We need a larger loading gauge to make this viable.
In the USA and most of Europe truck trailers can be loaded onto flat cars.
In the UK the container has to come off the truck.
Which is why it won't work.
The only railway built to the Continental loading gauge was the now closed Great Central. Odd that.
The Labour MP for Luton North, Kelvin Hopkins, proposed the re-opening of the GCR as cheaper alternative to HS2.
Hopkins had previously advocated re-opening the GCR as Central Railway – a freight line for a direct container transport connection between continental Europe and northern England – in 2002 - and was ignored.
So, it can be concluded that the powers that be think re-opening the only line built to a European loading gauge and so able to take containers off the roads is not a viable option and the line is best used as preservation steam line and foot path.
