PLANS to upgrade Britain's rail freight network - including creating the railway equivalent of the M25 motorway around London - are being prepared by Railtrack.
The company now responsible for the country's railway infrastructure wants Government funds for its plans to encourage more freight traffic to go by train.
"We certainly want to develop freight routes mirroring the major motorways," a Railtrack spokesman said last week. "It is a lot cheaper to regauge and upgrade railways than it is to build an extra lane on a motorway."
Top priority is being given to plans to upgrade the main rail freight route between the Channel Tunnel northwards to Scotland. Railtrack believes that its £235 million plan for the route - dependent on Government grants of more than £100 million - could result in huge reductions in road traffic.
"That would be the equivalent of taking 400,000 heavy lorry journeys off the road each year for the cost of widening 30-40 miles of the M6," Robin Gisby, the head of freight at Railtrack, said yesterday.
A further plan would involve upgrading track to the south and west of London - effectively mirroring much of the route of the M25 - to help to take more traffic, including passenger services, around the capital.
Most of the work would involve raising bridges and lowering some track, so that freight and lorries could be carried "piggyback" on low, flatbed trucks. Some new line would be needed at Redhill, tunnels improved near Guildford and - in the longer term - a rail bridge built over the Thames east of London.
Railtrack already has begun to identify and secure "mothballed" railway sites or lines that could be included in its plans to attract more freight traffic. They include a tunnel passing under the main Great Western line at Reading, a crossing point over the main West coast line near Nuneaton and potential freight terminals.
The rail network orbiting London could relieve pressure on the capital's roads by helping to route freight from the Channel Tunnel, south Wales and the West Country, the Midlands, North and Scotland away from the city, Mr Gisby believes.
It could also help to link deepwater ports such as Felixstowe and Southampton with the rest of the country, in addition to increasing rail traffic between Liverpool and Hull.
"We are not looking at building vast swathes of new railways," he said. "We want to use more effectively the infrastructure we have. At a relatively modest cost, we can increase the freight capacity of the railways significantly."
Railtrack already has submitted to the Government its proposals for the Channel Tunnel to Scotland route.
A spokesman for the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions said yesterday that ministers were awaiting Railtrack's proposals on the round-London rail network.
