DB Cargo UK — Period 13 2025-26 (1–28 March) report
DB Cargo UK ran 3,688 freight services in Period 13 2025-26 at 91% A2F punctuality, below at least one peer freight operator on 13 of the 14 corridors it shared with another FOC over the period. Schedule 8 monetises every minute of attributable delay at CP7 rates: £25.81/min (NR-to-FOC) and £51.98/min (FOC-to-NR).
- Edition
- v1.0 (industry review edition)
- Last updated
- 28 March 2026
- Next update
- Period 1 2026-27 — 28 May 2026
Headline facts and figures
Services monitored
3,688
131.7/day across the national network; Period 13 2025-26 (1–28 Mar 2026); NROD-derived journey data, cancellations excluded; queried gauge_intelligence_v2 at 2026-05-26
A2F punctuality
91%
90% Wilson interval 90%–91%, 3,688 services; national mean across all freight operators 89% over 18,173 services in Period 13 2025-26; queried gauge_intelligence_v2 at 2026-05-26
Daily A2F range
84%–98%
28 calendar days; SPC run-rule signal fired (eight consecutive points on one side of the mean) within 3σ control limits; queried gauge_intelligence_v2 at 2026-05-26
Peer comparison
1 of 14
Shared corridors on which DBC ranked first against peer freight operators; below at least one peer on the remaining 13; aggregated by operator from TRUST toc_id, see league-table methodology; queried gauge_intelligence_v2 at 2026-05-26
Context
ORR publishes aggregates only; this page publishes operator-by-corridor data. Material to bid teams and track-access negotiators given CP7 rates of £25.81/min (NR-to-FOC) and £51.98/min (FOC-to-NR).
What you can do with it
- Compare any operator to peers on every shared corridor.
- Quantify a period's CP7 exposure.
- Cite the methodology, not a vendor's number, in negotiations.
Who can use it
Freight operations leaders · Track-access negotiators · Freight procurement teams · Rail journalists
What this page measures
The page makes three things possible. Every shared corridor is ranked: an operator's A2F sits next to active peer freight operators on that corridor, with a 90% interval around each figure. A period's CP7 exposure is computed from the operator's own services rather than national aggregates. The methodology behind each figure is named, dated, and reproducible, so track-access negotiations and academic citations can reference the published method rather than a vendor's number.
DB Cargo UK ran 3,688 freight services across the national network between 1 and 28 March 2026 (Period 13 of the 2025-26 rail year). Heavy traffic moved on the steel and bulk flows into Margam, the biomass and coal loops at Drax, and the Immingham bulk terminals on the Humber. Figures aggregate every monitored DB Cargo UK journey. The dataset is keyed by toc_id from Network Rail's NROD/TRUST feed; cancellations are excluded from the denominator. The panels below report what the public archive carries; the commercial-licence panel near the foot lists the four derivations released to subscribers.
Daily on-time arrivals across Period 13 2025-26
Daily on-time arrivals are down 2.3 percentage points on Period 12 2025-26 (93% then, 91% now).
Range 84%–98% across 28 days. Weekend mean 91% vs weekday 91% (+0.5 percentage points). Mean 91%.
Period 13 2025-26 daily A2F averaged 91% across 28 observations. One or more observations fell outside the expected range (1 day(s) beyond the expected range; 1 run(s) of eight consecutive days on one side of the mean), indicating an unusual event rather than ordinary noise.
Mean punctuality in Period 12 2025-26 was 93%. The current period is down 2.3 percentage points on Period 12 2025-26.
Source: Gauge Intelligence NROD-derived journey data, Period 13 2025-26. A service is counted on time when terminal arrival falls within 15 minutes of schedule. Days with no scheduled services (typically Sundays) render as gaps — a missing bar means no measurement, not a value at zero. Red bars flag days that triggered a statistical signal — see anomaly-detection methodology.
