>https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/statistics/usage/freight-rail-usage-and-performance/These figures also go by financial year, rather than by calendar year - due to their nature they're also a little more sporadic, as there's of course no single central railfreight operator, and thus more manual work involved in corralling all the figures. Thanks, privatisation!
Anyway, 17.5 million tonnes of freight was picked up altogether - down 6% from Q2 2022 - which travelled 4.11 billion tonne-kilometres - up 3% compared to Q2 2022. So, in short, compared to this time last year, slightly less material was moved over a slightly longer distance.
'Intermodal maritime' (i.e. shipping containers) is still the biggest railfreight sector, at 1.5 billion tonne-km travelled - not much of a surprise there - and it's up 9% on Q2 2022. 'Construction' is the second-largest sector, at 1.44 billion tonne-km - that's up 16% compared to Q2 2022, and the highest since records began 25 years ago, and is almost entirely down to material going via rail to the HS2 construction sites.
On the other end of things, coal has pretty much collapsed, at just 0.02 billion tonne-km travelled, thanks to the ongoing transition to renewables - no more coal trains going to power stations a few times every hour - and the lowest it's been since records began.
As for punctuality, 92.9% of freight turned up within 15 minutes of the scheduled arrival time.