BID FOR HS2 CONSTRUCTION FREIGHT

Rail Freight

RAIL FREIGHT Group Chairman Tony Berkeley has been a vocal critic of HS2’s policy on logistics, claiming the organisation has not done enough to embed rail freight in the construction contracts. He is now seeking to introduce a legal requirement for contractors building the HS2 line to use rail for their materials movement.

Lord Berkeley has proposed the following clause should be inserted as an amendment to the High Speed Rail (London – West Midlands) Bill currently making its way through Parliament:

Restrictions on lorries and road use:

Within three months of the start of the scheduled works, the nominated undertaker must publish a plan setting out, for each construction site being used or to be used for the scheduled works, how the number of lorries delivering to or from the site will be limited in order to meet the following restrictions by weight of materials transported by road—

(a) no more than 25% of excavated spoil and demolition material;

(b) no more than 25% of concreting materials; and

(c) no more than 50% of all other materials; and the remainder in each case must be carried by rail.

Construction confidence: wagon leaser VTG Rail UK has taken delivery of 85 of these box wagons for DB Cargo from manufacturer Astra of Romania. VTG commented: ‘Schemes such as Crossrail 1 and 2, HS1 and 2, Hinkley power station and railway upgrades all need rail wagons to bring equipment and materials in and out of sites’.