For a research articel on transport I need to know the volumes of
petroleum carried by rail in UK.  Representative years preferred are
1957, 1970 and 2000 but other years near to these would be OK. 
Volumes are likely to be discribed as refined petroleum products and
in split into grades such as motor spirit (gasolene) diesel
(DERV)aviation fuel (Jet A1) and Fuel Oil, there are other grades. 
Breakdown by grade would be useful but not so vital as total volume
for three representative years.   Most movements by rail would be from
UK refineries or a few large entropots.

Dear sussex1,

In searching the UK National Statistics site (
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/ ), I was able to find some information
on Oil and Petroleum freight moved by Rail in recent years.

The site requires you to dig down a bit through topical headings. From
the front page, I first clicked on "Transport, Travel & Tourism" and
then clicked on "Freight." From here, you have a number of options for
downloading or looking at data. I found the table for "National
railways: freight: 1990/91 -2000/01" under "freight statistics from
Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions."

National railway's freight: 1990/91-2000/01
http://www.transtat.dtlr.gov.uk/tables/tsgb01/5/51201.htm

The table shows freight "lifted" (measured in tonnes) and freight
"moved" (measured in tonne-kilometres). Oil and Petroleum is one of
the commodity categories and amounts for 1990 through 2000 are shown.

This table is also found in the print publication "Transport
Statistics Great Britain: 2001 Edition" available for purchase at:
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/Product.asp?vlnk=2354&More=Y

The Department for Transport, Local Government, and the Regions is the
department responsible for publishing the above Transport Statistics
document. Their site also contains contact information for the
department statisticians. None of them list "rail" specifically as
their focus, but they are all concerned with freight statistics. You
may want to try contacting their general email address for more
information about the "Transport Statistics" publication.
http://www.transtat.dtlr.gov.uk/useful/dst_org.htm#freight

I am not familiar with the library system in the UK, but you may want
to see if a nearby University either has or can obtain older editions
of the "Transport Statistics Great Britain" publication. Older
editions will likely contain similar tables with the information  you
need. The COPAC site ( http://www.copac.ac.uk/copac/ ) which describes
itself as a union catalogue of materials from 22 large university
research libraries in the UK and Ireland.

I searched COPAC for the title "Transport Statistics Great Britain"
and found titles going back to 1969. You may be able to request these
from your local public or university library through interlibrary
loan.

http://www.copac.ac.uk/copac/wzgw?fs=Search&form=A%2FT&id=7988114&au=&cau=&ti=transport+statistics+great+britain&pub=&isn=&date=&lang=&lib=


Search strategy:

"UK statistics"
://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=UK+Statistics

"UK libraries"
://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=UK+libraries


Resources:

National Statistics - the official UK Statistics Site
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/

Department for Transport, Local Government, and the Regions
Transport Statistics
http://www.transtat.dtlr.gov.uk/index.htm

COPAC
http://www.copac.ac.uk/copac/

Hope this information is useful!

Gigi