Plans to improve rail freight on London’s railways

[John Ashworth]

Plans to improve rail freight on London’s railways

Around 40% of all aggregates used in London’s construction industry are delivered by rail, taking a lot of heavy goods lorries off the roads, which not only reduces road traffic, but rail is considerably less polluting than road traffic – not just CO2, but also particulates shed by road vehicles and breathed in by pedestrians. The difficulty is that as rail fright increases, that shifts congestion from the roads to the railways, where rail freight competes with passenger trains for space on the railways. Balancing the two can be difficult... So Network Rail is looking at what upgrades are needed to keep both freight and passengers moving and to cope with the expected increase in freight traffic...