Royal Mail to cease using trains

[Tazi Hupefi]

The timing for all of this is very suspicious - I'm wondering whether it's simply a ploy to extract funding from a newly elected government or to secure another concession (such as the removal or amendment of the universal delivery obligations).

Given that DB seems to have been taken by surprise with this announcement, that indicates that there probably hasn't even been a prior attempt at renegotiating that contract etc either - which, surely as a cost conscious business, would have been a first step from Royal Mail if they were seriously considering this.

If I were in DfT, I'd slap a new, punitive tax on HGVs conveying mail/parcels between locations reasonably accessible by rail - and not just for Royal Mail.

 

[Spaceship323]

I imagine many people do what I do though and pick a cheaper courier online. I can either buy and print a label then drop off at a shop or locker, or pay an extra few quid and have a courier collect it from my house.

A lot of the time Royal Mail are very expensive compared to others, I used to sell a lot of transport related items on ebay a few years back. To post a Wayfarer bus machine cost me around £15 with Royal Mail but around £5 through Parcel Force online. I also had a job lot of broken bus destination controllers bought by a guy in Poland. I took the package to the post office who said it was £70 to send it. Did some shopping around online and got it sent over for about £20 in the end.

Not to mention because a lot of bank branches have closed, I would often be queueing up to 20 minutes to post a parcel as there was always a big queue for banking related custom. It didn't matter in the end because they closed my local post office anyway!

All being said, it will be a shame to see the rail operations cease, although I had been wondering how much longer they would continue anyway.

Royal Mail collect for free and have done for at least a year now, most parcels I send out are tracked 48 hour and cost £3.39 with online postage which I think is great value. (My local PO has also closed recently, but it was a franchise inside the pharmacy so you can't blame RM for that!)

 

[Skimpot flyer]

As mentioned just a few posts upthread by @Trainbike46, Royal Mail, ParcelForce & Post Office are three separate entities under an umbrella organisation.

Incorrect.
Royal Mail and Parcelforce are subsiduaries of IDS (formerly called Royal Mail Group).
RMG was privatised.
The Post Office was not part of the sale, and is still state-owned.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 10 Jul 2024 ==

Is this all done and dusted or could it be a ploy for government subsidy by the new owner?

There is no new owner.
Even if the takeover goes through, it is not expected to be finalised until the first quarter of 2025

 

[ChiefPlanner]

"Old" Freightliner when it had a decent number of terminals had a reasonable traffic of Royal Mail branded containers regularly carried - usually parcel post - so Stratford - Leeds had maybe 10 boxes a night , Glasgow - Willesden etc .......used to enjoy handling it and the traffic was given special attention by all staff....regarded as prestigious

Even maritime biased Felixstowe at Christmas times had domestic containers to Coatbridge (which had to be cleared with the port operator) , so nothing new under the sun and this was 1982 or so. International shipping containers often had mail traffic for all parts of the world.....

 

[MarkyT]

Incorrect.
Royal Mail and Parcelforce are subsiduaries of IDS (formerly called Royal Mail Group).
RMG was privatised.
The Post Office was not part of the sale, and is still state-owned.

There is no new owner.
Even if the takeover goes through, it is not expected to be finalised until the first quarter of 2025

Křetínský is already the biggest individual shareholder in IDS at ~28%. He's known as an active investor, so I expect he already has some influence over the company.

 

[dk1]

Incorrect.
Royal Mail and Parcelforce are subsiduaries of IDS (formerly called Royal Mail Group).
RMG was privatised.
The Post Office was not part of the sale, and is still state-owned.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 10 Jul 2024 ==


There is no new owner.
Even if the takeover goes through, it is not expected to be finalised until the first quarter of 2025

Cheers.

 

[HSTEd]

This is in contrast to rail where there are both access charges and per-mile usage charges to pay for maintenance, with freight operators paying more than passenger.

I'm not sure about that last statement.
Franchised Passenger operations alone paid [198/228] over £2bn in access charges in the last financial year.
Freight paid £11m, even in the year before when they paid more it is was still only £53m.

Freight access charges are essentially nominal.

 

[najaB]

I'm not sure that last statement is at all sustainable.
Franchised Passenger operations alone paid over £2bn in access charges in the last financial year.
Freight paid £11m, even in the year before when they paid more it is was still only £53m.

Freight access charges are essentially nominal.

And the ratio of passenger miles to freight miles...?

 

[HSTEd]

And the ratio of passenger miles to freight miles...?

