John G Russell hopes to increase its rail freight customer base after introducing a rail service to France and Spain last year.

The operator, part of the Russell Group which also comprises Carntyne Transport, is also developing its own a rail freight terminal in the Midlands, which director Ken Russell said will give it more “control over our own destiny” when it opens in the summer. The company currently operates freight trains out of the Dirft terminal, near Northampton.

The European service, which currently runs from the company’s terminal in Barking with one in Dourges, near Lille in France, is also “going well” and operating efficiently, added Russell.

The Dourges terminal is operated by Novatrans in France and, with links to Spain, allows Russell offer its customers deliveries much further afield. It is also considering expanding the service to eastern Europe.

“Physically its going very well, but we’ve just go the build the customer volume up now,” he told Motortransport.co.uk at the Multimodal show last week. “We started on 3 November doing three trains a week, ran that for about six weeks, and then stepped up to five trains.”

The Russell Group has also invested heavily in longer semi-trailers with 25 currently on the road. It has had its allocation increased and now has 10 to 15 more trailers being built by SDC, including skeletal trailers. The company also plans to develop 50ft containers to improve efficiency.

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