The Southern Railway became an essential strategic war asset because of its proximity to continental Europe, and needed to equip itself with adequate freight handling capability to transport the vast quantities of supplies and troops required for the conflict.
In late 1939, the Southern Railway, until then primarily a high-density commuter railway serving London and South-East England, found itself on the British front line of the Second World War with a severe lack of modern freight handling capability.
Administrative measures had been put in place by the wartime government preventing the construction of express passenger locomotives due to shortages of materials and a need for locomotives with freight-hauling capabilities.
UPS created supply chain solutions and then aggressively added warehouse and distribution capabilities, freight transportation and forwarding expertise.
Currently the service offering capability of freight trains and hubs are far behind its intra-modal and inter-modal competitors, for example, in terms of acceleration and deceleration capability compared to passenger trains running on the same rail network; price for a origin-destination multimodal service; whereabouts of cargo etc.
✓ Creating the framework for the full exploitation of the capabilities of "intelligent" freight (e-freight).
Creating the framework for the full exploitation of capabilities of "intelligent" freight i.e. the e-freight environment of the future.
The implications for the rail freight sector, in terms of wagon fleet capacity and capability in general, are significant, as is the availability of infrastructure (e.g. line capacity and train paths) to accommodate the much higher expected demands.
In the early 1970s, sidewalls were once again in favour, especially among American manufacturers who saw a market for a high-speed marine freight carrier that would not need an amphibious capability.
