Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what proportion of the railway is able to accommodate the transport of full-sized lorry trailers on trains.

The only railway infrastructure in Britain that can accommodate a rail freight service carrying lorry trailers is HS1 between the Channel Tunnel and Barking, which can carry the standard international 4 metres semi-trailer. It represents 0.75% per cent of Britain’s rail route mileage.

The 80% of the UK domestic semi-trailer fleet with a height of 4.25 metres or greater cannot be accommodated on trains in Britain. However, container goods can be accepted across the freight network, which carries some 1 million containers – 30% of total container freight in the UK - a year.