Full-scale trials of Exel's new freight scheme, railfreightonline, will begin next spring.
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The scheme is expected to save up to 4.5-million lorry miles a year. It has received £2.1m from the Strategic Rail Authority, and is designed to demonstrate how intermodal trains with track-and-trace technology can best be operated on the UK rail network.
Exel says customers involved in the trials will include Safeway, Comet, Goodyear, Marks & Spencer and Bulmers. The scheme uses a new form of mini freight train which is no more than 90m long and can be used alongside passenger trains on the main rail network (CM 22
28 March). The trains, developed by AMEC, will each carry as much as six top-weight lorry loads. The technology is provided by lsotrak.
• The SRA has awarded 25m worth of Freight Facilities Grants to eight rail schemes which are designed to save more than 657,000 lorry journeys over the next 10 years. They include a £795,000 grant to DFDS Tor Line for an intermodal gantry crane to handle steel traffic at the Nordic Terminal at Immingham. This could take some 52,000 lorry trips off the roads over the next five years.
However, the SRA's annual report (2000-2001) says railfreight levels fell by almost 7% between 1999 and 2001.