ALTHOUGH the forecast for passenger numbers in the recovery from Covid-19 is gloomy, a different picture has emerged for freight operations. The growth in online shopping has increased the need for rail served distribution centres to provide capacity for imported goods received from ports.
Rail has benefitted from this trend and despite the economic disruption caused by the pandemic, statistics published by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) show that intermodal traffic recovered to a level above the previous year in the six months to March 2021.
Intermodal now top
Total rail traffic moved in 2020/21 was 15.16 billion net tonne kilometres (ntk), with intermodal the largest single component at 6.29bn ntk. The haulage of coal fell by 44% to just 0.21bn ntk, indicating the insignificant contribution it now makes to overall rail freight activity.
As well as the switch from coal-fired power stations as a source of energy production, the movement of other bulk commodities declined last year as a result of lockdown restrictions imposed by the Government.
There were falls of 24% for moving petroleum products and 11% for construction – but growth of 4% was recorded for uncategorised flows, which is a result of the inclusion of biomass in this classification.