Tate & Lyle ensures a sweet start for the Russell Group's Barking railfreight terminal

Around 65 truck journeys a week between Silvertown in east London and various points in Scotland are no longer necessary thanks to a new contract signed between Tate & Lyle PLC and the Russell Group, one of the UK's leading railfreight specialists.

Five times a week, an intermodal train leaves the Russell Group's Barking railfreight terminal heading for Freightliner's Coatbridge railfreight terminal. Operated by Direct Rail Services (DRS) on behalf of the Russell Group, each train moves on average over 350 tonnes of bulk cane sugar products in liquid and granulated forms, all destined for major blue chip customers in Scotland.

Ken Russell, Commercial & Business Development Director, John G Russell (Transport) Ltd, is delighted to have Tate & Lyle on board as the company's first regular customer for the Barking terminal:

"Prior to committing ourselves to the re-opening of the Barking railfreight terminal, we canvassed a number of potential customers such as Tate & Lyle, which we knew wanted to develop more environmentally-friendly supply chain operations. We were greatly encouraged by the feedback we received. It confirmed our own belief that there would be strong demand for well-managed railfreight services into and out of a terminal that is so close to central London."

"This new Barking - Coatbridge train routes via the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal (DIRFT) and we are now talking to other customers interested in using this daily freight link between London, the Midlands and Scotland."

Mark Rowlatt, Head of Distribution, Tate & Lyle Sugars, welcomed the Russell Group's initiative:

"Tate & Lyle is a world-leading manufacturer of renewable food and industrial ingredients. All our ingredients are produced from renewable crops, predominantly corn (maize) and sugar cane. We take these renewable crops and transform them through the use of innovative technology into value added ingredients for our food, beverage and industrial customers.

"We are committed to sustainable practices across our entire operations, including transport, and therefore the opportunity created by the Russell Group to transfer such a large portion of our long haul road vehicle movements to rail was one we simply had to investigate. We estimate that this will save some 2.5 million truck miles (4 million truck kilometres) a year just on our Scottish traffic."

The Barking terminal was created in the late 1960s as part of the infrastructure to handle containers, which were at that time still a new way of transporting goods around the world. It closed to rail traffic in 2006 and the site, recently purchased by AXA REIM, has lain mostly dormant. Together, AXA and Russell are keen to develop the site with rail being the core feature.

With the revival in railfreight popularity under privatisation and the growing pressure on industry to eliminate unnecessary truck journeys, the Russell Group has been expanding the number of rail terminals it operates. It now offers six key locations: Inverness, Edinburgh, Glasgow, East Midlands (Daventry), West Midlands (Telford) and Barking.

Looking to the future, Russell expects to see considerable demand for services out of Barking:

"We expect that by August, we will have direct access to the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL) and be able to operate trains to and from Continental Europe. We will have no gauge restriction between our terminal and the CTRL and since the high-speed link was built to accommodate continental gauge rolling stock, it means we will be the only UK freight terminal able to accommodate the larger freight wagons that operate throughout mainland Europe.

"Furthermore we expect to gain considerable traffic related to the construction of the 2012 London Olympics facilities. We are only 10km or so from the Olympics site and suppliers are being encouraged to use environmentally-friendly means of transporting their goods to site."

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Notes to editors:

A photograph to accompany this release is available on the Dunelm Public Relations website at http://www.dunelmpr.co.uk/RussellGroup-Photogallery.htm. The caption reads:

"The Russell Group is now operating five trains per week between London (Barking) and Coatbridge in Scotland primarily for Tate & Lyle traffic. Traction is provided by DRS and an intermediate call is provided at DIRFT (Daventry) in the Midlands."