Freightliner-Tilbury-Manchester

UK: Freightliner has launched a container service which it says has been made possible by a Network Rail scheme to attract freight to rail by waiving track access charges for the first six months of a new flow.

‘The access charge discount scheme is an important initiative to deliver modal shift and achieve industry growth targets’, said Freightliner CEO Tim Shoveller when the service from the Tilbury2 port terminal to Manchester Trafford Park was launched on September 30. ‘We are pleased that our new daily train for P&O Ferrymasters is the first service to use the new access charge discount scheme, enabling us to deliver our customers’ goods more sustainably.’

John Freyne, Director Intermodal at P&O Ferrymasters, said ‘we are pleased that the industry has worked collaboratively to make this new UK service a reality. We expect the round-trip train to take around 10 000 trucks off busy UK roads annually, enabling us to remove thousands of tonnes of carbon emissions from the supply chains of our customers. Adding a UK rail service to our extensive European multimodal network has been a key goal for us, and we are delighted that the new Network Rail scheme has made this possible.’

When it announced the discount programme in August, Network Rail said it would be worth around £1 000 per return working, depending on length and loading.

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