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Telford rail-freight terminal will save 25,000 truck moves every year
Page 10
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A £6m RAIL-FREIGHT terminal in Telford is expected to remove thousands of truck movements from the motorway network once it opens next summer.
Development of the facility by Telford and Wrekin Council follows several years of detailed negotiations.
Graham Fairhurst, the council's special projects manager, predicts around 25,000 truck movements will be saved annually once freight volumes top 500,000 tonnes at the terminal.
"It is the only rail-freight terminal in the Midlands to the west of the Birmrg ham conurbation," he points out.
"To move more freight by rail, the availability of [railfreight] terminals is becoming a critical issue."
In the first year, the terminal is expected to handle 250,000 tonnes of freight but its capacity is three times this figure.
A 4km link from the national rail network to the terminal is expected to cost £4m. The anginal rail line was taken up about 15 years ago.
Fairhurst believes the potential success of the terminal is underpinned by Telford's growing appeal to a range of warehousing and logistics companies.
"It's cost-effective, and its location is reasonably central. Telford has a very strong manufacturing base," he concludes. We have a lot of raw materials such as steel coming in and a lot of finished products going out."