Rail/road shift bonus?
Page 12
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
by Juliet Parish • Owner-drivers in the North could win a slice of nearly 200,000 tonnes of freight which Castle Cement is considering shifting from rail to road in January next year.
Castle Cement logistics director Jonathan Dale says that it could switch to road "well over a half" of the 300,000 to 350,000 tonnes of building materials it currently puts on rail each year, because of threatened price increases from British Rail's bulk traffic division Trainload Freight.
The Peterborough-based firm currently moves four million tonnes a year, most of which is carried in-house by road. In the past eight years it has halved its volumes of rail freight.
"A very large proportion of freight is at risk of being put on road because the cost of using rail is rising disproportionately to the rate of inflation and road haulage," says Dale.
"As a company we deplore the idea of more freight being put on the roads but we have to face up to the economic realities," he says. "It will be bad news for industry in general and bad news for the towns which the trucks will go through."
The traffic most likely to be transferred to road would be from the rail routes from Ribblesdale in Lancashire to Scotland and from Ribblesdale to Newcastle and Middlesbrough. But Castle Cement's other major freight route, from Ketton in Lincolnshire to Kings Cross in London is likely to be unaffected because of road congestion in London.
Castle Cement has already shifted some freight from rail to road to keep busy a number of self-employed hauliers it is contracting in case its 209 drivers take further strike action against a new conditions package. The employee drivers face the sack unless they accept the deal, which removes their right to negotiate through the Transport & General Workers Union, by the end of the month.
Dale will meet Trainload Freight again in the next few months to discuss rates and conditions. He is convinced that after the meeting "it is highly likely some proportion of freight will move on to roads."
Dale will consider taking on owner-drivers as well as employing more in-house, if the work cannot be absorbed.