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Issue 6 2015 - Freight Business Journal News Roundup


DB Schenker Rail UK has secured a contract with the direct sourcing arm of Asda Walmart, International Procurement and Logistics (IPL) to transport produce containers from London Gateway to Wakefield Europort. The rail freight operator will be providing two services a week for IPL. The first service delivered sixteen containers of bananas that had arrived from Costa Rica into the container port. Previously, the containers would have been moved to IPL’s distribution centre at Ackton by road.


Pakistan has ratified the United Nations TIR Convention. It will enter into force on 21 January 2016. It will support the establishment of international economic cooperation corridors and effectively strengthen trade links with key regional trading partners and with the rest of the world.


The Freight Transport Association is marketing a new portable device that can detect migrants in the back of trucks. The detector picks up CO2 emissions within a 40ſt range and can send text or email alerts to the driver or transport manager and the manufacturer’s monitoring service. Settings can be adjusted according to the cargo, so fruit and vegetables that themselves emit CO2 do not cause false alarms. The detector is fully portable and can be moved from vehicle to vehicle. It has a battery life of between two and four months and requires an £11.99 monthly subscription.


TimoCom’s transport barometer showed signs of a boom in the second quarter of 2015, with an impressive freight to vehicle ratio of 54:46 – confirming the recovery that appeared to have set in in the first quarter of the year. As well as holiday factors, one factor for the strong showing in May were rail strikes in Germany, which forced shippers to turn to trucks. The situation normalised in June with a freight to vehicle ratio of 50:50. TimoComm is expecting July, August and September figures to be very similar to the previous years.


Jet Services recently moved three LPG storage tanks from Turkey to Malta for a leading gas distributor on the island. Following collection by truck from the plant at Gaziantep, they were lashed to three mafi trailers for the ro ro voyage from Izmir to Malta Freeport, with a transhipment in Italy.


Road & Rail


///NEWS GBRf in seventh heaven


GB Railfreight has added its seventh daily rail service from Felixstowe and the 31st daily rail service to operate out of the port. It runs to Birmingham Intermodal Freight Terminal (BIFT), owned by container transport company Maritime Transport. It is the first train to serve this route from Felixstowe. The port’s chief executive Clemence Cheng,


said that Felixstowe was the country’s biggest intermodal


rail facility, handling close to


900,000teu in 2014. He added: “This record volume was achieved by the investment we made in our newest terminal, the North Rail Terminal, and the dedicated employees in our rail team working closely with our customers and Network Rail to improve on our efficiency and the handling of longer trains. The 30+ wagon trains that run from there are the longest intermodal trains in the UK.” Capacity at the North Rail Terminal is being


further enhanced by two new rail-mounted gantry cranes. Co-financed by the European Union Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) programme, they bring to nine the number of gantry cranes serving the port’s


three rail terminals. John Smith, Managing Director of GB


Railfreight, added: “The winning of our seventh slot is an important milestone as it enables us to further expand our capacity, helping us to continue to meet the demand from our customers and support the growth of the


intermodal rail freight market and its potential to take freight off the roads.” Regular rail services also run from Felixstowe


to Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Teesport, Birmingham, Doncaster, Tilbury, Selby, Hams Hall, Daventry, Wakefield, Ditton (Widnes), Burton, Scunthorpe and Bristol.


Green signal for


Property consultant CBRE says that its clients Peter Stirling and Carnbroe Estates have secured planning permission in principle from the Scottish Government for the Mossend International Railfreight Park. The project would extend the current Mossend Railhead terminal


and will include a 775m long electrified rail terminal, 2.2m sq ſt of space to include manufacturing, distribution and logistics service operations,


Northampton for Geodis News Roundup International


The European Shippers’ Council has urged the European Commission to take action to stop Turkey from levying additional customs duties on goods entering from the European Union, which it says violates the customs union signed in 1995. ESC says that Turkey has imposed duties on footwear, textile, chemicals, pharmaceutical products, beef and alcoholic spirits. It adds that the European Commission has not done enough to end the practice.


The EU and Vietnam have reached agreement in principle on their free trade pact on 4 August. In a statement, the European Commission said that all issues of substance had been agreed on. Negotiating teams will now settle remaining technical issues and finalise the legal text for approval by the European Council and Parliament.


Trade & Customs


Geodis UK is opening a new hub in Northampton. It will allow the French- owned forwarder and logistics company to centralise its European network operations with all existing import/export linehaul activities being transferred from High Wycombe, Birmingham and Lutterworth. The Lutterworth network branch has also moved to Northampton. The new 50,000 sq ſt site on Lodge Farm


Industrial Estate in Northampton will serve as a cross dock facility for all European activity with all European exports and imports directed to the site. This in turn will allow reduced trunking and handling of export and import goods and so increases performance and reduces the risk of damage. Existing network sites around the country will continue to serve their local areas and


Mossend rail scheme All roads lead to


a new access road to the A8 to the north of the site and 70 acres of community green space. The scheme would also help deliver the Scottish Government’s own


Economic Strategy for Scotland to boost the country’s competitiveness. CBRE said a major catalyst for the scheme was the Scottish Government’s decision to invest in the M8/A8 improvement scheme.


full load and logistics business lines will also remain the same. Geodis UK managing director, Jamie


Cuthbert said: “We want to be the growth partner of choice for our clients and this new hub will enable us to take a step closer to that.”


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