Road and rail containers have wide applications
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A SCOTTISH haulier's unique train-to-lorry coal containers could earn it lieW business in other fields.
Glasgow based John G. Russell (Transport) has been running container loads of coal on rail and road for the National Coal Board since April this year.
The containers have also been used for bulk transport of salt for road gritting throughout Scotland.
Now Russell is in discussion with other companies — including the British Steel Corporation — although nothing concrete has yet emerged, Russell's director John Little said.
"But we have every reason to believe that other business will develop," he added.
For the NBC the specially designed containers are filled in Midlands, Yorkshire and Welsh collieries and brought up as part of British Rail's Speedlink wagons to Russell's own premises. Special lift trucks transfer the containers to road vehicles which then deliver to coal merchants' depots. The coal is tipped in the conventional manner.
Although the NBC contract was to deliver around 150,000 tonnes a year, the aluminium and steel containers have so far been under-utilised — Russell is waiting for the coal industry to return to normal after the year-long strike.