Options sought for Speedlink
Page 12
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
• Railfreight Distribution is talking to customers of its beleaguered Speedlink network in the light of heavy and increasing losses.
Speedlink is expected to lose 230m on a turnover of 245m in the current financial year, despite introducing restructuring measures to cut its losses.
Railfreight Distribution's managing director, Ian Brown, has written to all Speedlink customers to arrange meetings with them to discuss options for handling their business.
The options include raising Speedlink's prices; asking some customers to amalgamate their traffic into larger quantities to justify full-train loads; or transferring their business to Railfreight Distribution's Freightliner network, which would eliminate the short rail legs at the beginning and end of the journey, but keep the traffic on rail for most of the way.
"Domestic wagon-load distribution by rail has become increasingly uneconomic as the motorway network has expanded and heavier lorries have been allowed on the roads," says Brown.
A spokesman for Speedlink added that the crunch had come now because important investment decisions were having to be made. "We could not justify a large investment programme on the grounds of the current state of the service," he says. The company insists that it is too early to talk about redundancies, but admits that a number of jobs would be "at risk" if the network were closed.