The British postal service, Royal Mail, has announced it will stop using its dedicated fleet of mail and parcel carrying trains in October, giving the rail freight company that runs the trains on its behalf, DB Cargo, three months’ notice.
Royal Mail has told DB Cargo that its rationale for the decision is because of the cost of running electric trains (British electricity prices have risen considerably since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022) and because its purpose-built train fleet now needs expensive investment. Royal Mail will switch the mail and parcels to road transport. The postal company has also been investing heavily in “green” trucks, using hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) instead of diesel, and battery delivery vans. The company has presented this, plus plans to reduce its use of short-haul mail flights, as evidence to investors that it is not dropping its goal of operating in a Net-Zero emissions way by 2040.
Royal Mail – rail pioneer
Royal Mail is called that because it was originally set up to carry the Kings’ mail. King Henry VIII (more famous for having six wives) formally established it in 1516 and Charles I (most famous for being executed – and giving his name to Charleston, S.C.) opened it up to other users in 1635 (largely so they could subsidise his continued use of the system). In the following centuries, the British Post Office led the world, in 1840 introducing cheap “Penny Postage” and inventing postage stamps.
Mail carriage by the then-new railways started even earlier, in 1830, with the opening of the world’s first mainline railway, the Liverpool & Manchester Railway. Beginning in 1838, sorting mail on moving trains began between London and Birmingham, and within a few years most rail companies had dedicated equipment and began running trains under contract to the Post Office.
Travelling Post Office trains [RPOs in U.S. parlance] ran in Britain until 2004, with postal sorters sorting the mail on the move. In their last few years, they operated from a new rail/mail hub built in Willesden, North London, replacing the former operation that used passenger stations in central London. To make the new hub more efficient, a fleet of 16 brand new four-car, mail-carrying, 100-mph EMUs, known as Class 325, were bought by Royal Mail in 1995. These carried mail in roll cages and had no onboard postal staff. These are the only mail-carrying trains still in use in Britain.
For a few decades in the 20th century, the postal system boomed. With advertising mail growing, the volumes to be moved increased enormously, but since the late 1990s this has changed, as advertising moved online and onto peoples’ phones, as did previously mail-oriented tasks like paying bills. Like postal services in most countries, these days the main business is delivering packets and parcels for online retailers, and the business is highly competitive. Royal Mail was privatized in 2013 and is currently in the process of being bought for around $4.5 billion by a company based in the Czech Republic.
Electricity and maintenance costs decisive
An internal briefing for DB Cargo UK staff has been widely shared within the British rail industry. In it, the company’s CEO, Andrea Rossi, talks about his “profound disappointment” at the decision, which he describes as “…a major U-turn by Royal Mail, which had previously committed publicly that it would increase its use of rail freight.” He adds that the postal company’s decision to switch to road transport is “not just disappointing for DB Cargo UK, but the wider rail freight sector too.” Rossi tells his employees, some of whom may lose their jobs as a result, that “Royal Mail has made it clear that its decision is purely down to the increasing costs of electric traction and the high investment needs of its aging Class 325 fleet,” adding that Royal Mail has repeatedly confirmed that DB Cargo’s operation of the contract has been “excellent.”
Rossi says, “This is not a decision against DB Cargo UK but one against the economics of rail freight as a mode of transport.” He adds tht he is seeking urgent talks with the new British government and other policymakers to see what can be done to level the playing field between rail freight and what he describes as “the heavily subsidised road haulage sector,” referencing the government’s own policy target of switching freight from road to rail – not the other way around.
He also says that he had been lobbying the previous government to reduce or financially assist rail companies with the new higher electricity costs, as these are “beyond the price our customers can afford to pay.” DB Cargo has chosen to remove its electric locomotives from use, citing electricity costs. By comparison, its competitor Freightliner, owned by Genesee & Wyoming, resumed use of its electric locomotives after a short period in 2023 when it too sidelined them due to the cost of power.
Electric traction electricity prices for rail freight companies are set by the UK national infrastructure operator Network Rail and are currently £0.206 ($0.27) per kilowatt-hour. By comparison, the average rate for transportation in the USA is around 50% lower at $0.126 per kWh, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration figures.
The end of mail by rail in Britain has been threatened before — in 2003-04 — with the cost of the operation being part of the problem then, along with its reliability. However, on that occasion Royal Mail changed its mind and resumed use of its postal EMUs (with a new contractor). That equipment was then only 10 years old; now it is much older and needs major overhauls, another reason it is being sidelined.
In Europe, Royal Mail is far from unique in moving away from using rail to move mail. Similar changes have happened in many other countries, although parcels and online shipments are routinely carried in intermodal trains across Europe by logistics firms such as DHL. Some parcels are carried in containers in Britain and this won’t change. In France, there was once a dedicated fleet of high-speed postal TGV trains, but these were sidelined in 2015. In Germany, the Netherlands, and Austria there are no longer dedicated mail trains or cars. However, in Switzerland, Sweden, and the Czech Republic, mail still moves in rail cars owned or operated by the postal service.
