Cattewater Bitumen
 

I understand the tanker flow from Fawley to Plymouth Cattewater has now transferred to road. If this is true it is a calamatous indication of the state of railfreight economics. Here is a flow that is rail connected at both ends with all transfer infrastructure in place, and where the total road connection alternative is far from brilliant, and where Enterprise services were used for at least part of the total trip, yet it seems road is cheap enough to warrant abandoning all prior investment in rail. Are there any other factors involved here? Was a large investment in the rail alternative necessary which predicated the switch? Have Network Rail levied a huge access charge for the Cattewater branch? I know volumes were declining but I understand the tanks were carried on an EWS Enterprise service for a large part of the journey - at least down to Taunton anyway. Maybe now Cattewater will lose its rail line completely? Maybe even the Fawley rail link itself is in peril. If anyone out there has some real financial data it would be good to analyse why railfreight just isn't making a good case right now. If this doesn;t pay then I don;t see any hope for other growth in the West Country

the service is no longer ran as an enterprise service anymore for a number of years.
Although it was normally mixed with an oil train from the same location (which went to Tavistoke Jct Plymouth).

The switch to road is purely down to money and because road is often seen as more reliable and flexible then railways. I suspect (but cant confirm) that the company have gone to road purely for that reason. even if the infrustructor for railways is there for it. by road they know they'll get a close to ontime delivery and not have to worry about line closers as tankers can be re-routed with few restrictions in comparison to railways.

It is true its moving to road, and I've heard theres talks going on for the oil tanks doing the same thing now the train has halved in size. But i can't confirm why that is. In most cases its down to the poor reliablity and costs of UK's railways. (Even if locomotives such as the GM class 66 are more reliable and cleaner then many diesel locomotives before them)...

Cattewater Bitumen
 

I think I read that the reason for this was that the tanks are life-expired, so it would seem nobody was willing to invest in replacements (I also read recently that new tanks have just been introduced on the Preston Docks bitumen flow - possibly this has larger amounts to justify the investment?). It is a worry that in an environment where there is constant talk of 'green solutions', here we have a freight flow with rail connections at each end and an existing rail customer and yet it was still not possible to retain the business.

Was it something to do with the lease being up and have moved to a non rail connected site.