Royal Mail to cease using trains

[daodao]

It is reported in the Daily Mail yesterday evening (9th July 2024) that Royal Mail is to stop deliveries by railway.

Now Royal Mail to stop deliveries by railway after more than 200 years

The postal service will inform staff today that it is planning to sell off its freight trains and switch to road deliveries.

www.dailymail.co.uk

End of the line? Now Royal Mail to stop deliveries by railway after more than 200 years​

Royal Mail will stop using trains to transport post in a move that brings nearly two centuries of mail rail to an end.
The postal service will inform staff today that it is planning to sell off its freight trains and switch to road deliveries.
The shake-up comes after bosses at Royal Mail's owner International Distribution Services agreed to sell the company to 'Czech Sphinx' Daniel Kretinsky for £3.5billion.

Currently, mail trains run between London (Willesden), Warrington and Glasgow (Shieldmuir) via the West Coast Main Line, using specially re-purposed Class 325 emus, approximately once per day on weekdays. with some additional services between Shieldmuir and Daventry. Services were later established from London (Willesden) to Newcastle (Low Fell), although Real Time Trains indicates that these train paths are rarely used; none ran in the last 7 days.

 

[Zontar]

Be interesting who takes on the depots

 

[YorkRailFan]

When would this come into effect?

 

[YorkshireBear]

Be interesting who takes on the depots

And the trains, I imagine Varamis will be reviewing this with interest.

 

[Deafdoggie]

Be interesting who takes on the depots

Are they not Royal Mail depots just with a rail connection?

And the trains, I imagine Varamis will be reviewing this with interest.

Royal Mail own the trains

 

[Nym]

Including their near brand new depot at DIRFT with its diesel only rail connection.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I think the Low Fell service finished quite recently, but there was no hint of terminating the WCML service.
The class 325s are 30 years old and based on the class 319 design, and have been intensively used.
Replacing them would have been a major forward commitment by RM, which they evidently were not willing to make.
That's more prime capacity released on the WCML.
The large Willesden depot was designed for both road and rail use, so may be retained by RM for its road network.

RM has been cutting back on its air network too, affecting its East Midlands airport operation and others, and moving more by road.

 

[The Planner]

A lot of effort went in to accommodating extra mail paths in the Dec 22 recast.

 

[Brush 4]

That's again what happens when firms are sold off to distant speculators, with no interest in what they actually do. Just asset strip then sell on.....

 

[railfan99]

Domestic letter volumes will have dropped, but surely in line with the experience in other Western nations, parcels volumes should be quite healthy, considering there are more than 60 million residents in England and Scotland combined. England attracts many migrants from Eastern European nations who may send parcels that are partly railed then air freighted to destination.

Sure, vegetable oil is used in some of RM's road vehicles, but how does this decision marry with ESG credentials?

 

[yorksrob]

This is the problem with having all of these services privatised. It might be commercially cheaper for a private company to use road, however it won't be in the nation's interest to transport these volumes that way.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

That's again what happens when firms are sold off to distant speculators, with no interest in what they actually do. Just asset strip then sell on.....

I doubt it's anything to do with the sell-off.
RM is in commercial trouble and has to cut costs, whoever owns it.
A bit like rail really, or steel.

 

[Towers]

It has to be said that it’s a pretty poor summing up for the railway, if hundreds or thousands of road movemens are cheaper than a few bulk trainloads.

 

[dk1]

I’m surprised it lasted this long if I’m totally honest.

 

[railfan99]

I’m surprised it lasted this long if I’m totally honest.

Because of declining volumes? High track access costs?

 

[A0]

Domestic letter volumes will have dropped, but surely in line with the experience in other Western nations, parcels volumes should be quite healthy, considering there are more than 60 million residents in England and Scotland combined. England attracts many migrants from Eastern European nations who may send parcels that are partly railed then air freighted to destination.

Sure, vegetable oil is used in some of RM's road vehicles, but how does this decision marry with ESG credentials?

But relatively few parcels are shipped between London and Scotland (for example). The large scale parcel shippers (such as Amazon, Boohoo, Asos) have multiple hubs across the country which are directly fulfilled from source and are used to despatch to the end customer.

The parcel growth is B2C (Business to consumer) not consumer - consumer.

 

[DanNCL]

Varamis must be watching things very closely, potentially a huge gap in the market about to open up.

Question is, will Royal Mail agree to sell the 325s to any potential competitor or will they insist they be scrapped?

 

[Trainman40083]

It has to be said that it’s a pretty poor summing up for the railway, if hundreds or thousands of road movemens are cheaper than a few bulk trainloads.

So, the next thing we will hear is that they have a shortage of lorry drivers and forest class letters will take a week to deliver.

 

[Towers]

Varamis must be watching things very closely, potentially a huge gap in the market about to open up.

Question is, will Royal Mail agree to sell the 325s to any potential competitor or will they insist they be scrapped?

