At Richard's recent Town Hall meeting in Biggleswade some questions were asked about weather resilience on the rail network and whether there had been an increase in the number of overnight freight trains passing through the town.
Following Richard's enquiries, it has been confirmed by Network Rail that the number of overnight freight trains (travelling between 11pm and 7am) has risen steadily over the past few years. The average monthly number of overnight trains has increased from 233 in 2018, to 276 in 2022, and 286 per month in the first 6 months of 2023, an increase of 23% in 5 years.
Richard Fuller MP said:
Moving freight away from roads and onto rail is part of the government strategy to limit road congestion and reduce transport carbon emissions. Nevertheless, these figures represent an average of over 1 train per hour during night hours, which can be very disruptive to people living relatively close to the rail lines, and more thought is needed as to how resident's quality of life can be maintained whilst at the same time balancing the need to better utilise the rail network to get freight off the roads.
Given the high temperatures of last summer and how they affected the rail network, Network Rail have provided me with their railway resilience report on how they will deal with the effects of climate change. This can be read at the following link here. I also understand from the local track engineer that a number of actions have been put in place locally to try to address the challenges of extreme heat. These include daily discussions regarding the anticipated weather forecast and any anticipated risk; the installation of remote temperature monitors to give an accurate on site temperature so Network Rail can have this data to hand and react accordingly; the standard CRT (critical rail temperature) has been raised from 53 degrees to 56 and vulnerable areas have been painted white to reflect some direct sunlight which can reduce the temperature by a few degrees.
