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Monday 10 Mar 2025

Freight is great! The benefits of using freight on the Wales & Borders route

Region & Route:

Wales & Western: Wales & Borders

Rail freight is often unfairly viewed as the second-class citizen of the railway – especially as it’s difficult to argue that almost every single one of us benefits from it in one way or another.

Do you eat baked beans or soup? The chances are the tin in which it is packaged was produced in Wales and transported via Network Rail’s Wales and Borders route.

Do you use coins? Again, the metal for the coins were almost certainly made in Port Talbot in Wales.

The same goes for supermarket goods, petroleum, aggregate and timber. So many commodities that affect so many lives travel on the railway throughout the Wales and Borders route daily, underlining the huge and underrated role rail freight plays.

In Network Rail's continued support of International Women’s Day,  we interviewed Jess Lippett, senior regional freight manager for Wales and Western, who said: “Not everyone uses the railway as a passenger – but we all use the railway when it comes to freight.

“If freight wasn’t moving, we’d notice pretty quickly! We’ve got containers bringing a huge amount of different supermarket goods into container terminals in Cardiff; for example, so people would quickly notice if the good were no longer available to buy, and I think a lot of that is hidden sometimes.

“Big construction jobs across the whole of the UK would come to a halt, as would major production lines, so it’s critical that we keep these freight services running. In Wales and Borders, we’re committed to growing freight, because the economic and environmental benefits are so significant.”

Such is the dedication to growing freight in Wales and Borders, significant investment was made to the rail infrastructure in and around Machen quarry, near Caerphilly, where the recent growth has been exponential.

Tata Steel, with sites at Port Talbot and Llanwern, Newport, is Network Rail’s biggest commercial freight partner in Wales, loaded with 100 loaded trains on the network in a busy week ­– saving 30,000 tonnes of carbon from the motorways in the process. One trainload of steel carries enough to make 1,000 new cars or 60,000 white goods.

From petroleum at Milford Haven and timber at Aberystwyth, to Welsh slate at Llandudno, the freight portfolio in Wales and Borders is diverse.

Jess added: “Wales and Borders really benefit from freight. It’s important that we build strong relationships, not only with the freight operators but with the freight end users, and that means being flexible to their individual needs and requirements.

“Rail freight is a more cost effective and sustainable way of transporting goods – every single train equates to about 129 lorries taken off the motorways, which is a mile of congestion per train.

“There’s a whole multitude of benefits to freight. These can really be split down into two main fundamental categories: economic and environmental.

“Rail freight contributes £2.5 billion to the economy every year, and 90 per cent of those benefits are actually felt outside London and the South East. When we look at the environmental factors, each train service can cut CO2 emissions by up to 76 per cent, which is hugely significant.”