Free access for freight. Try before you buy from Network Rail.

The UK’s national infrastructure management agency has not quite put it that way. However, in a significant step towards modal shift, Network Rail has made track access charges a thing of the past. Well, a thing of the future – six months into the future to be precise.

New freight flows in the UK are being encouraged by a waiver on track access charges – the fees paid to run trains over the national network. A consistent and widespread lobby has been answered by Network Rail offering a critical incentive to put freight on rail. The start-up costs of new freight flows are a significant deterrent to new entrants. Wiping out track access fees, for six months, could be the margin that makes or breaks the modal shift movement.

Encourage new railway business

This could be a fabulous Friday for freight. In a significant boost for the UK rail freight sector, Network Rail, the much-maligned infrastructure agency, has announced a new policy that has upset absolutely no one. NR has cut the track access prices for new traffic flows to a bargain-basement figure of: nothing.

It’s even more generous than Britain’s famously never-ending sofa sales. Network Rail has highlighted the “half-year-for-free” sale to freight operators and potential customers. However, the scheme is even wider than that. “Train operators have been offered the opportunity to gain discounts on their track access charges by Network Rail in a bid to encourage new business to the railway, particularly freight,” said a statement. That implies the scheme is open to passenger operations as well. “The relevant charges would be waived in full for six months whilst new traffic is being established.”

Never simple, never cheap

Track access charges can be a particularly onerous financial disincentive for a modal shift to rail. The fees are an easily discernible additional up-front cost, that a financial officer can present to the board of an alternative haulage company. The calculation of charges, based on axle load and train length, can be complicated. The price list runs to several documents. They are never simple, and never considered cheap. They are often cited as the reason for freight remaining on the roads, and for passenger trains running with short formations.

Governments in the UK have all been at considerable pains to encourage carbon reduction. Modal shift has been a primary tool. However, the policy until now has been very much about legislation and precious little financial instigation. It was only in March, for example, that the Scottish Government suspended its modal shift grant scheme, and the incoming UK government, led by the left-wing Labour Party, has issued almost daily warning of tough times ahead – a political code for: “Grant assistance? Not likely.”

A calculated gamble

Down in Germany, up in France, but until now, no movement in Britain. Waiving track access charges, albeit only for new flows, looks like a calculated gamble. The six-month payment holiday could be argued as not radically affecting Network Rail income. Therefore, it is not detrimental to overall maintenance and investment. Government sources will argue that a single freight train can take up to 76 heavy trucks off the roads, and that equates to fewer expensive potholes to fill.

Rail freight’s 600 daily trains already represent a saving of over one million tonnes of carbon every year. However, the stark reality is that by most popular measures, more than 90 per cent of goods still move by road. There is plenty of market share, and if a free pass on access charges tapped into that in any significant way, that is a percussion of wheels on steels that might just make a noise too loud for Network Rail’s maintenance effort to ignore.

A grand on offer for a grand offer

Network Rail says the offer is open to all train operators and types of service that meet the qualifying criteria. “The driver behind it was the commitment to support the growth of rail freight,” says their statement. “The offer is worth around £1,000 [€1,170] per train circulation (out and back) depending on the length and loading of the trains.”

More than 600 freight trains run in Britain every day. That’s a significant figure, but, for context, that figure is dwarfed by the more than 20,000 daily passenger train movements. nevertheless, those trains support the construction industry, car manufacturing, food, supermarkets, timber and other significant industrial and commercial sectors – even home furnishing. With the price of moving by train brought down to a very comfortable nothing at all, Britain’s manufacturing industry may well be sitting pretty, and we’ll see more sofas on sale, and delivered by rail, faster than you can say: “Don’t delay, this offer must end soon!”