The Rail Freight Group (RFG) wants the use of open wagons to carry lorries in the Channel Tunnel to be re-examined following the recent fire.
RFG, representing users and suppliers of freight trains, believes the risks to safety and to the tunnel's performance may be too high to justify continuing use of lattice-sided wagons for lorry shuttles. However, Eurotunnel has previously rejected the alternative of enclosed wagons, partly because of access difficulties in the event of fire.
RFG chairman Tony Berkeley says: "More constraints on the carriage of trucks in open wagons should reflect the bad safety record of this type of transport. There's a very strong argument for looking at the carriage of lorries through the Channel Tunnel in detail.
"There must be questions about whether any lorry is safe in an open shuttle with the wind rushing by in the way it clearly does. They may lead to a conclusion that lorries should not be allowed in the tunnel in these types of wagons."
Geoff Dossetter, external affairs director at the Freight Transport Association, says: "I don't accept the nonsense suggestion that lorries should be banned from the shuttle. Let's find out what the cause of this fire was and carefully examine those conclusions."
Eurotunnel spokesman John Keefe says the company is obliged by law to carry lorries, and the existing wagons repeatedly emerged as the best in safety reviews. "At the moment, the rail freight industry isn't using the tunnel as much as it could. Truck freight meets a need in the international market."
