The FTA has welcomed rail regulator Tom Winsor's call for more freight line funding.
The FTA has expressed concern over recent proposals from the Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) to substantially reduce the maintenance budget for many secondary, rural and freight only lines.
Winsor believes that the strategy would result in an unacceptable drop in service performance and the government should provide additional funds to maintain these services.
FTA chief executive Richard Turner said: “I fully appreciate the logic of the SRA plan in prioritising the care of key routes. However, for freight, care of the feeder routes is equally important. If we cannot get freight trains from remote railheads on to main lines, because of neglected and underfunded feeder routes, then the whole process of rail freight movement collapses.”