ORR's Freight rail usage and performance release publishes by Network Rail region and route, not by operator. This page publishes by operator and corridor.
Cancellation rate
In Period 13 2025-26, 9% of scheduled services were cancelled (695 of 8147) — within the national mean of 14%; FOC traction, crew, and terminal decisions accounted for the largest share.
Cancellations are up 7.90 percentage points on Period 12 2025-26 (1% then, 9% now). The largest shifts in the responsible-party split are reported in the table below.
| Scheduled or activated paths | 8,147 |
| Cancelled (post-activation + pre-activation) | 695 |
| Cancellation rate | 9% 8%–9% |
| National cancellation rate (all freight) | 14% |
Attribution
| Responsible party | Cancellations | Share of cancelled |
|---|---|---|
| Network Rail infrastructure and possessions | 98 | 14% |
| FOC traction, crew, and terminal decisions | 519 | 75% |
| Third party | 1 | 0% |
| Unattributed | 77 | 11% |
Cancellation rate in Period 12 2025-26 was 1% across 7,626 scheduled paths. The current period is up 7.90 percentage points on Period 12 2025-26.
Source: NROD/TRUST activation feed and BPLAN scheduled paths, Period 13 2025-26. Cancellation rate = (post-activation + pre-activation cancellations) ÷ scheduled or activated paths. Pre-activation cancellations are TRUST CANCEL messages on schedules that never activated; post-activation cancellations have an activation and a CANCEL event. The bracketed range beside the headline rate is the 90% confidence range on the cancellation proportion given the sample size. Cause attribution uses the responsible-party mapping of the recorded cancellation reason code; see delay-attribution methodology.
DBC and peer operators, by shared corridor
The per-corridor league table for DBC is deferred while the v1.0 industry review edition corrections inbox remains open. Comparative ranking against peer freight operators on each shared corridor returns at v2.0 general availability, after the launch-cohort corrections cycle closes and the dataset has been reviewed by industry readers. The league-table methodology sets out the partial-pool estimator and the Wilson interval framework the panel will use; the release cadence page sets out the four exit criteria for v2.0 and the schedule against which they are measured.
Source: Gauge Intelligence NROD-derived journey data, Period 13 2025-26. Single-operator Wilson intervals on shared corridors continue to appear in the per-corridor breakdowns above; the per-corridor ranking against peers is the panel deferred here.
What the 15-minute threshold hides
Half of Period 13 2025-26 services arrived early — the median was 3 min ahead of timetable. The long tail the A2F binary misses: 5% of services ran +27 min or more late, and 1% arrived over +83 min late. The 15-minute A2F threshold sits at the 91th percentile — 9% of services exceeded it.
Median arrival delay is 5 minutes later than Period 12 2025-26 (median was -8 min then, -3 min now).
| Percentile | Arrival delay |
|---|---|
| 50th percentile (median) — A2F threshold sits at the 91th percentile | -3 min |
| 75th percentile — A2F threshold sits at the 91th percentile | +2 min |
| 85th percentile — A2F threshold sits at the 91th percentile | +8 min |
| 90th percentile — A2F threshold sits at the 91th percentile | +14 min |
| 95th percentile | +27 min |
| 99th percentile | +83 min |
3,340 services with confirmed terminal arrival in Period 13 2025-26. A2F is binary at 15 minutes — this distribution surfaces what the headline figure does not show. National 99th percentile across all freight operators: 98 min.
Baseline (Period 12 2025-26): median -8 min, p99 +122 min. Period-on-period median shift +5 min.
ORR's Freight rail usage and performance release publishes by Network Rail region and route, not by operator. This page publishes by operator and corridor.
Intraday pattern
Sun (94%) is 3.1 percentage points above Wed (91%), the weakest day in Period 13 2025-26.
The 16-20 departure window records 89% A2F — 4.9 percentage points below the 04-08 peak (94%) in Period 13 2025-26.
