Meet Steve, one of our colleagues at Network Rail and the presenter of the Freight Escape film series.
Find out what inspired him to get involved with the series and why freight is so important to us all.
What’s your day job?
I’m the head of program management and controls for the capital delivery works in the Wales and Western region.
What do I do? Well, we spend almost £500m each year in Wales and Western building new infrastructure that makes a difference for freight users and passengers. So that could be anything from new signalling systems, new sections of track, new junctions, or even embankments or walls that stop the railway falling into a cliff.
My job is to represent whether we’re doing a good or a bad job at it – i.e. if we did the work on time and to value and cost.
How did you end up presenting Freight Escapes?
I love railway and I really like finding out about it. The railway is amazing because it’s so big. However specialised you are in your area of the railway, you can always find out more.
And seeing the scale and importance of freight was brilliant. So why on earth would I pass up the opportunity to understand how much difference rail freight makes to every single person in Britain? It’s brilliant.
What was the most surprising fact you learnt while filming?
The biggest, most amazing fact I found was just how much freight is moved around the country continually and how important it is.
I bet there’s some people out there who have never been on a train, but I can guarantee their parcels, their car, their fridge or even their radiators have been delivered to them in some way by rail freight.
And also, how good is rail freight for sustainability by taking lorries off the road?
What was your favourite episode and why?
Felixstowe just blew my mind with how big it is. And how seamless the operations are at the port – moving things from the ship straight to rail and then straight out of there.
One jumbo freight train can take up to 129 lorries off the road. You can just see it – hundreds of lorries clogging the roads carrying one unit or a train taking masses of cargo units in one movement.
Why do you think freight is so important?
It can’t make sense to move things on the road when we’ve got a really good railway that goes across the whole of Britain. We’re quite a busy island and we can’t just carry on clogging up our roads.
Rail freight makes a huge difference to every single person. Not only does rail freight move your stuff faster but it means our roads are less clogged.
What do you think is the future of freight?
I really like the innovation of ‘Express Freight’. It’s really good to see that the future is not only moving bold, bulky and big stuff but also about being light, quick, agile.
Any exciting developments we should look out for?
I think HS2 presents an opportunity for us all by increasing the capacity of our railway. The corridors where HS2 will take traffic away from the mainline could be an exciting development for us all.
Lastly, what is your favourite thing about freight?
The people – every single person I have met in the Freight Escape series or around the freight team are just really passionate about what they do. And isn’t it great?
Every single person has a real passion for making a difference to not only people who directly work in the industry but also their friends, their colleagues, their parents and everyone who relies on rail freight for deliveries all over the country.
