As of 2026-09-08 21:37 UTC, the British government had set Great British Railways a new destination: increase the freight moved by rail by at least 40% by 2040, on the way to an existing target of at least 75% by 2050.[1][2]

The number is consequential, but it is not a train order, a construction budget or a guaranteed slice of the timetable. The Railways Bill was entering its House of Lords committee stage, Great British Railways had not yet converted the target into capacity decisions, and the two announcement pages reviewed for this explainer did not identify the target’s baseline year or starting volume.[1][2] The immediate question is therefore not whether 40% sounds ambitious. It is how a percentage becomes a path that a freight operator can sell and a customer can trust.

What the announcement establishes—and what it does not

Forty per cent of what?

The unit matters. A net tonne kilometre is one tonne of payload carried for one kilometre. Moving a heavier load, moving it farther, or doing both raises the measure. Simply counting trains does not. Nor does the government’s estimate of the value of goods moved substitute for the physical target: one train of high-value consumer products can be economically valuable without contributing more tonne kilometres than an equally heavy, equally long movement of aggregates.[2][3]

That prevents several tempting but invalid translations. The announcement does not mean 40% more trains, 40% more tonnes, a 40% market share, or 40% fewer lorries. Any of those outcomes would require additional assumptions about train length, payload, distance, road substitution and growth in the wider freight market.

The missing baseline is also material. The 2023 policy behind the 75% goal described the long-run target as requiring compound annual growth of about 2.3%, but the September 8 pages do not say whether the new 2040 milestone uses the same starting year or how later traffic changes are treated.[2][6] Until a methodology is published, calculating a supposedly precise annual pace for the 40% target would add an assumption the government has not stated.

How a target becomes a freight service

The practical chain has five links.

First, a shipper needs a flow worth contracting: containers from a port, stone for a building programme, supermarket goods to a distribution centre. Second, suitable terminals need land, handling equipment and road connections at both ends. Third, an operator needs locomotives, wagons, crews and a service plan. Fourth, the railway needs a workable path of sufficient length, loading gauge and axle capacity. Fifth, that path must be reliable enough for the customer to reorganise its supply chain around it.

The target directly strengthens only part of that chain. Under the proposed reform, GBR would manage infrastructure while also running most passenger services. The freight duties and target are intended to keep freight visible when the same organisation decides how scarce capacity is used; freight services themselves remain mainly in private hands.[5] A dedicated freight voice on the GBR board, announced on September 8, may improve that internal contest, but a board seat still does not reserve a path.[1]

The regulator’s latest assessment shows why certainty is the first test. ORR said Network Rail had not always advanced support for long-term access promptly enough, creating particular uncertainty for freight operators ahead of the planned move to a GBR-led access framework. During 2025, ORR had to direct use of the network or reject applications an unprecedented number of times after Network Rail opposed or could not agree sales to passenger, freight and open-access operators.[4]

There is progress on the other side of the ledger. ORR found that Network Rail delivered 91% of its planned freight-growth initiatives in 2025–26 and that freight cancellations ended the year at 1.0%, better than the 1.3% target.[4] That is useful operational evidence. It also clarifies the limit of institutional reform: even competent delivery cannot manufacture construction demand or steel volumes when commodity markets are weak.

What changes over 24 hours, seven days and 30 days

In the next 24 hours, almost nothing changes for a running train. Existing rights, timetables and customer contracts remain the operative system. The target gives legislators and industry a measurable question to put to the Railways Bill: which provisions turn the desired growth into dependable access?[1][5]

Over the next seven days, the useful work is definition. Freight operators, ports, terminals, customers and parliamentarians should ask for the baseline year, starting volume, geographic scope, treatment of infrastructure trains, interim milestones and the body accountable for reporting. Without those definitions, 40% cannot yet be audited.

Over the next 30 days, the evidence can begin to catch up with the headline. ORR’s April–June freight release is scheduled for September 22.[3] It will not settle a 2040 question, but it will refresh the near-term baseline and show which commodities are growing. More important will be any published access-and-use policy, business-plan milestone or funding commitment that converts national ambition into route-level capacity.

Three delivery paths

These are conditional scenarios, not probability forecasts.

Base case — a target becomes a reporting framework before it becomes new traffic. Government defines the baseline and milestones; GBR carries them into its business and capacity plans; growth arrives through a mix of fuller trains, new flows and selected infrastructure work. Trigger: a published methodology, regular ORR reporting and identifiable route-level access decisions tied to the target.

Upside — customer commitments and protected paths reinforce each other. High-value intermodal and construction flows secure long-term contracts, terminal operators invest, and GBR can match credible demand with dependable paths. Trigger: named new services backed by customer contracts, terminal capacity and multi-year access rights—not announcements of interest alone.

Downside — the percentage survives while the delivery chain fragments. Passenger-service priorities, slow access decisions, weak commodity demand or unfunded bottlenecks prevent operators from offering reliable services. Trigger: repeated misses against interim goals, unresolved long-term applications and no published explanation linking the national target to capacity choices.

The first action list

• Government and GBR: publish the baseline, data series, milestone years, commodity definitions, regional logic and reporting owner. State which capacity and terminal interventions are funded rather than merely modelled.
• ORR: keep access-decision time, long-term rights, cancellations and freight moved visible together. A volume target without an access audit would miss the mechanism the reform is supposed to improve.[3][4]
• Freight operators and terminals: translate prospective growth into route-specific requests—origin, destination, train length, gauge, loading, departure window and contract duration—so capacity claims can be tested.
• Freight customers: distinguish a policy signal from a bookable service. Investment decisions need a terminal-to-terminal offer, price, reliability threshold and durable path.
• Newsrooms and readers: retain the words “net tonne kilometres” beside 40%. Do not convert the target into train counts, market share or lorries removed without showing the assumptions.

Update and invalidation conditions: this explainer’s central conclusion—that access certainty and measurement detail are the first tests of the new target—should be revised if the government publishes an enforceable delivery plan that already specifies the baseline, interim trajectory, route capacity, committed funding and accountability. It should also be updated after the September 22 ORR release, material amendments to the Railways Bill, or publication of GBR’s access-and-use policy.[3][5]

The target tells Britain where it wants rail freight to finish. The first credible sign of motion will be less theatrical: a customer, a terminal and an operator receiving a path they can rely on.

Sources

1. UK Department for Transport, “Great British Railways sets course for rail freight growth” (September 8, 2026) — announcement, estimated benefits, legislative timing, board responsibility and source page for the cover photograph.
2. UK Department for Transport, “Rail freight growth 2040 target” (written ministerial statement, September 8, 2026) — metric, headline target, commodity expectations and government value and emissions estimates.
3. Office of Rail and Road, “Freight rail usage and performance” (latest complete release at the cutoff: January–March 2026) — freight moved, freight lifted, train kilometres, cancellations and publication schedule.
4. Office of Rail and Road, “ORR’s annual assessment of Network Rail’s System Operator 2025 to 2026” (July 14, 2026) — access uncertainty, regional growth results, cancellations and delivery of planned freight initiatives.
5. UK Department for Transport, “Railways Bill factsheet: rail freight” (updated June 30, 2026) — proposed freight duties, GBR access role, central freight team and ORR appeals mechanism.
6. UK Department for Transport, “Rail freight growth target” (December 20, 2023) — design and implied annual growth of the longer-run 75% target, delivery mechanisms and capacity constraints.