Ben Webster 6th September has a substantial article headed “More freight trains will free up the roads but disrupt rail journeys”.  Whereas we may believe the latter the idea that such a policy can have any impact on road congestion is bizarre.  For example, after allowing for their greater size by multiplying by 1.5, lorries with 4 axles plus all artics constitute only 11% of the traffic flow on the motorway network (7.28 out of 92.9 bn veh-km in 2003 were lorries/artics).   If those vehicles carried as little as 8 Tonnes each then they carried 60 billion tonne-km.  Capturing 10% of that would reduce motorway traffic by perhaps 1% while increasing rail freight by 30%.  If the intention were to capture 10% of the heavy lorry freight on the entire motorway and Trunk road system then again traffic flows thereon would only fall by 1% but rail freight would have to increase by over 40%.

In contrast – replacing the railway lines with a road surface would lead to the rights of way at last being put to sensible use.  After all a measure of the disruption that the steel creates can be had by considering the disaster that it would be if the motorway and trunk road system were surfaced with railway lines.

Paul F Withrington (Director Transport Watch)

Show All Articles for: News