Examination of Witnesses (Questions 14350
- 14359)
Ordered: that Counsel and Parties be called in.
The Petition of Rail Freight Group.
Lord Berkeley appeared on behalf of the Petitioner.
14350. Chairman: Good afternoon. Today
we are going to hold a number of Petitions, the first of which
is the Rail Freight Group. Before I start on that, can I say that
because of the weather people may, if they wish, take their jackets
off and expose their ties as Mr Elvin has already done! I presume
Mr Elvin, we are dealing with you first. Would you like to give
us a summary of the Petition?
14351. Mr Elvin: The position is much
the same as you have heard with other Petitioners on these issues.
Issues are being raised about freight capacity, accommodating
capacity, use of existing paths, integration with the national
network, timetabling and regulatory issues. It is fair to say
that much of what this Petitioner is raising has already been
raised in some other form. I do not propose to say anything other
than that, but to welcome you to the 50th sitting day of the Committee.
It is our golden anniversary!
14352. Chairman: Thank you very much
for reminding us of that.
14353. Mr Elvin: You have felt every
day of it!
14354. Chairman: Lord Berkley, would
you like to state your Petition.
14355. Lord Berkeley: Perhaps I can introduce
myself first. My name is Tony Berkley. I am a Member of the House
of Lords. I am also Chairman of the Rail Freight Group and it
is on that basis that I am speaking here this afternoon. We are
Petition number 213.
14356. I have been Chairman of the Rail Freight
Group for 10 years. It is a representative body of the rail freight
industry in the UK. I am also a member of the European Energy
and Transport Forum, which is a European Commission funded body
to advise them, and I am also an employed member of the European
Rail Freight Customer Platform, which is a sort of grouping of
rail freight customers. Before that I was a manager for Eurotunnel
for 15 years during its construction, which I am not afterwards,
I hasten to add. I am now a member of the Institution of Civil
Engineers and a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Transport.
I hope that is sufficient.
14357. What I want us to briefly do this afternoon
is pull out some of the issues that we have put in our Petition.
I would like to put on record that I think since we submitted
our Petition a good lot of progress has been made on a number
of issues but, as the Committee has heard earlier, they have not
all been resolved. I would like to concentrate on the unresolved
issues. Before I start, can I give the Committee a brief overview
of the rail freight industry as it is now. There are four established
rail freight train operators, the biggest being EWS which has
a market share of 66%.[1]
14358. Chairman: For the record, can
I put that document in as document A163.
14359. Lord Berkeley: That shows the
split of the four. It is figure one in my papers. There are four
operators and it looks as if there may be four new operators starting
this year in addition.
1 Committee Ref: A163, Freight train operators' market
share (LINEWD-21305-012). Back
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