DRS and its partner Eddie Stobart, the Carlisle-based logistics group, have extended their five-days-a-week freight service operated on behalf of supermarket Tesco.

The service from Daventry, West Midlands, to Grangemouth near Glasgow will include Saturdays, and a second route between Grangemouth and Inverness is planned to start later in the year.

Transferring goods from road to rail for the additional day will save more than 2.4 million litres of fuel a year, and extension of the service to Inverness six days a week will remove 5.3 million tonnes of freight and more than 13,000 lorry journeys from the busy A9 road every year for the next five years.

The DRS and Eddie Stobart partnership for Tesco has been a success story since its launch in 2006 and won the Freight Achievement of the Year award at last year’s National Rail Awards.    

The 14 wagons hauled by a DRS Class 66 locomotive convey 28 specially designed curtain-sided containers and leave Daventry at 05.10 each Saturday to arrive at Grange-mouth at 13.55. From there, the supermarket goods are delivered by road to Tesco’s new one million square foot Livingstone distribution centre during the weekend.

The new extended service will transfer goods from Livingstone to a train of 20 new 45 ft containers at Grangemouth for the journey to Inverness, from where they will be taken by road to Tesco stores around Inverness, Aviemore, Wick, Dingwall, Elgin and Forres.

The Scottish Government has awarded a £525,000 Freight Facilities Grant to Eddie Stobart towards the cost of 70 intermodal containers, along with Rail Environmental Benefits Procurement Scheme funding of up to £457,600 to provide revenue support for transport of inter-modal containers by rail rather than road.

Stobart chief executive Andrew Tinkler said: “Our successful rail freight service gives our customers cost savings and reduces harm to the environment.

“We are pleased with the Scottish Government support and are committed to helping Tesco reduce its carbon footprint.”

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