At the 24th UK Rail Business Awards ceremony held at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London on Wednesday, 23rd February, DB Cargo UK and Associated British Ports (ABP) were named winners of the ‘Rail Freight & Logistics Excellence Award’.

The award follows a successful collaboration between the two parties on a project at the Port of Southampton in support of the global automotive giant, BMW MINI.

In January 2020, BMW MINI planned to increase volumes of cars from its Oxford production plant to Southampton’s Eastern Docks because of a change in customer demand and international shipping services. This increase in traffic would cause likely some logistical issues at the Eastern Docks because of capacity constraints. If the site could not accommodate the extra volume, BMW MINI would have no option but to transport their vehicles by road instead of rail.

To overcome the problem, DB Cargo UK’s Sales and Production teams worked with ABP to find a solution. They looked at the feasibility of re-establishing an automotive railhead at the port’s Western Docks, which was closer to the ships used to transport the vehicles.

ABP made the necessary upgrades to the site, including installing temporary power generators, better lighting, and creating a new raised platform to enable the safe loading and unloading of vehicles from the wagons.

DB Cargo UK’s Service Design and Planning Team worked with Network Rail to identify new paths into the Western Docks, and on 19th January 2021, the first full service ran from Oxford to Southampton’s Western Docks comprising eight, fully loaded WIA wagons carrying 220 Minis. The service continues to operate today with up to five round trips per week.

Adam Baines, DB Cargo UK’s Head of Logistics Sales, said: “It’s fantastic to see the hard work put into creating this solution for BMW MINI celebrated at such a high-profile industry awards ceremony. Freight belongs on rail and we are extremely proud that by working together with ABP, we successfully demonstrated to BMW MINI that we can adapt our rail services to cope with increased demand and continue to deliver a cost-effective solution with minimum disruption to their supply chain.

He added: “This ultimately persuaded them not to switch from rail to road!”