Examination of Witnesses (Questions 15680
- 15699)
15680. Do you say that you, Crossrail, have
no effect at all upon that which is forecast to grow and has been
agreed to grow in the Secretary of State's decisions for the container
terminal ports?
(Mr Berryman) Yes. As far
as I am able to see, we have no impact at all on that.
15681. Are you prepared for Crossrail to undertake
that you will not displace any of that freight traffic both present
and forecast to 2023?
(Mr Berryman) I do not know what better undertaking
I can give you than I already have to say that our system has
been designed to allow for the uninterrupted flow of freight from
that direction. Proving the kind of statement that you have made
or measuring it would be an impossible task. You would have to
have two identical railways, one which was running some traffic
and one which was not.
15682. Well, we have your answer. Can you just
look please at page 24 of 50 of the Crossrail Timetable Working
Group, which is P106.[57]
We have seen this before and the Committee have seen this before,
so we are familiar with it.
(Mr Berryman) Yes.
15683. The right-hand column, Stratford to Shenfield,
at the top is what we are concerned with. That of course is a
line which affects my clients, is it not?
(Mr Berryman) It is indeed,
yes.
15684. We see there, do we not, that we have
got a worsening of the situation, minus 16 compared to minus eight.
(Mr Berryman) Yes, compared
to the forecast demand in 2014, but how many of those trains could
be accommodated now? The point I am trying to get across to you,
and obviously failing, is that what we are doing is not making
the situation any worse or any better than it is now. We are saying
that you can run 35 trains a day on this route in one direction
and, I think, 27 in the other. I would be prepared to wager that
that is no different from what can be accommodated now. You are
making a much more general point that the possible growth in your
traffic cannot be accommodated by the railway. What I am saying
to you is that that may well be the case, but that is not because
we are making the situation worse, but it is because the situation
is as it is.
15685. You say that, despite the fact that the
Committee has had evidence that Crossrail is making it worse.
(Mr Berryman) Well, they
have had evidence which we are responding to in writing in due
course.
15686. Mr Liddell-Grainger: I think,
Mr Straker, this is a little unfair. We are waiting for a response
from the Promoters. I take the point on board, but I think until
we get that response, we cannot deal with it.
15687. Mr Straker: Very well, sir. I
am very happy with that and we have obviously the transcripts
available. Can we then touch upon one or two other matters please,
Mr Berryman, because you say that you cannot think about these
matters ahead because your wife wakes up in the morning with a
freight train going past.
(Mr Berryman) It is very
disturbing.
15688. Can we just see that a little bit further.
Have you spoken to, for example, Hutchison Ports in connection
with how they organise the carriage of freight by rail?
(Mr Berryman) No, I do not
think we have.
15689. Have you spoken to any port or operator
as to whether in fact there is a programme involved with a forward
consideration of traffic movements which might depend upon precise
timetabling and working out?
(Mr Berryman) No, we have
not and neither have we spoken to any supermarket operators who
are freight-users or steel suppliers who are freight-users or
coal miners. The only people we have spoken to are people who
actually have premises on the railway, which is mainly the aggregate
carriers obviously, and the people who operate trains and we have
relied on the operators of the trains to tell us what their customers
would be doing. It would be an impossible task to go round the
entire freight industry and establish at customer level what everyone
is doing. All we can do is take the overall economic forecast
which we have referred to in the past and then talk to individual
train operators about how they would work, and we have had many,
many meetings with those train operators. We totted up yesterday
that we had had over 60 meetings with EWS, for example, and I
would be surprised if we had had less than 30 meetings with Freightliner
who I think are the main carriers from your clients' ports.
15690. As far as my clients are concerned, am
I right in supposing that you have read and agreed that my clients'
proposals are of vital national importance?
(Mr Berryman) I do not doubt
that for a second.
15691. Am I right in supposing that you have
read and agreed that my clients are the single biggest contributor
to rail freight carried on the railway?
(Mr Berryman) Yes, I have no reason to doubt
that.
15692. Just tell me please, Mr Berryman, why
it is that you have not spoken to my clients about the impact
of Crossrail upon their services.
(Mr Berryman) Because the people that we deal
with are the train operators, the people who operate the trains
on the network. They are the people who will, together with Network
Rail, set the timetable and work out how the trains are going
to move and the whole operation of the railway. The fact of the
importance of the ports of course is accepted and no one would
deny that for a second, but it is not something that is appropriate
for us to go to any ultimate end user to find out why they are
using the railway. That would be an absolutely impossible task.
15693. Mr Berryman, did I ask you to go to every
end user?
(Mr Berryman) No, you did
not, but I think there would be a precedent set, would there not,
if we went to your clients and not to other end users.
15694. Sir, I am going to leave matters there
because plainly we are going to touch back, as far as timetabling
matters are concerned, which are critical, as this witness has
agreed, to the question of capacity. Sir, you have a variety of
material on capacity and I will be making some observations in
a moment.
Re-examined by Ms Lieven
15695. Ms Lieven: There is just one point,
Mr Berryman, and I am sure the Committee has got it, but let us
just make it absolutely clear. Staying on that table, this worsening
that Mr Straker keeps going on about for freight, what we see
on this table is that the first set of figures comes down to a
figure of minus eight, yes, and that is without Crossrail?
(Mr Berryman) Yes.
15696. The second block comes to minus 16 with
Crossrail.
(Mr Berryman) Yes.
15697. Can you just explain what that means
in practical terms? Does it mean that Crossrail is actually practically
in 2015, when it comes on line, stopping any freight trains running
or have they been stopped effectively already, or constrained,
to use the jargon?
(Mr Berryman) They have
been constrained already, yes.
15698. So in real rather than theoretical terms,
does Crossrail make any difference to the ability of freight to
grow on the Great Eastern?
(Mr Berryman) No.
15699. Ms Lieven: Thank you very much.
57 Crossrail Ref: P106, Crossrail Timetable Working
Group, Great Eastern line Freight Train Paths (LINEWD-GEN13-025). Back
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