Rail Freight Specialists Extend European Cargo Reach

EUROPE – Europorte, the freight operating arm of Eurotunnel, has joined in partnership with Italian rail specialist Trenitalia Cargo to further extend rail freight links between Italy and France. Europorte acquired the assets of Veolia Cargo in 2009 and bought out the interests of FirstGroup in GB Railfreight last year. The group offers rail freight transport including a range of traction options and infrastructure services and this month is commencing a program to fit all its trains with an intelligent location-based GPS system to improve traffic efficiency.

Earlier this year the group announced the commencement of a Channel tunnel intermodal link between Daventry and Novara through its GB Railfreight subsidiary. Now the new agreement with Trenitalia will see Europorte loading grain from around 30 silos in Burgundy, providing transportation to the South East of France on behalf of the logistics operator, TMF. The service will connect with Trenitalia at Amberieu (Ain), travelling to Modane, before serving several Italian destinations.

This link will be rolled-out on the basis of five return freight loads per week, representing a total tonnage of 450,000 tonnes per annum, and will make it possible to eliminate around 30,000 lorry trips every year.