NEWS\\\


The Euro Carex consortium has succeeded in running the first- ever high speed freight train from France to London. An adapted French postal train a grande vitesse operated a test run from Lyon airport to the London St Pancras passenger station on the night of 20/21 March, stopping to pick up freight at Paris Roissy airport. Carex comprises Roissy,


Amsterdam, Liege and Lyon airports, along with Eurotunnel, the rail infrastructure operators, the French railways and Air France KLM Cargo, Martinair Cargo, Chronopost, Dimotrans, FedEx Express, Geodis, TNT and WFS. The consortium hopes to have the first 300kmph (186mph) trains running on a network comprising London, Amsterdam, Liege, Roissy, Lyon and Germany by 2015/17. Strasbourg, Bordeaux and Marseille will be added in phase 2 in 20189/19 and Spain, Italy and Berlin in phase 3 from about 2020. Francois Coart, director of


strategy at Eurotunnel’s Europorte rail freight subsidiary told FBJ that the network would replace planes on intra-European flights operated by the express and airfreight industry. He stressed: “This will be a high-speed network. We are not talking about the 120kmph trains that are being operated by Schenker.” He added that talks were taking place with rail equipment manufacturers about either new- build trains or adapting former passenger high speed trains. Either way, they would be able to handle standard widebody airfreight containers. (The postal train used


on the demonstration run would not be suitable, mainly because of its restricted door access.) Specific sites for Carex


‘Railports’ have been identifed at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, Liege Bierset, Lyon-Saint Exupery and Paris-Roissy (Charles de Gaulle) airports. The UK terminal will, uniquely, not be located at an airport as none of London’s have a suitable high-speed main line


railway connection. The


terminal will, says Carex, “be built to the east of London, along the HS1 high speed line” and close to the M20/M25 motorways. Earlier plans for a site in the Stratford area of east London appear to have been dropped. In the longer term, services could also use the mooted High Speed 2 line between London and the Midlands. Terminals will be geared to rapid


handling of freight, and capable of being expanded up to four tracks. The Carex consortium


concedes that obtaining suitable timetable slots will be vital for success. Passenger services on the high-speed network tend to operate between about 05.00 and Midnight, but freight oſten needs to move in the small hours of the morning, when the engineering department takes possession of the lines for maintenance work. However, said Francois Coart, “We don’t see it as a problem. We are talking about maybe ten trains a night – I would be delighted if it was that many – so I cannot see that it would be a problem.” But it was also important not to disturb the sleep or residents living near the lineside,


Rail record to Wales


he added. One of Carex’s main selling-


points, in fact, are the increasing restrictions on night


flights at


European airports, which could make overnight air operations even more problematic than rail ones. Another challenge, Coart added,


was to come up with a schedule that was attractive to the large number of express and freight operators involved in the scheme. Trains would be multi-user, but the nature of the express industry is that most operators tend to require services in broadly the same time slot.s


Issue 2 2012


3 London welcomes first 300kmph freight train


Speaking at the St Pancras event, GB Railfreight managing director, John Smith, described rail express parcel services like Carex as “an answer looking for a question. Carex is looking to create a high-speed parcels network that is a perfect match with our UK services. It is not beyond the wit of planners to


bring the two networks together to bring the Carex high-speed parcel network to the UK by 2015.” GB Railfreight was acquired


last year by infrastructure owner Eurotunnel, one of the


infrastructure managers associated with Euro Carex.


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FSEW, based at the South Wales International Freightliner Terminal in Wentloog, near Cardiff, says it has transported a record


number of rail borne containers from Southampton Docks to the terminal in partnership with Freightliner’s Logico division.


Visit: www.redhead-int.com


Phone: 01274 46 46 46


Email: sales@redhead-int.com


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