On Tue, 20 Mar 2007, Adrian wrote:

On Mar 19, 3:53 pm, "TimB" wrote:
On Mar 19, 10:05 pm, (Colin Rosenstiel) wrote:

In article . com,

(TimB) wrote:
On Mar 19, 6:35 pm, (Colin Rosenstiel) wrote:

That is steady/declining, while container freight from the
ports is booming, which is the root of this problem.

The containers don't *all* go to the Midlands and "oop North".

I'd say most of the ones that go /by train/ do - London containers
are largely trucked in direct from Tilbury/Felixstowe, I'd assume.

How many rail container facilities are there in London, then?

Just Tilbury and Willesden, I guess - that's why I assume most
containers come by truck ie lorry.

Well that pretty much covers what I was looking for in my request for
statistics. It would seem that most freight utilizing the North
London Line is not bound for London. Some maybe terminating at
Willesden.

A four track NLL may well segregate the two traffic flows. But, it does
not spare Londonners the noise, dust and polution created by the freight
flows that should be routed elsewhere.

What noise, dust and pollution? Are you talking about trains or lorries?
Freight trains are certainly noisy, but no more so than any other train of
the same length, and, since the lines in question are electric, aren't
dusty or (locally) polluting.

What *would* improve the environment for Londoners would be if local
freight could be shifted from road to rail - not possible for everything,
of course, but things like construction materials and supermarket supplies
could be brought into town by train, then distributed by road, rather than
having to come all the way in on lorries. Mostly, this is a question of
having suitable transfer terminals and a lot more organisation and impetus
than at present, but a high-capacity freight route through London could
hardly hurt!

tom

--
I'm angry, but not Milk and Cheese angry. -- Mike Froggatt