A new three-year deal has been signed between Direct Rail Services (DRS) and supermarket giant Tesco to continue their established supply partnership, and to expand its rail operations across the country.

DRS is operated by Nuclear Transport Solutions, which is the rail division of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority rail division.

Under the deal DRS will run services from:

• Daventry to Mossend;
• Mossend to Teesport;
• Daventry to Tilbury x 2;
• Tilbury to Coatbridge;
• Daventry to Wentloog;
• Daventry to Teesport via Doncaster;
• Mossend to Inverness.

Chris Connelly, NTS Deputy CEO and Rail Director, said: “This is fantastic news and is a testament to the long-standing relationship we have with Tesco, built over the last 10 years, and the excellent service we provide for our customers.

“The environmental and socioeconomic benefits of using rail are well proven and we are thrilled to be working with Tesco for at least another three years.

“We’ll be maximising the use of our state-of-the-art Class 88 locomotives to move up to 76 HGVs worth of goods hundreds of miles and, when running on overhead electricity, with zero exhaust emissions.

“Recently, we launched Tesco’s first refrigerated rail freight service, using the Class 88 locomotives, taking at least 17,000 containers off the road each year, saving 7.3 million road miles and nearly 9,000 tonnes of CO2e.

“We’ve also been working with Tesco to trial diesel fuel alternatives which eliminate up to 90 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions (CO2e), opening up 62 per cent of the rail network, which doesn’t benefit from overhead electricity, to extremely low CO2 rail freight.

“Every month we transport around 12,000 containers travelling thousands of miles safely, securely and reliably to ensure shelves are stocked all year round across Great Britain and I can’t wait to see what the next few years will bring.”

David Peattie, NDA CEO, said: “This is wonderful news for Direct Rail Services, as part of Nuclear Transport Solutions and the commercial activities of the NDA group. The new partnership, to offer rail operations for Tesco, is testament to the world-leading expertise of our transport subsidiary NTS. It also affirms the NDA group’s commitment to supporting our carbon net-zero ambitions.”