Back to the future – trains for freight and passengers

15 December 2015

One of the many drivers of the high cost of railways is the low level of use of many of the main assets – train carriages. After the morning peak many trains lie idle until the evening when they do a few more runs. Very few other industries could support this level of utilisation. You could argue this is simply the price of having attractive city regions where people live and work far apart but the road haulage industry keeps trucks going as long as possible every day earning revenue.

So, good to see an idea being developed that could see passenger trains much more quickly being switched to freight use and vice versa.  This could help keep the pressure on reducing costs.

What do you think? Leave a comment or tweet @anthonysmithTF