Sadly, the Royal Mail is following the demise of London’s 2′ gauge “Rail Mail”, which I always found interesting. Perhaps “snail mail” helped contribute to both’s demise??? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Post_Office_Railway
I would be interested to see a thorough (and honest) cost comparison of rebuilding the RR cars vs buying all new trucks and the support system to fuel and maintain them. How many trucks will be needed to haul the total load of a single train? And each truck needs a driver or perhaps a set of drivers for max efficiency. Is there sufficient data to assess the real maintenance costs and downtime for these trucks? What about insurance? By the way. How are trains actually charged for electricity use? Meter? Est mileage cost times miles traveled? Other? Could this move be just another “green” boondoggle? I am reminded that one major justification for EV cars was the lower maintenance costs due to a simpler power plant. Now I’ve been seeing articles about high repair and maintenance expenses, esp. Tesla. Hmmmmm.
My apology for bring beer into a discussion about railroading, just trying to recognize that change happens whether or not we like it. As George Drury once wrote about beers in UK/Ireland/ etc: they are not Budwissermillerlite, so hoist a Guinness or whatever to happy railroading memories and our hopes for a good future.
John, I’m elated that you remember George Drury. He was an awesome addition to Kalmbach staff. If I knew he was going to die, I’d have made an effort to walk down the street to meet him. (I live two miles from Kalmbach, both in Town of Brookfield, Waukesha County.) George and I were native Bay Staters, me from New Haven Railroad territory, George from B+M Corporation territory.
My late brother RIP turned me into a New Haven Railroad fan, but he never succeeded (in many decades of trying) to get me interested in beer or ale.
While I never had the opportunity to meet George as a historian/writer he was one of the tops and his tour books of UK/Ireland/Europe are still rate books and must read for anyone making travels over there, while prices have changed his recommendations are spot on. RIP George.
This is not a casualty of green energy but a casualty of the awful way the Tories have run the UK for the last 14 years and of Brexit. They made a mess, and now Labour has to come in and clean it up. Rather like the US (Obama and Biden both cleaned up Republican messes in 2008 and 2020). Brexit has been a disaster for the UK on almost every level. Longstanding employers such as Honda closed up shop. Thousands lost their jobs.
Oh, Michael. Obama cleaned up exactly nothing. He promised higher electricity prices (and in his third term, now has delivered). So this being an article about high electricity prices, that’s exactly what Obama wanted and now has effectuated.
UK’s Tories stand for nothing and have accomplished nothing since Margaret Thatcher was run out of office. Seems like the only right-of-center governments (now in power) that can find their own bum are those in Greece and Italy. British “Conservative” PMs after Thatcher couldn’t qualify for a job sweeping the sidewalk.
This news should be a deeply sobering reality check to those who insist “electrification is the way to go” for the railroads they see as a public service and obligation, and not a business.
It would be interesting to see a graph comparing the rise in price of diesel fuel vs. electricity in the UK,in recent years.
The Queen is gone, now the post trains, well at least we have our Guinness!
Guinness is Irish, not British. Besides which, Guinness is now owned and operated by a multinational conglomerate with breweries in fifty countries and annual revenues that would rival the GNP of some small countries..
I used to think I had my Killian’s Irish Red, until I found out it was just a name on a label, licensed by Molson-Coors, with a different formula. Still drink it, though.
Well Mr. Mitchell thanks for the update on Guinness income, I knew it was not brewed in England but it is the best known of British beers here in South Carolina. Change comes but at least we have memories and Guinness on a hot SC day (like today).
1) Tossing aside any cultural or religious differences between the countries of Ireland and the UK, Ireland is part of the European Union while Britain noisily withdrew a while back.
2) Calling an Irish beer a “British beer” will go over as well as calling Corona or Labatt’s an “American” beer–strictly technically accurate, but likely to get you derision and mockery.
Well Mr. Mitchell this ole SC fellow does recall (fondly) of being in Northern Ireland {part of the UK as best remembered}, and having Guinness, your points are taken and considered and hopefully not too much derision or mockery for any of us.
Once again, thank you, Mr. Fender, for a thorough and enlightening report. Among other news to me, I did not know that Royal Mail was a private operation. I believe Canada Post is still govenment-run.
In broad theory, the US Postal Service is run like a private corporation as well, although thanks to long-ago pension agreements it runs deeply in the red with government subsidy.
Another casualty of green energy.
I note: “….heavily subsidized road sector…” Seems that history has repeated itself in the UK. Further, as the electricity costs have risen too much, I wonder if any country that abandons all but electricity for its energy needs, places itself in a poor economic position. There will be no competition to lower any energy costs.