Freight train kilometres in 2023-2024 were ~31.4 million kilometres.
Passenger train kilometres in 2023-2024 were ~496 million

That means freight train kilometres were roughly 6% of the total train kilometres.
Even if we assume a freight train has the same track damage burden as a passenger train, 6% of track access charges in the last Network Rail accounts would be ~£135m, not £11m.
For the previous year it would be £166m, not £53m.

Given that the average freight train in the UK carried ~500 tonnes of payload (implying a train weight not far off 800 tonnes including locomotive and vehicles). I'd say assuming freight trains imposing the same maintenance burden as the avearge passenger train is optimistic, given that the average passenger train has only six vehicles, and a large part of the traffic will be lightweight EMUs or Sprinter type DMUs

 

[yorksrob]

Ideological nonsense. It was public sector owned Royal Mail that stopped using rail for a period back in the early 2000s.

It was ideological claptrap that had the Royal Mail and the railways flogged off in the first place.

Moderator note: A part of this post, along with replies, was split to:

Will the Government modal shift away from road haulage towards rail?

Ideological nonsense. It was public sector owned Royal Mail that stopped using rail for a period back in the early 2000s. It was ideological claptrap that had the Royal Mail and the railways flogged off in the first place. 1720679733 Yes. I wonder what the new Labour Government might do about...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[GardenRail]

Well, well. That's the Labour Green Agenda off to a good start. A bit embarrassing really. Now let's see if they allow it to happen.

 

[Skimpot flyer]

Well, well. That's the Labour Green Agenda off to a good start. A bit embarrassing really. Now let's see if they allow it to happen.

Labour have zero influence over decisions made by what has been a private company, for over 10 years.

Never forget that it was Labour, and Peter Mandelsom, that commissioned the Hooper Report and first floated the idea of errr.. floating Royal Mail on the Stock Market. Something that even Thatcher baulked at!

 

[yorksrob]

Labour have zero influence over decisions made by what has been a private company, for over 10 years.

Never forget that it was Labour, and Peter Mandelsom, that commissioned the Hooper Report and first floated the idea of errr.. floating Royal Mail on the Stock Market. Someone hing that even Thatcher baulked at!

New Labour through and through, unfortunately.

(I'm hoping that the current incarnation will be less dazzled by market hocus-pocus).

 

[Trainbike46]

Railfreight doesn't pay as much fuel duty however.

not relevant for royal mail, which uses electric trains.

the carbon tax on electricity generation is the electric traction equivalent of fuel duty

 

[The exile]

Because a nationalised firm wouldn't be directed by government to make efficencies and use the cheapest methods?

Not necessarily if that “cheapest method” led to greater increased costs elsewhere in the equation.

 

[ExRes]

Labour have zero influence over decisions made by what has been a private company, for over 10 years.

Never forget that it was Labour, and Peter Mandelsom, that commissioned the Hooper Report and first floated the idea of errr.. floating Royal Mail on the Stock Market. Someone hing that even Thatcher baulked at!

Excellent post

 

[Taunton]

There are regular accounts on here about the WCML (and others) being disrupted by a range of issues, floods, wires down, strikes, extended engineering closures, crew shortage, train failed ahead, no service north of Preston, etc etc. Doubtless such issues also impact the mail trains. There seems little issue with trunk HGVs getting through. It would be good to compare the reliability of trunk mail services on road and rail.

 

[najaB]

There seems little issue with trunk HGVs getting through.

Or... it's just not seen as newsworthy.

 

[HSTEd]

fuel duty is an implicit carbon tax; electric rail freight pays the same in the form of the carbon tax paid by electricity generators

Diesel freight is not relevant as royal mail was not using that anyway.
Below is an overview of the taxes paid by ELECTRIC rail freight, as well as diesel HGVs. Feel free to add if you feel I missed a tax or charge, but remember, business don't pay VAT on goods and services (more accurately, they claim it back), so that is not included. Similarly, CPC fees are a cost associated with training staff, a cost which rail also has (though in a different ways), and road fund licence tax is a different name for VED.

To me, it seems that road haulage is getting an unfair advantage by having VED rather than infrastructure usage charges like rail.

	Electric rail freight	diesel HGV
carbon tax	UK ETS (on electricity generation)	Fuel Duty
infrastructure usage charges	Track Access Charges	-
"owning a vehicle" tax	-	Vehicle Excise Duty

You do have to account for VAT because the VAT on road fuel and railway diesel and electricity are charged at different rates.
If you do the calculation, road haulage is burdened with something like £4.5bn in fuel duty and VAT on fuel each year. The value for railfreight is negligible.

Even if the "haulier" can claim the VAT back, the road haulage product is still £4.5bn more expensive than it would be otherwise if it there was no VAT.

 

[RT4038]

Which other countries operate similar mail trains? Is their demise here, like most countries around the world, just the inevitable march of progress towards cheaper, more flexible and reliable transport?

