It’s a sign of the times when the biggest refurbishment job in town is stripping the seats out of a ‘321’, but this isn’t the Department for Transport’s dream optimised capacity commuter train. The ‘321’ standing outside Wabtec’s Doncaster workshop is being optimised for parcels traffic, or what is now called ‘logistics’ or even ‘fulfilment’. The pandemic has brought a 50% increase in parcels traffic, with next day delivery a big selling point, so reliability is essential. As most customers are paying a set delivery fee tucked away in Amazon Prime membership delivery, costs are straight off your bottom line, and the cheapest way of shifting the products of mouse clicks around is by road.
RED STAR TO RED DWARF
The railway got out of parcels just as it was taking off, so now a system with plenty of spare capacity has barely a smell of the cardboard box bonanza. One of my son’s friends drives a white van from Glasgow to London overnight, passing the near silent railway. How can this be cheaper than one driver in a 12-car set using low carbon electric power and saving hours on the journey? You start to think there is something wrong with the rules when the game is won by what are clearly the wrong tactics.
