Can we utilise rail transport to deliver COVID-19 vaccines amid a global air crisis?

 

The DP World London Gateway port in Thurrock, Essex

(This article was originally published in my school newsletter.)

In recent weeks, the UK has seen the approval of three new COVID-19 vaccines; these being the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, and the US based Moderna vaccine. There is no doubt that the approval of these vaccines for use in the general population is fantastic news. The approval represents the monumental cooperation of a global community of paramedics, scientists, researchers, volunteers, and medical administrators to create something that will ultimately be the key to unlocking the end of a global crisis. However, it is important to recognise that each step forward from this point will involve careful planning and preparation. Much like a cataclysmic international game of Total Wipeout, each new leap forward brings about its own challenges and new risks for failure.

One of these metaphorical leaps involves the transport methods utilised for the distribution of vaccines within the UK. Vaccines will be, for the most part, manufactured abroad. And with the Pfizer vaccine, news headlines in recent times have made us all acutely aware of how difficult the jab is to maintain and store at the required temperature of minus seventy degrees, inciting pressure on hospitals and care homes to ensure the jabs do not become inefficient through accidental mishandling.
The good news is, progress is being made towards solving these logistical problems right here in Essex. Last week Dubai-headquartered port operator DP World, which operates the London Gateway dock and rail port in Stanford-le-Hope, Thurrock, made a proposal to the government to transport vaccines into the UK at its own expense. Should the government accept this offer, existing super-refrigeration facilities and specialist rail freight carriages would be utilised for the delivery.

The proposals offered by DP World give rise to another fundamental question: How feasible is it really to transport COVID-19 vaccines by railway? And is it even possible?

Since vaccines are a perishable commodity with a limited lifespan, they are usually transported by air. However, in the current situation of the pandemic, the global air network has been especially hard hit, and many airlines, including their operations involved with cargo delivery are, at least in the short term, no longer able to provide the service they once could. A statement given in early January by the IATA (International Air Transport Association) also emphasises that over 8000 Boeing 747 cargo planes would be required to provide one dose of the vaccine to a global population of around 7.8 billion people. The logistics required to maintain the ‘cold chain’ would incite incredibly high costs, allowing countries such as the UK and US to take advantage in delivery ahead of countries that are less able to afford the vaccine. In this way, without careful and thoughtful allocation of resources, the already-widespread disparity in global healthcare insinuated by the west would be further amplified at a time when healthcare capacity globally is already at breaking point.

There is no doubt that utilisation of air travel to the best of our abilities would be highly advantageous, although air travel alone would likely not make the cut for vaccine distribution on the levels we need. Air travel also fails to account for the need to transport vaccines once they have arrived in-land as well. Railway lines, on the other hand, have long been a much cheaper and more efficient way to transport goods. The railways in the UK are, for the most part, interconnected, even with continental Europe and Asia. For example, every month, a three-mile-long cargo train travels between depots all the way in Yiwu, China and Barking, Greater London, making use of the channel tunnel rail link before transferring onto European continental freight tracks. Deliveries from Tilbury often travel as far as major destination hubs such as Wembley, Liverpool, or even as far as Edinburgh for some journeys. Freight travel is undoubtedly cheaper than air travel when applied in scale.

It is easy to confidently acclaim the benefits of such schemes, which raises another question. What are the downsides of increasing our rail freight capacity for vaccine distribution over the next year?
As part of my work as the chair of c2c rail’s youth panel, one of the jobs I partake in assisting with, is the management of rail timetabling during student hours on the c2c rail network. From my personal experience in offering logistic changes to rail timetables, it is clear to see that the timings of railway freight trains can often get in the way of passenger trains, despite a key basis of such timetabling being the notion that passenger trains must be prioritised in front of freight trains. An increase in freight services increases the tendencies for railway signals to fail, increases wear and tear on the tracks, makes it harder to run passenger services on time and makes it far more difficult to manage in the event of train failure. On the contrary, passenger journeys are down between 60% and 90% of their typical use during this time of year, and, of course, we are all at home for the foreseeable future. So perhaps it is not such a bad idea, especially in the short term, to make use of the capacity we have.