Industry Rail Freight Founder WA Developments | Founded 19 September 2006 Area served United Kingdom | |
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Type Private limited company Headquarters Warrington, Cheshire, England | ||
Stobart Rail Freight Ltd (trading as Stobart Rail) is a railway freight service operator in the United Kingdom. Stobart Rail comes under the Rail division of Eddie Stobart Logistics, and carries intermodal freight for the group. The service is operated by rail partner, Direct Rail Services.
Contents
Foundation
From Tuesday 19 September 2006 Stobart Rail commenced a daily delivery train on behalf of Tesco, for which it already provided comprehensive road haulage services. Collecting Tesco goods from around the Midlands, the train runs from the Stobart depot at Daventry International Railfreight Terminal (DIRFT) in Rugby, to the Grangemouth Rail terminal in Scotland. The train then returns to Rugby, 90% filled by Tesco and 10% filled by Coca-Cola - shipping the equivalent of 26 lorries daily in each direction
Hauled by Class 66 locomotives supplied and manned by Direct Rail Services, the train consisted of 26 specially designed new 45 feet (14 m) curtain-sided shipping containers, which at 8 feet 6 inches (2.59 m) in height are within the UK loading gauge. Stobart has bought 90 of these new containers in order to provide this service. The train travels at an average speed of 40 miles per hour (64 km/h), which is comparable with a lorry, although the whole process takes slightly longer because of additional loading and unloading
Over the three-year contract, it is estimated the dedicated rail freight service will replace 130,000 lorry journeys and save 3 million road miles a year. Stobart has been given £400,000 by the UK Government and Scottish Executive to switch 70 per cent of its cross-border freight for Tesco from road to rail. The train will be in Tesco corporate colours.
In May 2008, Stobart announced a second route had been gained for Tesco, from Grangemouth to Inverness, to start no later than September.
Expansion
On 30 October 2009, Stobart commenced a new, weekly refrigerated train service, operated in conjunction with DB Schenker, an 1,100 miles (1,800 km) journey from Valencia, Spain, terminating at the Ripple Lane inter-modal depot developed originally for Ford Dagenham, providing for the first time an alternative to lorries for the import of fresh Spanish salad-vegetables. The first fully refrigerated goods service to run through Eurotunnel, it is currently the longest train journey in Europe by a single operator. On the return journey to Spain, the train carries pallets for CHEP.
Stobart announced in May 2008 that it planned up to six new train services in addition to the Tesco contracts in the year.
Operations
Stobart had previously transported some of its freight by rail, using Stobart liveried IWB Ferrywagons hired from Tiphook.
Stobart Rail Freight also operated a training school.
It presently operates the following services:
Locomotives
Stobart Rail Freight had 4 locos that were in their livery, 2 are operated by Direct Rail Services 66411 "Eddie the Engine" and 66414 "James the Engine" which are both Class 66 locomotive and are now unbranded (they don't have Stobart Rail writing). Both are operated by Freightliner. 66414 works in the UK and 66411 works in Poland. The third loco is 66048 "James the Engine" operated by DB Schenker and is a Class 66 locomotive although this locomotive is currently out of service stored in Toton due to a derailment in January 2010. The fourth loco is a 92017 "Bart the Engine" in Stobart Rail livery. It is currently operated by DB Schenker UK but stored at Crewe Electric TMD.