If RM are cash-strapped and pulling out of the rail market anyway, then I’d imagine the short term, profit focused move would be to sell, anything above scrap value being an obvious bonus. It’s not as if there aren’t plenty of other available options for competitors to use anyhow. It’d be nice for perhaps one driving car to end up with the NRM eventually seeing as they’re Britain’s last mail trains, I hope that might be feasible.

 

[dk1]

Because of declining volumes? High track access costs?

Just how small an operation it is now and the age of the 325s. Shrinking mail volumes seem to have been replaced with parcels but it just doesn’t stack up for me personally.

 

[SCDR_WMR]

I believe the Stafford depot is earmarked for station developments in the next few years anyway

 

[janb]

So, the next thing we will hear is that they have a shortage of lorry drivers and forest class letters will take a week to deliver.

They just can't see the wood from the trees.

 

[JamesT]

This is the problem with having all of these services privatised. It might be commercially cheaper for a private company to use road, however it won't be in the nation's interest to transport these volumes that way.

Because a nationalised firm wouldn't be directed by government to make efficencies and use the cheapest methods?

 

[43096]

This is the problem with having all of these services privatised. It might be commercially cheaper for a private company to use road, however it won't be in the nation's interest to transport these volumes that way.

Ideological nonsense. It was public sector owned Royal Mail that stopped using rail for a period back in the early 2000s.

 

[bengley]

This is very bad news not only for obvious reasons, but for the contract holder who operates the trains - DB Cargo, who are already struggling to stay afloat in this country at the moment.

 

[D Williams]

Royal Mail is in serious trouble and more cuts to services are in the pipeline. They cannot compete against competition for parcel delivery from unregulated "white van men". The letters delivery side of the business loses money , the pension pot has a black hole and the asset strippers are taking control ,assuming this is permitted by the new government. As with the rail industry, when they had a monopoly it worked, when exposed to competition it soon fell apart. Postman Pat is in for a rough time.

 

[najaB]

As with the rail industry, when they had a monopoly it worked, when exposed to competition it soon fell apart.

Because the competition was never true competition. The competitors don't have the universal service obligation that RM does, so they just cannibalise the profitable parts of the network and leave the rest to RM.

 

[Mojo]

That's again what happens when firms are sold off to distant speculators, with no interest in what they actually do. Just asset strip then sell on.....

I thought Royal Mail scrapped its rail operations in early 2004 (when it was still in the Public sector), before bringing them back later the same year?

End of the line for mail train

The Royal Mail has sounded the death knell for the mail train after 170 years. The move could threaten 500 rail jobs as post will be transported by road and air only in a cost-cutting bid

www.dailymail.co.uk

The Royal Mail sparked a huge row today by announcing plans to stop transporting post by rail, in a move to cut costs which will end 170 years of history. The postal group gave notice that mail trains would be phased out from next month and stopped altogether from next March, with all post being distributed by road and air.

BBC NEWS | Scotland | Royal Mail trains back on track

The Royal Mail plans to use trains to transport about a million letters a day between Scotland and London.
The company scrapped mail trains last year but is reintroducing the service after a successful trial.
The trains shipped 13 million letters around the country every day but the Royal Mail transferred the operation to other forms of transport in 2004.
However, the train will take the strain again with two services a day set to carry post.
GB Railfreight has the contract until March 2006, with an option of a 12 month extension, and will operate the service between Willesden, Warrington and Shieldmuir in Scotland.
The Royal Mail's network director, Paul Tolhurst, said: "[The trial service] has shown it has the flexibility to meet our distribution needs at peak times, for example during the busy Christmas period when we handle up to 120 million items a day.
"It has also been able to offer additional services at short notice when the country experienced poor weather conditions."
GB Railfreight's managing director, John Smith, said the company offered a "flexible, reliable and commercially viable rail option".

 

[WirralLine]

Domestic letter volumes will have dropped, but surely in line with the experience in other Western nations, parcels volumes should be quite healthy, considering there are more than 60 million residents in England and Scotland combined. England attracts many migrants from Eastern European nations who may send parcels that are partly railed then air freighted to destination.

I imagine many people do what I do though and pick a cheaper courier online. I can either buy and print a label then drop off at a shop or locker, or pay an extra few quid and have a courier collect it from my house.

A lot of the time Royal Mail are very expensive compared to others, I used to sell a lot of transport related items on ebay a few years back. To post a Wayfarer bus machine cost me around £15 with Royal Mail but around £5 through Parcel Force online. I also had a job lot of broken bus destination controllers bought by a guy in Poland. I took the package to the post office who said it was £70 to send it. Did some shopping around online and got it sent over for about £20 in the end.

Not to mention because a lot of bank branches have closed, I would often be queueing up to 20 minutes to post a parcel as there was always a big queue for banking related custom. It didn't matter in the end because they closed my local post office anyway!

All being said, it will be a shame to see the rail operations cease, although I had been wondering how much longer they would continue anyway.

 

[Falcon1200]

I thought Royal Mail scrapped its rail operations in early 2004 (when it was still in the Public sector), before bringing them back later the same year?

It did, and the resumption was on a much more limited scale than the previous operation. But as the Labour Government did nothing to stop the move then I very much doubt it will intervene now.