenger has beneffited most.

An idea the government could look at, if they had the will, is see what carbon taxes cost per annum and use this money to try to promote rail instead. I can't see this happening though.

[Mark Hennessy]

Leighton Buzzard.. that's west Cork isnt it?

Yeah its been pretty much off the map since the West Cork was lifted in the 1950's

[Thomas J Stamp]

The other reason why freight became uneconomic was the ILDA strike. How many potential customers did that put off?

The argument has to be about ecominics so lets think about the following:

If a major road haulage company or two got their act together they could concivably hire entire freight trains to carry containers overnight from say Cork or Galway or Sligo to meet the ferry crossings in and out of Dublin and Rosslare. The idea would be to do so in a way that their drivers do local runs only, from train station in say cork to cork and kerry/tipp ect, and an agent in Dublin port (the port company itself?) does the transfer from the train to the ferry and another agent picks it up in the UK/France or if it is domestic freight a local driver picks it up from the port and delivers it in Dublin ect.

OTOH:

Cost of driver and unit to train station + cost of passage on train, including loading staff, unloading staff + unloading in uk/France + costs of local driver in reciving domestic station and delivery in that area.

Domesticly the same company should have both ends and therefore the ecomionic case basicly is down to the costs of running a truck, including all tolls and runing costs, depreciation, insurance, tax and all of that, against the train.

Internationally it is the costs of one truck, going from Somewhere in Ireland to somewhere overseas, one driver, all of those costs v. the costs of the above arraingement.

[MV_001]

Asahi (some weird chemical, oil)

Methyl Acrylate & Acrylonitrile used for the manufacture of synthetic fibres