British Rail and Rootes f2im. deal
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BRITISH RAIL (Scotland) and Rootes Motors Ltd. settled a £2,250,000 deal in Glasgow this week.
Over the next five years British Rail will carry Rootes' car components in a daily two-way flow between Linwood and Coventry. The components will be transported in Rootes' own specially designed steel containers on company trains chartered from British Rail.
The contract, worth just under £500,000 a year over the next five years, starts on January 1 1970 with four trains a week increasing within a few months to eight round trips every week.
Only three train sets will be needed to perform the eight round trips and each will cover more than 2,000 miles a week.
The trains, nearly a quarter of a mile long and with a payload of around 600 tons, will comprise 16 wagons conveying privately owned containers in Rootes livery built to international standards. Each wagon will carry 60ft of container space.
Rootes are to instal additional sidings in their private terminal adjoining the North side plant at Linwood and British Rail are improving their terminal facilities at Gosford Green, Coventry, where Rootes are installing special equipment designed for the rapid transfer of containers between rail and road vehicles.
Rootes will be responsible for loading and unloading the trains and for local road haulage at the Coventry end. The whole process of stripping and re-loading a train is expected to take only six hours, using "straddle carrier" equipment, and the journey time between Linwood and Coventry should be about nine hours.
The contract was signed by Mr. R. B. W. Rolland, commercial director of British Rail (Scotland), and Mr. R, J. Donnell, production programming and traffic director of Rootes.
Commenting on the contract signing, Mr. Bolland said: "This operation is typical of the way in which British Railways can form part of a company's production line, using the latest transport equipment to give speed and reliability coupled with maximum efficiency. Volume and distance have combined to make the company train the most attractive proposition for Rootes".
A Rootes spokeman said: "This container operation gives us the quickest and most reliable service between our two plants at an economic price".