 

[muddythefish]

There are times when you despair of this country. This is one of them. Rather like the end of the Speedlink network it is a shock and deeply disappointing. For railfreight it always seems to be one step forward, three steps back.

 

[HSTEd]

Which other countries operate similar mail trains? Is their demise here, like most countries around the world, just the inevitable march of progress towards cheaper, more flexible and reliable transport?

The French 'TGV La Poste' fleet was retired in 2015 as part of a move towards swap body logistics.

There was a "Mercitalia Fast" scheme in Italy but that recently ceased operation in 2023.

 

[Chester1]

Which other countries operate similar mail trains? Is their demise here, like most countries around the world, just the inevitable march of progress towards cheaper, more flexible and reliable transport?

You can't ask questions like that!!!

I support renationalising natural monopolies. Postal services haven't been a natural monopoly for a long time. The world has moved on. More electric vans would be a better investment than a new fleet of electric trains but its a business decision and for private sector shareholders and management to make.

 

[Deepgreen]

Because the competition was never true competition. The competitors don't have the universal service obligation that RM does, so they just cannibalise the profitable parts of the network and leave the rest to RM.

Quite!! The railways as a whole were privatised on the basis of encouraging competition, but there is virtually none at the point of use.


Moderator note: A part of this post, along with replies, was split to:

Will the Government modal shift away from road haulage towards rail?

Ideological nonsense. It was public sector owned Royal Mail that stopped using rail for a period back in the early 2000s. It was ideological claptrap that had the Royal Mail and the railways flogged off in the first place. 1720679733 Yes. I wonder what the new Labour Government might do about...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[eldomtom2]

Which other countries operate similar mail trains? Is their demise here, like most countries around the world, just the inevitable march of progress towards cheaper, more flexible and reliable transport?

The French 'TGV La Poste' fleet was retired in 2015 as part of a move towards swap body logistics.

There was a "Mercitalia Fast" scheme in Italy but that recently ceased operation in 2023.

On the other hand, in Japan the launch of a service to carry parcels and freight on Shinkansen trains was so successful there is now talk of running freight-only trains.

 

[najaB]

...we have just had a large one here and ten miles of roads are having to tbe resurfaced as a result of one lorry spraying it behind it!

Paid for by the haulage firm, right? Well, one can dream.

 

[Dr Hoo]

Quite!! The railways as a whole were privatised on the basis of encouraging competition, but there is virtually none at the point of use.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Jul 2024 ==


Perhaps that would encourage lorry operators to be more careful to prevent diesel spillages - we have just had a large one here and ten miles of roads are having to tbe resurfaced as a result of one lorry spraying it behind it!

Well, as far as freight is concerned the market is effectively wholly competitive from the customer perspective (DB Cargo, Freightliner, GBRf, DRS, Colas and some smaller operators too bidding for their custom), all on an 'open access' basis.

Various logistics and 'parcels' companies make a range of uses of rail freight, from whole containers down to smaller consignments with Varamis.

On the second point, the Surrey spillage is reckoned to be a leaking lorry tank of around 400 litres. Better not mention that the Llangennech derailment spilt 446,000 litres.

 

[oldman]

Which other countries operate similar mail trains?

Switzerland.

Swiss Post and the railways − an inseparable duo

Every day, SBB Cargo operates 45 parcel trains and 15 letter trains across Switzerland for Swiss Post − with a total of around 470 wagons.

 

[YorkRailFan]

It puzzles me that Royal Mail only opened DIRFT (Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal) not even a year ago with a dedicated rail connection and now they're going to cease using trains just over a year after the terminal opened. This decision must've been a long time coming, so DIRFT seems to become redundant almost immediately.

 

[class442]

It puzzles me that Royal Mail only opened DIRFT (Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal) not even a year ago with a dedicated rail connection and now they're going to cease using trains just over a year after the terminal opened. This decision must've been a long time coming, so DIRFT seems to become redundant almost immediately.

The DIRFT terminal seems a bit dead in the water to me, as the line to it is not electrified and I believe requires a reversal, so requires a diesel on site to use it.
It's a lot like the other rail terminals that were opened and closed 20 years ago without much use (Bristol?).

Can anyone confirm how much use DIRFT Royal Mail has seen since it opened?

In contrast to the DB statement, that from RM explained the intent to continue with a mix of road, air & rail. They confirm they don't want to continue using their own cl.325 units anymore however. There could be opportunities for more rail use even than now with new operators if contracts were attractive.

I also received this information - Royal Mail claim that they will continue using rail transport, but not with the 325s, citing reliability, parts availability, and also route availably.