RAIL freight operator EWS has worked with PD Ports, operator of Teesport’s deep water port, to introduce a new ‘high cube’ capacity container train service between north east England and central Scotland.

The daily service connects Teesport Northern Gateway Terminal to Mossend and Grangemouth in Scotland, conveying deeper, high cube containers of up to 45 feet in length. It is set to slash road transport costs as well as CO2 emissions.

Group development director for PD Ports Martyn Pellew welcomed the new service as good news for customers, but sees it very much as an interim measure.

“Our new service is only the first phase of what we hope to achieve,” he said. “There is severe speed limitation through several bottlenecks and we need full gauge enhancement for the Teesside Spur, as well as the East Coast main line itself through Newcastle and to Yorkshire and the Midlands, to achieve the full potential of our terminal.”

Meanwhile, a new twice-weekly intermodal container train being run by EWS is transferring thousands of lorry movements to rail.

The new service is being run in co-operation with Welsh freight forwarders FSEW between the Port of Tilbury and Cardiff.

David Cross, sales and marketing manager for EWS’s intermodal freight business, said: “Our service was introduced last June in response to high demand, and is now firmly established. We see this train as the first of many we will run to Cardiff.”

Plans are now being developed by EWS and FSEW to introduce a range of additional container trains to serve the Welsh capital.

And in a third new contract, a daily Tuesday to Saturday intermodal service will run from the Port of Felixstowe to Birmingham Intermodal Freight Terminal at Birch Coppice Business Park, near Tamworth.

The service has been set up in direct response to customer demand, and the train is able to convey containers up to 40 feet long.