Network Rail today thanked passengers for their patience during the construction of a new link into a Northampton logistics park.

Engineers have been at work for the last nine days and nights to construct the railway line into the SEGRO logistics park, thus linking the West Coast Main Line (WCML) to the new facility. This has meant that a number of passenger journeys have been disrupted as new track, points and signalling have been installed, connecting the existing lines to new sidings at the logistics park.

When it is completed next year, SEGRO will employ 7,000 people across 5m square feet of warehouse space located beside Junction 15 of the M1. Freight trains, operated by the freight company Maritime, will be able to travel from the WCML, one of the busiest mixed-use passenger and freight lines in Europe. The line links London Euston with Glasgow Central, and serving several major cities, including Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester.  In all, 40% of UK rail freight travels on the line.

Once the new facility opens next year, four daily freight trains will serve the rail-road interchange allowing thousands of tonnes of goods to switch modes of transport. There is also capacity to add additional services in the future.  Each train will take as many as 76 heavy goods vehicles off the road, underlining the green credentials of transporting goods around the country by rail.

James Dean, Network Rail’s West Coast South route director, said: “Connecting this new freight interchange to the mainline railway network is a huge milestone and shows our commitment to working with freight operators to moving more goods in the most environmentally friendly way possible – by rail.  We know this work has meant longer journeys for passengers over the last nine days, so I’d like to thank everyone impacted for bearing with us while we carried out this important work which will benefit both the environment and the economy in future.”

Jonny Wiseman, London Northwestern Railway customer experience director, said: “I would like to thank passengers for their patience while these important engineering works were completed. Services on the West Coast main line are now running to our normal timetable.”

Barry Milsom, Avanti West Coast executive director of operations and safety, said: “We would like to thank customers for their patience over the last nine days while Network Rail carried out this important work, which will boost sustainable transport opportunities for freight on the West Coast Main Line.”

John Williams, Maritime executive chairman, said: “These developments, at SEGRO Logistics Park Northampton are important, long-term commitments for Maritime to reduce our environmental footprint by developing a network of low carbon, strategic freight connections across the country to promote modal shift from road to rail for container transport and for domestic distribution, with local distribution by electric-powered trucks.

“Building and operating modern, inland rail freight interchanges, supported by the largest dedicated fleet of vehicles in the country, enables us to deliver terminal to terminal rail solutions and highly efficient rail to door and door to rail services for our customers who are looking for long term, supply chain protection and sustainable transport solutions.”