Select Committee on Crossrail Bill Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 14520 - 14539)

  14520. Chairman: But if you present figures it gives any member of the Committee an opportunity to say, "Why is that there?".

  14521. Mr Kingston: We are very happy to turn Mr Garratt over, if I can put it this way, on any of the figures because they represent from the Petitioner's point of view robust estimates, that is, these can be relied upon as not overblowing the case in terms of what is required in rail freight terms.

  14522. Kelvin Hopkins: I am sorry I missed the very beginning of your evidence, Mr Garratt, but the table here talks about tonnages but it does not mention mileages. Tonne/miles is a normal measure of volume of freight.

   (Mr Garratt) I completely agree. We can certainly provide for you columns of figures without any difficulty. I was simply trying not to make this a lecture on rail freight.

  14523. Mr Kingston: Mr Garratt, we have got your figure 1. Going on to figure 2, that is looking at London; is that right?[30]

  (Mr Garratt) Yes, that is right. That is 2005.

  14524. Let us have a look at the figures. Headlines please from these figures.

   (Mr Garratt) Yes. Of those 118 million tonnes we saw in the previous line 20 million tonnes are to, from or through London, of which half are construction, 10 out of 20, and you can see if we look specifically at the traffic to and from Greater London as opposed to through Greater London 7.6 out of 10.3, about three-quarters, are construction.

  14525. In that context therefore how significant in the broadest sense of customer is aggregates traffic for rail freight capacity in London?

   (Mr Garratt) Most important.

  14526. In the same context the consequences therefore of inadequacy of capacity with regard to knock-on effects in terms of road transport?

   (Mr Garratt) They would be serious and, as we discussed before, would have environmental impact.

  14527. We ought then to move from those figures with regard to the tonnages to what that might mean in train movements and you have, I think, figures 4, 5 and 6 to help us with that.

  This form of diagram may appear at least a little familiar as something we saw earlier this afternoon, and now you know the source of it.

   (Mr Garratt) That is right.

  14528. Mr Garratt, frankly it looks bewildering presented in this form. Can you please give us the message from this figure

   (Mr Garratt) I apologise for that. It is quite difficult to get across. The small numbers you see on each of the different legs, the first number shows the actual number of freight trains on average running along that section of the track and the second number shows the maximum number because there is clearly a variation during the week between average and maximum. That, if you like, is the demand which the network is trying to deal with. The colour coding is self-evident, it conveys those routes that are busier than others. If we look to the red line pointing off towards about 11 o'clock, that is the West Coast Main Line, and as far as the Crossrail route is concerned it is the green line to the left, if you like, coming in from Berkshire through Central London. We see the red section in the middle of London which is the North London Line and moving eastwards towards, as it were, two o'clock the green line towards Ipswich.

  14529. This figure, figure 4, is current rail freight train movements in 2005, is that right?[31]

  (Mr Garratt) Correct.

  14530. The overall message, please, translating the colours and the like?

   (Mr Garratt) The overall message is that this is a busy part of the railway network.

  14531. Currently in 2005.

   (Mr Garratt) Yes.

  14532. Let us have figure 5.[32] This is forecast to 2014, what has happened, please? What is the difference?

  (Mr Garratt) What you see here is much more red. The colours begin to change as demand grows particularly from the east and in the centre on the North London Line.

  14533. And number 6, please, the same question: what has happened now we have moved to 2030?[33]

  (Mr Garratt) It has got busier and busier in all directions, particularly influenced by the increase in maritime containers, and what we see is a London railway network with very heavy rail freight demands.

  14534. You have already told us what the consequences of restricted capacity would be likely to be: restricted choice, restricted competition and the potential, therefore, for less rail use.

   (Mr Garratt) Yes.

  14535. Let us have figure 7 then, please.[34]

  (Mr Garratt) What we saw before was demand and this is current supply. These are the freight paths currently available. We have only to see that some of the legs which are red in the later years are no longer red so we can see that demand is likely to exceed supply.

  14536. Then figure 8, please.[35] This is forecast path utilisation in 2030. What should we be looking at here, Mr Garratt, in terms of what you want the Committee to understand from your evidence?

  (Mr Garratt) If we take, for example, table one, the top line where we see an actual volume of 49 trains, this is via Shenfield to reach the North London Line at Stratford on the Great Eastern. We see 40 today growing through 75 and 90 with only 53 paths available, so we see a high level of utilisation, ie demand is 170% of supply and so on and so forth.

  14537. The same applies in the third table here looking at the west of West Drayton, is that right?

   (Mr Garratt) Table three deals with Great Western and we see, using the same approach, that utilisation would reach 98%.

  14538. And the message from that, please?

   (Mr Garratt) 98% is unrealistic. It presumes every train runs on time, is there and available and so forth, and the rail freight industry cannot work to that level simply because demand, particularly on the aggregates side which is largely Great Western, does vary day by day and week by week.

  14539. Figure 9.[36] This is forecast shortfall on paths along the network, busiest day.

  (Mr Garratt) This is assuming that every path is used, which is a wildly optimistic view, and even then comparing supply and demand for paths we see a shortfall of paths in 2030. The colour coding is the same and the numbers reflect the shortfalls.


30   Committee Ref: A166, Figure 2: London Freight Rail Traffic-million tonnes 2005 (LINEWD-33005-003). Back

31   Committee Ref: A166, Figure 4: Current rail freight train movements (2005) London (LINEWD-33005-005). Back

32   Committee Ref: A166, Figure 5: Rail freight train forecasts (2014) London (LINEWD-33005-006). Back

33   Committee Ref: A166, Figure 6: Rail freight train forecasts (2030) London (LINEWD-33005-007). Back

34   Committee Ref: A166, Figure 7: Existing freight paths (20058) London (LINEWD-33005-008). Back

35   Committee Ref: A166, Figure 8: Forecast path utilisation 2030 (LINEWD-33005-009). Back

36   Committee Ref: A166, Figure 9: Forecast shortfall in paths along Crossrail corridor (busiest day) (LINEWD-33005-010). Back


 
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