Milk trains set to make return
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by Karen Miles • Milk Marque's haulage contractors look set to lose out on trunking work if plans by the milk co-operative to switch to rail come about.
Farm collection and final delivery will remain unaffected by a move to rail but within the "short to medium term" hundreds of thousands of litres presently trunked each day over longer distances could return to milk trains.
The conclusions follow a month-long trial by Milk Marque, which sells and transports on behalf of its farmers more than six billion litres of milk a year.
Evaluation of the trial continues but early calculations appear to show that rail carriage—which allows road operations of up to 44 tonnes to and from railheads—is viable for journeys of more than 150 miles where just one train load—or 600,000 litres of milk—is carried each day. The organisation is also talking to the Government about obtaining grants for contributing towards the cost of building rail sidings and paying track access costs.
Milk Marque uses 15 main contractors for its transport in England and Wales, including NFC's Tankfreight, United Transport, Ryder Contracts, Wincanton, Coldstream, Gregory Distribution and Lloyd Fraser.
More than half of Milk Marque's 6bn litres a year is carried only over short distances but distribution director Pat Williams says he can envisage switching 10% of the long-distance volumes to rail for its trunking, with several trains a day operating into the biggest cities. "The signs are encouraging," says Williams.
The trial with train operator Direct Rail Services overseen by T ankfreight ended over a month ago. Trains carried 30,000 litres a day between Cumbria and London.