i believe the stobart group have signed a contract. with a german firm.to transport perishable goods by rail .to the u.k.from europe.?so cutting down on road transport.stobarts want to cut their carbon footprint.so nothing to do with profit then.?:rolleyes:

The next major step from Stobart, which is developing sea, air and rail freight business alongside trucking, is a chilled rail service from Spain to the UK further reducing the number of lorries on the road.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standa...oad/article.do

Sounds promising!

The Stobart train left Dagenham last Friday (23rd Oct) carrying empty pallets and trays and was scheduled to arrive in Valencia on Sunday evening.

The train is scheduled to leave Valencia on Tuesday on a two-day trip to the company's railhead in Dagenham, east London. It will carry 30 refrigerated containers crammed with tomatoes, lemons, oranges and other fruit and vegetables.

Thank-you for that - I look forward to hearing of progress on this.
I know that 'we' are primarily interested in Trucks (and Buses), but, though I've spent my working life in the road transport industry I've always held the belief that rail should be an integrated part of the distribution network.
Over the years I've followed the abortive attempts to establish Roadrailers:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadrailer and also attempts to carry semitrailers on railcars - but the restricted 'gauge' (clearance height) of the UK rail system proved to be a stumbling point I believe.

As an aside I find the 'video' (actually time-lapse stills) on:-
http://www.stobartrail.co.uk/ interesting to watch.

There's also a video on the opening page of:- http://www.stobartgroup.co.uk/ though I haven't found any reference to the Valencia train. I presume that all the refrigerated containers are self-contained but do they draw the power needed from the train electrics rather than having 'donkey' engines? I wouldn't expect Eurotunnel to permit the use of donkey engines.

What happens when 'fridge trucks (reefer road trailers) travel through the tunnel? Do they get to plug-in to on-board electric?

http://www.freshproduce.org.uk/blog/?p=16
http://www.roadtransport.com/Article...d-link-up.html
http://www.stobartgroup.co.uk/NewsCe...encia-Service/
http://www.worldcargonews.com/htm/w20090807.434251.htm

Interesting time-lapse video G-CPTN

Quote

A crucial element was obtaining pledges from both the French and Spanish rail networks that the train – which will be carrying perishable goods – will not suffer major delays.
"We can't have it being shunted into a siding and then forgotten about," said Stobart. "Getting promises that this won't happen has been vital in setting up this operation."

“There has been a real change of attitude from the companies we deal with in recent months, suddenly they all want to know if they can have their goods carried in an environmentally sensitive way and, in particular, if they can have them moved by train."

It would be interesting to learn of how the train will negotiate the Channel Crossing.

I don't suppose that you can just turn up and pay a toll to drive through the tunnel.

The train seems to have arrived ok –

The 60-hour, 1,100-mile journey, in conjunction with fellow road and rail operator DB Schenker arrived at the Ford Dagenham railhead with 30 containers - the equivalent to 30 truckloads.

The long-term plan is to move the trains' destination to Widnes, where the Stobart Group has built a new cold store.

http://www.transportintelligence.com...om-spain/5636/

Thanks for the update.