The day-of-week spread is narrower by 7.9 percentage points on Period 12 2025-26 — punctuality varies less across the working week than the prior period.
By day of week
| Day | Services | A2F% | 90% Wilson |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mon | 612 | 91% | 89%–93% |
| Tue | 593 | 92% | 90%–93% |
| Wed | 622 | 91% | 88%–92% |
| Thu | 651 | 92% | 90%–94% |
| Fri | 556 | 91% | 89%–93% |
| Sat | 317 | 91% | 88%–93% |
| Sun | 188 | 94% | 90%–96% |
By departure hour
| Departure window | Services | A2F% | 90% Wilson |
|---|---|---|---|
| 00-04 | 426 | 91% | 88%–93% |
| 04-08 | 588 | 94% | 92%–95% |
| 08-12 | 713 | 91% | 89%–92% |
| 12-16 | 608 | 93% | 91%–94% |
| 16-20 | 566 | 89% | 87%–91% |
| 20-24 | 609 | 92% | 90%–93% |
Baseline (Period 12 2025-26) day-of-week spread delta: -7.9 percentage points.
Source: NROD-derived journey data, Period 13 2025-26.
Day-of-week is ISO (Mon=1..Sun=7). Hour windows are 4-hour buckets keyed off
TRUST origin_dep_timestamp. A2F threshold is 15 minutes on terminal
arrival. 90% Wilson interval on each cell's proportion.
Path utilisation
Activated 2,692 of 8,147 scheduled paths (33%, 90% range 32%–34%) in Period 13 2025-26 — -8.2 percentage points below the national freight-operator mean of 41%. 5,455 ghost paths (scheduled, not activated).
In plain terms: a scheduled path is a freight slot reserved in Network Rail's Working Timetable. An activated path is one where TRUST recorded the train starting its run. A ghost path is a scheduled slot that produced no activation — capacity held in the timetable that the operator did not use, typically because the underlying contract did not call the path or the service was withdrawn before the day. A sub-100% rate is normal: the Working Timetable carries contingency and capacity-reservation paths by design. See the path-utilisation methodology for how scheduled, activated, and ghost paths are derived.
| Scheduled paths (after STP precedence) | 8,147 |
| Activated | 2,692 |
| Ghost paths | 5,455 |
| STP-cancelled (excluded from denominator) | 517 |
| Activation rate | 33% 32%–34% |
| National FOC mean | 41% |
Free-tier: operator-total activation rate and ghost count for Period 13 2025-26. Per-corridor path utilisation, per-path scheduling-pattern analysis, and spot-contract renewal guidance are released to commercial-licence subscribers. The activation rate measures Working-Timetable path-days that materialised as activations — not operator delivery performance against intent. Capacity-reservation paths and contingency optionality in the WTT mean a sub-100% rate is a transparency datum, not a delivery indictment.
Source: BPLAN schedule import and TRUST journey activation feeds, Period 13 2025-26.
STP precedence (C > O > N > P) is applied per (train_uid, date) pair via Schedule.effective_for; STP-cancelled path-days are excluded from the denominator.
VSTP activations (no Schedule row) are excluded from both numerator and denominator.
90% Wilson interval on the proportion. National FOC mean computed across the known FOC universe in the same window —
see path-utilisation methodology.
Schedule 8 net position
Bilateral Schedule 8 settlement runs at two rates under CP7: operators pay Network Rail £51.98 per minute of operator-attributed delay; Network Rail pays operators £25.81 per minute of NR-attributed delay. The asymmetry produces a net position on every period for every operator; its sign and size depend on the period's bilateral delay-minute mix at rates that do not move within a control period.
The bilateral net position for Period 13 2025-26 on services operated by DB Cargo UK, together with the per-corridor decomposition, the rate-gap counterfactual against an equal-rate benchmark, and the period-on-period swing, is released to commercial-licence subscribers.
