EWS plans to move parcels at 125mph
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• by Guy Sheppard Britain's biggest rail-freight operator predicts that overnight parcels delivery companies will increasingly switch from road to rail as its services become faster and easier to use.
English Welsh & Scottish Railway has been running a trial trunking service for Securcor between Wolverhampton and Scotland for the past nine months.
Because of HGV access restrictions at Wolverhampton, the Securicor service has only been carrying the equivalent of four truckloads a night. However, an EWS spokesman says volumes will soon increase considerably with the opening of new freight transfer facilities at Tasker Street, Walsall.
"This will allow us to fill more of the rail vans because there is much easier road access than at Wolverhampton," he says. "There are other premium parcels people who are aware of what is going an and they are very keen to have a part of the action."
EWS says it plans to press home its speed advantage over road for express freight—it has begun test runs of up to 125mph on the main line route between London and Bristol.
'We have solid aspirations to break into the premium parcels' market and the fact that we have got one company on board shows that demand is there," says the spokesman. "If we start offering more attractive facilities and then higher speeds, we will be offering what the marketplace is looking for."
A spokeswoman for Securicor says: The service is proving a very quick way of getting overnight parcels from A to B. We are very pleased with the way it's going and are likely to increase our usage."