Direct Rail Services has been recognised for its innovative work with Tesco‘s refrigerated rail service

Showcasing accomplishments within the rail freight sector and the many benefits it provides for the UK, the distinguished Rail Freight Group awards took place earlier in September.

Direct Rail Services has seen its work with Tesco win the ‘driving rail freight growth’ category for its establishment of a refrigerated rail service. The launch of the cutting-edge services for the supermarket saw the judges describe Direct Rail Services as a ‘trail blazer’ going on to say “reliably moving chilled produce in large quantities is a step change for rail”. The impressive facility will go on to drive the entire chilled food market to use rail freight with judges saying that its significance should not be underestimated. 

Direct Rail Services refrigerated rail freight service for Tesco is the supermarket’s first and sees chilled foods distributed from Tilburt to Coatbridge using environmentally friendly low CO2 rail transport twice daily, every day of the week. 

The rail operator uses Class 88 bi-mode electric locomotives to operate the 415-mile route, the state-of-the-art locomotives run on electricity and create zero exhaust and greenhouse gas emissions. The Tesco refrigerated rail service will see a minimum of 17,000 containers removed from the road every year which saves the supermarket 7.3 million road miles and almost 9,000 tonnes of CO2e.

Discussing the rail operator’s award success Seth Kybird, Nuclear Transport Solutions CEO, said:

“I’m thrilled this innovative service has been recognised throughout the industry with this award win and it demonstrates what rail freight can do when we work in partnership with our customers.

“It’s also an example of how rail can play an integral part in the race to net zero. Each train will remove around 40 lorries from Britain’s roads and we’re running two trains a day, seven days a week, saving 9,000 tonnes of CO2e a year.”