Per-corridor and per-day Schedule 8 net-position figures, and the full responsibility-party breakdown, are released to commercial-licence subscribers.
Source: Network Rail Historic Delay Attribution (HDA) for Period 13 2025-26,
ingested into delay_attributions with source: "trust".
CP7 rates are published by ORR and applied uniformly across all operators.
See delay-attribution methodology.
Delay attribution party split
Across 2,247 attribution rows totalling 46,632 delay minutes in Period 13 2025-26 for services operated by DB Cargo UK, Network Rail carries 30%, operators carry 59%, and third parties carry 11% of the attributed delay minutes.
Network Rail's share of attributed minutes is up 17.6 percentage points on Period 12 2025-26 (12% then, 30% now). Operator share moved down 21.8 percentage points alongside — the bilateral mix of attributed minutes shifted, not the total volume of delay.
| Responsible party | Delay minutes | Share of minutes |
|---|---|---|
| Network Rail | 13,775 | 30% |
| Operator | 27,574 | 59% |
| Third party | 5,283 | 11% |
Baseline (Period 12 2025-26): NR 12%, operator 81%, third party 7%. Period-on-period NR share shift +17.6 percentage points.
Cause-code level breakdowns and per-corridor decomposition are released to commercial-licence subscribers.
Source: Network Rail Historic Delay Attribution (HDA) for Period 13 2025-26.
Responsibility parties follow the DAPR mapping in the delay_attribution_codes table.
See delay-attribution methodology.
What this page does not measure
Pre-activation cancellations fall outside the dataset: TRUST requires an activation event before it records a journey, so services cancelled before activation produce no TRUST record. VSTPs are excluded from the path-utilisation denominator because no Working Timetable row exists against which to measure them. Journeys without a confirmed terminal arrival are excluded from the delay distribution. The 15-minute A2F threshold is a regulatory artefact, not a natural cut-off — the "What the 15-minute threshold hides" panel surfaces the distribution behind that line.
Commercial licence
Four derivations are released to commercial-licence subscribers rather than the public archive. Each one reconciles TRUST source-data against Network Rail's Historic Delay Attribution record independently, not republished from public statistics.
- Schedule 8 net position
- Why late — delay attribution
- Schedule 4 possession exposure
- Path utilisation — corridor breakdown
Available under commercial licence. Contact [email protected] for subscription terms.
Methodology & sources
All figures derive from Network Rail's NROD TRUST feed, processed via the Gauge Intelligence ingest pipeline. Period definitions, A2F (Arrival to Fifteen), the Wilson 90% interval, daily anomaly rules, cross-view reconciliation, and delay attribution are documented at:
Data window — period boundaries and the data-as-of cutoff
League tables — cross-view reconciliation across the four analytical views
Anomaly detection — daily A2F SPC rules
Delay attribution — DAPR cause-code breakdown
Forecasting — prediction intervals and possession-exposure estimates
Regulatory context
Network Rail's Control Period 7 obligation, fixed in ORR's PR23 conclusions, imposes a 1.3% target on the Freight Cancellations and Lateness (FCaL) metric by March 2029. A2F is the operator-perspective version of the same threshold: the cancellation-plus-lateness measure that drives the obligation. ORR's Freight rail usage and performance release records that its statistical publications do not compare results against targets. This page does, against the CP7 target and over time.
Revisions
No revisions to date.
A revision restates a published figure because the upstream data changed, typically a Network Rail delay-attribution refresh. The minor tier is corrected in the next release; cells affected carry an (r) flag. The intermediate tier triggers immediate amendment with an (r) flag. The wholesale tier is flagged at the top of the page and notified directly to operators and rail journalists subscribed to revision alerts.
Corrections
No corrections to date.
A correction fixes an error in the published output: an arithmetic slip, a typo, a mis-rendered chart. Revisions are different; they restate a figure because the upstream data changed. The distinction matters because corrections never silently rewrite a published number.