Examination of Witnesses (Questions 9720
- 9739)
9720. MR GEORGE: Could you please give
your name to the Lordships?
(Mr Smith) Yes. I am Graham Ernie Smith MBE
and the Planning Director of English, Welsh and Scottish Railway,
EWS, a post I have held for 12 years. I have worked in the railway
industry for 29 years and for 25 of those I have been working
in the rail freight sector within the rail freight industry.
9721. Could you put your microphone around,
twist it a little bit towards you? Could you try and speak up.
Are you Chairman of the Rail Freight Operators Association?
(Mr Smith) I am.
9722. What is that body?
(Mr Smith) That is the association of the major UK rail freight
operators. It includes a sales freight liner, direct rail services
and GB rail freight and the other posts that I hold includes being
a director of the European Rail Freight Association, Director
of the Rail Freight Group. I am also a member of the Freight Transport
Association rail freight's council.
9723. What are your responsibilities within
EWS?
(Mr Smith) The relationship with the Department for Transport,
the Office of Rail Regulation, Transport for London, the strategic
and contractual relationship with Network Rail and also leading
the company's development in mainland Europe.
9724. I think EWS supports the principle of
Crossrail, is that right?
(Mr Smith) We support the principle of Crossrail and of the
development of London's rail infrastructure.
9725. You gave evidence, I think, on two occasions
in the other place?
(Mr Smith) I did, on 11 July 2006 and on 27 February 2007.
9726. Since the Bill was introduced what has
been the approach of EWS?
(Mr Smith) We have been actively engaged in discussions with
the Promoters in order to obtain some comfort as regards the likely
effect of Crossrail and rail freight. Some of our concerns have
now been addressed through certain commitments the Promoter has
now offered. As the Committee has heard, the Promoter has offered
an undertaking in relation to the proposals of our depot at Old
Oak Common.
9727. Could you again keep your voice up, please,
and very briefly explain the activities of EWS and how they interface
with Crossrail?
(Mr Smith) EWS is the UK's largest rail freight operator.
We also operate freight trains through the Channel Tunnel connecting
to our open access operations in France. We haul over 90 million
tonnes of rail freight each year, including more than 20 million
tonnes of construction materials. We have invested over 700 million
in the rail freight industry through our existence and have made
rail freight a success story. We operate across the whole of the
country and I think if we now put up exhibit 1, we can see just
how far our services range and how a lot of them focus on London.
9728. The exhibit EWS 1 is now on the screen.[65]
Could you briefly comment on it?
(Mr Smith) This shows services operating on
the affected routes, that is the routes between Maidenhead and
Heathrow to Shenfield and Abbey Wood, and how our services that
operate on those routes radiate throughout the United Kingdom
on the West Coast Main Line and Midland Main Line from Leicestershire
and the Great Western Main Line as far as South Wales. All of
these freight services will be affected by the Crossrail services
because our services and Crossrail services are operating both
on the Great Western and Great Eastern Main Lines. If we go to
exhibit EWS 2 we can see the London area in greater detail.
9729. Just before you move on, if we go back
to EWS 1, why is it that when you get to London the red lines
do not become thicker?
(Mr Smith) The thickness represents the tonnage moving on
each route and if in London we expanded them to represent the
millions of tonnes, London would be a single red blob. That clearly
may or may not be the case tomorrow in the local elections but
for the purpose of this preparation this is merely to show the
level of activity on the routes concerned.
9730. You were taking us to EWS 2 if we could
have on the screen, thank you.[66]
(Mr Smith) This is the same principle as EWS
1, with red lines showing where rail freight operations exist
on rail routes in and around London. What we need to recognise
is London is a major centre of consumption for freight services
and it is also a major part of the railway network for through
services passing from west to east and vice versa. The trains
that we move on the London rail network carry construction materials,
waste, coal, oil, motor vehicles as well as freight from mainland
Europe. The Great Western Main Line is particularly critical for
us as it is the primary route linking Somerset and south Wales
with London and the Home Counties. Without use of the Great Western
Main Line we would not be able to bring freight materials into
London by rail.
9731. Those important freight depots are shown
marked on that plan and when we come to look at the works you
are seeking they particularly relate to places like Langley, Iver,
West Drayton and Hanwell Bridge, do they not?
(Mr Smith) They do.
