Freight News, Rail, Sea


Ports have pent-up demand for rail

[ October 27, 2026   //   ]

There is pent-up demand for rail freight at British ports, industry experts told a meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Rail Group on 26 October. Lee Armstrong, head of commercial for rail at Associated British Ports listed a number of routes where investment could boost the number of freight trains including the Transpennnine line, the route from the Humber to Scotland. Electrification and longer passing loops for freight trains could increase capacity on many lines, he said.

ABP itself had lost traffic to Tilbury because the latter was able to offer rail services while its Humber ports could not because of the lack of capacity, he said.

He also said that there were great opportunities for rail as ports developed carbon capture and storage as it could play a key part in moving captured carbon dioxide from the coast to inland sites. Armstrong envisaged a system of shipping hubs served by trains. While rail would be competing with pipelines for CO2 movement, rail offered the advantage of lower capital cost, shorter lead times and greater flexibility.

Should plans for CO2 capture come to fruition they could single-handedly allow the rail industry to meet the government’s freight growth targets for the new nationalised Great British Rail organisation, he added. help the industry.

Adam Parkinson, commercial rail development director at DP World said that the new berths and rail terminal due to open at London Gateway in early 2028 would boost rail traffic beyond the current 22 departures a day and 634,000 containers seen last year, and DP World hopes to increase this to 39 a day. However, the level of increase would depend on whether capacity on the network could be increase sufficiently. “We think we can get to 31 trains a day on existing infrastructure, but more will need investment.” He had identified eight pinch points on the network such as a level crossing at East Tilbury near London Gateway which could be unblocked if there was concerted effort by the rail industry, government and local authorities.

He added that DP World had not extended the popular Modal Shift Scheme introduced in 2023 at its port of Southampton to London Gateway because of the capacity constraints on rail there.

Tags: