It’s rare for rail freight to make the mainstream pages of the newspapers, at least for the right reasons. However, the hot topic of express logistics has captured the imagination of the British press, with pioneering Varamis Rail hitting the headlines. The coverage comes hot on the tracks of their new service, connecting Birmingham and London at a speed HS2 might envy.

Varamis Rail has launched a five-night-a-week service between their established base in Birmingham and central London. The service comes on the back of a recent vast extension of London’s “Ultra Low Emissions Zone”, which now covers the entire metropolitan area.

Burgeoning desire for next-day deliveries

The prestige broadsheet newspaper, The Sunday Times, has picked up on the coming explosion in express logistics – parcels traffic to you and me. The subject made the airwaves too, with the BBC covering the story, prompting an on-air rendition of WH Auden’s famous poem, “Night Mail”.

Varamis and other carriers have, of course, been “crossing the border” for some time. It’s just that, unlike the rhyming couplet, they’ve been bringing rather more than the cheque and postal order. The somewhat more up-to-date cargo in the retro-fitted former passenger electric multiple units of Varamis owes less to our dependence on printed financial instruments and much more to the burgeoning desire to get ‘next day delivery’ of all manner of consumer goods.

Pioneers leading the way

The break up of the nationalised British Rail back in the 1990s signalled a rapid decline in what was once a universal parcel service. However, this natural part of the railway scene has proved as difficult to kill off as the Buddleja, which sprouts from every line side structure in Britain. Unlike the invasive shoots, it’s not something the industry would like to see eradicated.

Several models of express logistics are currently running in the UK. Royal Mail has had an on-off relationship with mail by rail, while pioneers InterCity RailFreight and Varamis Rail operate on scheduled passenger services and run their own trains, respectively.

Ringing a bell in Fleet Street

It’s Varamis Rail’s entry into the London market that has captured the attention of the mainstream media. Under inevitable headlines about the “Night Mail”, Varamis and other players are featured as the new dawn of parcel traffic. It’s just that “Night Mail” is a little wide of the mark. “Overnight Express Logistics crossing the Border, bringing the dress and engineering order” … doesn’t quite scan.

Nevertheless, making a southwards extension of their already successful Birmingham – Glasgow run does ring a poetic bell with the newsrooms of Fleet Street (none of which are actually on Fleet Street anymore).

Hitting London in the face of the mayor’s war on road traffic (as opponents of the uLEZ scheme have dubbed it) is a wake-up call for the media. It could be a wake-up call for the industry, too. While ICRF has been discretely doing so for years, the sight of a Varamis-branded train at the buffer stops of a London terminus is just the sort of PR cue that the seasoned journalists of the old-school media cannot fail to spot. Express logistics by rail? Read all about it.