GB Railfreight (GBRf) ran the first train in its seventh slot from the Port of Felixstowe on September 2, boosting its capacity at the port by 23%.
The train runs five days a week from Felixstowe to Birmingham Intermodal Freight Terminal at Birch Coppice, carrying 33 wagons initially. GBRf has ordered 15 Ecofret wagons from VTG Rail specifically for this train, and these will expand increase train length to 45 wagons. The inaugural run was hauled by 66761.
“We have worked extremely hard to identify opportunities to increase our capacity to and from the port. As a result, we now run the longest intermodal freight trains on the network with wagons that can accommodate 40-foot containers,” said GBRf Managing Director John Smith.
“The winning of our seventh slot is an important milestone. It enables us to further expand our capacity, helping us to continue to meet the demand from our customers and support the growth of the intermodal rail freight market and its potential to take freight off the roads.”
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Andrewjgwilt1989 - 13/09/2015 18:48
And it's all thanks to Network Rail for constructing the new Freight Chord Link in Ipswich that takes most freights from Felixstowe to the Midlands and some freights do use the Great Eastern Main Line between Ipswich and Stratford and there is a freight link that links onto the North London Line that freights do avoid Central London which means electric freight trains may use the new Crossrail route passing through Central London from Felixstowe to Bristol, Devon and Wales and other freight terminals west of London from 2019 if the Crossrail project is completed by 2019 with new tracks, signalling, and overhead wires being installed and new stations are being build in time for Crossrail to operate services from East to West passing through Central London in a new tunnel.
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Gizzy - 16/09/2015 10:34
I've just read though, that Network Rail are to delay the doubling of the track between Ely and Soham. This is part of the route that Felixstowe trains take to get to Peterborough and onwards to the rest of the rail network. The only other route is the congested GEML via London. This will obviously have an effect on getting more Felixstowe container traffic onto trains, and there will me more container lorries on the A14 as a result....
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