The UK rail freight industry is never slow to promote a new service. This case is no exception. Freightliner has added a new daily intermodal working, taking containers from London to Yorkshire. The round trip connects two expanding freight terminals: London Gateway and Doncaster Railport.
Freightliner, the British operator, has already stated its intent to significantly grow its intermodal portfolio. It was no surprise that the rail freight operator announced a new service, moving boxes around England. The connection between the Thames and South Yorkshire is the first time Freightliner has operated this route.
This is what Werrington was built to handle
This will be a daytime operation from London, leaving at 1034, with an arrival in Freightliner’s Railport at 1700. The Doncaster terminal is often known as Europort, but it has been in the possession of Freightliner since 1995, under their branding. The southbound return departure is scheduled at 0030, arriving back in London at 0550.
The service routes through the northeast London suburbs to Finsbury Park and, hence, up the East Coast Main Line to Peterborough. It uses the improved Werrington Junction dive under to access the Lincoln and Gainsborough “Cathedrals Route” to Doncaster. The extensive improvements at Werrington were designed with services like this in mind.
Building on an already extensive network
Freightliner has an extensive network of intermodal terminals around Great Britain. The company serves all the major deep-sea ports in the UK, and twelve rail-connected inland terminals. The London Gateway and Doncaster Railport connection was a clear gap in the service, which Freightliner has cheerfully plugged. Previously, there was a Freightliner connection between London Gateway and the company’s other South Yorkshire terminal in Wakefield.
The company intends to build on its already extensive network. Freightliner runs over eighty daily intermodal services and moves more than one million TEU annually. Britain’s love affair with intermodal traffic shows no sign of diminishing. The sector vies with construction-related traffic for the biggest share overall of rail freight.
