Anglo-Scottish corridors ought to be dominated by rail freight. The advantages of powerful locomotives, crossing the Border, shovelling sparks over their shoulders, should be obvious. Yet almost a century after the most famous railway propaganda work of all time, the tracks still seem sparsely populated by cargo, while the roads are an endless snake of road freight. Rail freight specialist, and WH Auden enthusiast, Simon Walton investigates.
TRUTH TOLD, the night mail does still cross the border, and a cohort of freight trains bring much more than the cheque and postal order. After a brief hiatus in the noughties, the modern mail train returned, under electric power, easily capable of express logistics at first class speeds.
The impressively red Royal Mail trains hurtle along the Anglo-Scottish arteries, day and night. These signed, sealed and electric units are delivered between London mail depots and Warrington, Glasgow and Newcastle to a precision timetable that makes most passenger operators blush. Royal Mail has what every other parcels company would love to acquire: a rail-borne light logistics business, of which more later.
Meanwhile, there’s the bread and butter of heavyweight freight. “There is so much more that should be hauled by rail, tanked commodities especially,” said Scott Addie, deputy general manager for Freightliner in Scotland, and a train driver himself, regularly in charge of 1,800 tonnes of intermodal containers, hauled by a brace of electric locomotives developing an impressive 7,000 horsepower.
