On Sun, 19 Dec 2004 13:30:06 +0000, Mike Roebuck
wrote:

about 1 million tonnes. It was substantially more, but the problem
with illegal immigrants cost the railways a lot of business. The cost
of using the Channel Tunnel has put off a lot of potential business
too, IMO.

There is also the problem of having to travel through France, which
isn't exactly part of the brave new world of open access operators
leasing Class 66s and trying to grow the railfreight market.

Recently there was some fairly serious(?) talk of starting a Belgium -
UK train ferry, so that rail operators wouldn't have to deal with SNCF
and the French unions.
--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK