Another black day

Another black day for the rail industry, comparable with the ending of newspaper traffic in 1988, and the closure of the Speedlink wagonload freight network in 1991. The Royal Mail has announced today that it is to stop using the railway for the transport of mail, and transfer all traffic to road and air.

Of course, road transport is only "cheaper" because it externalises a lot more of it's costs.

It was a lead item on BBC News, and as the EWS press release, EWS are not going to take this lying down.

EWS currently operates a high-speed and high performance rail network throughout Britain that handles 25% of first-class mail. The proposed shift of this volume would add 160,000 lorry journeys, covering 30.5 million miles, per annum, to Britain�s beleaguered road network.

The rail services have achieved high performance levels for Royal Mail. 99.9% of all trains have run over the past 17 months, and Royal Mail train punctuality for this period has been 93.5% against a 95.0% objective. In addition to issues of road congestion, pollution, safety and service reliability, the proposed move by Royal Mail threatens 500 jobs within EWS plus Royal Mail jobs at eight dedicated rail terminals and 27 other loading points across Britain.

Allen Johnson, EWS Chief Operating Officer, said: "We are shocked that Royal Mail is threatening to walk away from the railway. EWS has made numerous competitive price offers in response to changing specifications from Royal Mail. EWS will continue to press the many benefits of rail to Royal Mail as an integral part of the mail distribution solution."

EWS has had discussions with a number of companies who are exploring mail liberalisation. These discussions have focused on providing a rail-based network for mail distribution, as the companies concerned recognise the problems with increasing road congestion affecting the reliability of a road-based network of operations.

The Royal Mail has been suffering badly from poor management and bad industrial relations; in recent months they've blamed late mail deliveries on rail delays, when the real reason has been strikes in sorting offices. I've lost count of the amount of first class mail that's taken four or five days to arrive. I've sent birthday presents that have never arrived, presumed stolen by post office sorters.

Time to end their monopoly, it's clear they don't deserve it. Let some other company make use of those recently-built mail terminals up and down the country currently used by Royal Snail.