9732. Yesterday the Committee heard a great
deal on freight growth. If we could put up EWS 3, we could probably
take this fairly fast.[67]
(Mr Smith) Yes, this is the actual freight activity
measured in million tonne kilometres since the low point in 1994-95
and the forecast growth as contained in the Network Rail edited
freight route utilisation strategy endorsed by the Government
forecast produced by the industry, the rail freight group and
the rail freight operators association which we expect to play
a full part in.
9733. Those, I think, are figures which have
been agreed with the Government, have they not, for rail freight
growth? Is that right?
(Mr Smith) Yes, the Government has endorsed those figures.
9734. Yesterday we heard about national freight
policies. Could you tell us what are the policies in London for
freight?
(Mr Smith) The Mayor of London supports the rail freight
industry and his transport strategy specifically seeks to foster
a progressive shift of freight from road to more sustainable modes
like rail. This was confirmed in the Mayor's London Rail Freight
Strategy published in November 2007.
9735. Let us now then move on to the question
of network capacity and I think, first of all, you want to deal
with existing freight movements.
(Mr Smith) Just to explain how our existing freight movements
work, we run on Network Rail's network. We have two track access
agreements that provide us with access rights to that network
and a further agreement that enables us to move engineering trains
for Network Rail and these trains carry materials for the maintenance
renewal and repair of the network. Our access agreements have
various periods to run with the longest one not expiring until
December 2015. We expect that our access agreements will be extended
beyond 2015 and such an extension was also assumed by the ORR
in its consideration of the Promoters' application for the Crossrail
track Access Option.
9736. What freight services do you operate at
present on the Great Western Main Line?
(Mr Smith) We are currently operating 24 hours a day, seven
days a week, up to 85 train paths a day that are available for
use for our customers. Use will vary from day to day. Freight
operates in—
9737. Just pause for a second, let us put up
EWS 21, and the Committee will be relieved to hear that exhibits
4 to 20 are no longer relevant, they are overtaken by the Old
Oak Common matter, so we are making a lot of progress, we are
on to EWS 21.[68]
(Mr Smith) This exhibit shows the freight trains
travel along the Great Western Main Line in one direction. Each
line on the exhibit corresponds to one freight train. The colours
indicate what the trains are carrying, the key is down bottom
and the lengths indicate their origins and destinations. On the
left is the days on which the trains run. It demonstrates that
the freight timetable is not like passenger timetable. We run
our trains to meet our customers' requirements so we are running
in response to demand rather than in anticipation of demand. Trains
may not run every day or every week, but it does give you an idea
of what needs to be threaded through the Crossrail and other passenger
services for freight to be continued to be carried by rail to
the same extent as it is now.
9738. As far as your services on the Great Eastern
Main Line, please?
(Mr Smith) The Great Eastern Main Line is less important
for EWS, but we operate round the clock on that line as well,
using up to 36 train paths and the Abbey Wood line, the other
part of the Crossrail Bill, again around the clock service but
only 11 paths we need there. It is a much lower level of operation
than the Great Eastern or particularly the Great Western.
9739. Mr Smith, could I stop you there. On Day
21 at 8173 Mr Berryman said this: "I ought to mention at
this point that not all the existing freight paths are used by
a very, very wide margin. I think only around 50 per cent are
actually used now so there is already 100 per cent growth capability".
Do you have any comment on that matter?
(Mr Smith) I start from the point that we operate our trains
in response to customer demand. Therefore, we will have a path
each day, but a factory may not produce goods each day that need
to be moved. There is also a number of freight paths that exist
should our trains be diverted because of engineering work and
because we run a lot of trains at night it is quite likely those
trains will be diverted because of that engineering work. Traffic
is seasonal as well. We will be moving consumer goods much more
during the autumn in the run-up to Christmas than we would, say,
after Christmas. Aggregates demand tends to be high during the
spring/summer months for building materials, construction works.
Elsewhere in the country, for example, coal demand is much stronger
in the winter. It is just a nature of freight operations by whatever
mode that they do not run to a published timetable, they run in
response to specific agreements and arrangements we have with
individual customers.
65 Committee Ref:A57, Current EWS freight flows into/through
London with relevant terminal locations (LINEWD-103_05-004) Back
66
Committee Ref:A57, EWS locations affected by Crossrail (LINEWD-103_05-005) Back
67
Committee Ref: A57, UK rail freight volume growth (LINEWD-103_05-006) Back
68
Committee Ref: A57, Trains per day-Reading-London (Monday-Friday)
(LINEWD-103_05A-003) Back
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