Trainload Freight was the sector of

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

responsible for

trainload A unit train, also called a block train or a trainload service, is a train in which all cars (wagons) carry the same commodity and are shipped from the same origin to the same destination, without being split up or stored en route. They are disti ...

freight services. The division was subdivided into four sub-sectors; coal, petroleum, metals and construction. It was formed in 1988 from the trainload operations of British Rail's

Railfreight Railfreight was a sector of British Rail responsible for all freight operations on the British network. The division was created in 1982 when BR sought to assign particular stock and management to the evolving requirements of freight traffic ...

division. The company existed until 1994, when, as part of the privatisation process of British Rail, it was split into three separate companies by region: Load-Haul,

Mainline Freight Mainline Freight was a trainload rail freight operator based in Islington, London, England with operations extending to Yorkshire in the north and Somerset in the west. It was formed from part of British Rail's Trainload Freight division as pa ...

and Trans-Rail.

History

Trainload Freight (TLF) was created in 1988 as the sector of

responsible for operating

unit train A unit train, also called a block train or a trainload service, is a train in which all cars (wagons) carry the same commodity and are shipped from the same origin to the same destination, without being split up or stored en route. They are dist ...

s. The division was subdivided into four sub-sectors according to cargo carried: Coal, Construction, Metals, and Petroleum. Other

wagonload freight In rail freight transportation the terms wagonload or wagonload freight refer to trains made of single wagon consignments of freight. In the US and Canada the term carload refers to a single car of any kind, and manifest train refers to trains mad ...

activities and containerised freight were organised in the

Railfreight Distribution Railfreight Distribution was a sub-sector of British Rail, created by the division in 1987 of British Rail's previous Railfreight sector. It was responsible for non-trainload freight operations, as well as Freightliner and Intermodal services ...

(RfD) division at the same time. The trainload business represented approximately 80% of British Rail's total revenue from freight, and 90% of freight traffic by mass. Trainload Freight was the only consistently profitable freight sector within British Rail. In 1988, the company was authorised to acquire 100 Class 60 locomotives, at a cost of approximately £124 million. Ex-Railway Station, Brocklesby - geograph

Ex-Railway Station, Brocklesby - geograph

In 1992 the company had revenue of around £500 million and made a profit of £67.5 million, exceeding government targets of a £50 million profit. Returns on capital assets were typically over 8% in the late 1980s prior to the

early 1990s recession The early 1990s recession describes the period of economic downturn affecting much of the Western world in the early 1990s. The impacts of the recession contributed in part to the 1992 U.S. presidential election victory of Bill Clinton over incu ...

. British Rail was able to charge a 45% margin on basic costs in 1989 for coal transport prior to the privatisation of the electricity industry, after which less profitable contracts were negotiated. From 1990 to 1994, the sector undertook further exercises to increase profitability; discriminatory pricing was employed. Approximately 10 million tonnes of unprofitable freight had been identified, of which 70% was retained under new working conditions and pricing arrangements; the remaining 3 million tonnes was lost, much of it being freight transport for the cement industry. Cost-cutting measures included a 20% reduction in employees, 50% reduction in locomotives, and 40% reduction in wagons, resulting in rail freight transport being reduced to under 100 million tonnes per annum in the lead-up to privatisation, a

modal share A modal share (also called mode split, mode-share, or modal split) is the percentage of travelers using a particular type of transportation or number of trips using said type. In freight transportation, this may be measured in mass. Modal share i ...

of under 5%.Terry Gourvish (2002), British rail, 1974–97, pp. 287–288 Approximately 250,000 tonnes of coal was being transported per day by the company by 1993.

Shadow franchises and privatisation

After the

Railways Act 1993 The Railways Act 1993c 43 was introduced by John Major's Conservative Party (UK), Conservative government and passed on 5 November 1993. It provided for the restructuring of the British Railways Board (BRB), the public corporation that owned and ...

, the trainload business was split into regionally based

shadow franchise The privatisation of British Rail was the process by which ownership and operation of the railways of Great Britain passed from government control into private hands. Begun in 1994, it had been completed by 1997. The deregulation of the indust ...

s: Load-Haul,

and Trans-Rail.

Trainload A unit train, also called a block train or a trainload service, is a train in which all cars (wagons) carry the same commodity and are shipped from the same origin to the same destination, without being split up or stored en route. They are disti ...

services offered by

were also merged into the regional businesses. All three trainload companies were acquired by North and South Railways, a company set up by a consortium led by Wisconsin Central, and became part of English Welsh & Scottish.

Rolling stock

References

Sources

External links

{{British freight operators British Rail brands Rail freight companies in the United Kingdom British Rail freight services British Rail subsidiaries and divisions 1988 establishments in the United Kingdom