DB Cargo UK has been named as Business of the Year at the annual Rail Freight Group Awards, with the judges particularly impressed in its depth and breadth of its innovation and customer service.
The company also won the Rail Freight Project of the Year for its new service running trains through the Channel Tunnel for Toyota. This project has brought a new traffic flow to rail, reducing the customer’s carbon emissions by 8,000 tonnes a year and cutting a five day road journey to just 25 hours by train.
DB Cargo UK invested £2.5 million in a new vehicle storage compound and Groupe Cat invested £3 million in a specialist wagon fleet.
The judges said the new service from northern France to the East Midlands for Toyota “proved a concept that could have significant positive impact on the automotive logistics industry as a whole”.
DRS and Tesco, the winners of the Driving Rail Freight Growth award, also brought new traffic to rail. The judges called the launch of Tesco’s first refrigerated rail service, operated by DRS as a trail-blazer, saying that “reliably moving chilled produce in large quantities is a step change for rail”. More than 17,000 containers a year have been moved off the roads. This service will help drive the whole chilled food market to increase its use of rail freight, and the significance of this should not be underestimated, the judges said.
The Sustainability and Safety award was won by Freightliner for its Shortliner wagon which gives customers full flexibility by providing a combination of 40ft and 20ft wagons, while the Innovation and Talent Award was won by VTG Rail for its VTG Connect system which the judges said was “light years ahead of other software projects”.
A special Humanitarian Award was given to the many companies, both RFG members and others, which collaborated to collect vital supplies for Ukraine and run a train to the country to deliver them.
The awards were sponsored by Burges Salmon and GB Railfreight. A raffle for Railway Benefit Fund raised £2,400.
The full list of awards:
Business of the Year
Winner: DB Cargo UK
Rail Freight Project of the Year
Winner: DB Cargo UK
Runner Up: DC Rail
Driving Rail Freight Growth
Winner: DRS and Tesco
Runner Up: Colas Rail and DC Rail
Sustainability and Safety
Winner: Freightliner
Runner Up: Cemex
Innovation & Talent
Winner: VTG Rail
Runner Up: DB Cargo UK
Outstanding Individual Contribution
Winner: Bessie Matthews, Freightliner
Runner Up: Jamie Versey, GB Railfreight
Special Recognition award: Brian George, Colas Rail
Young Rail Freight Professional
Winner: Ed Roe, Maritime Transport
Runner Up: Adrian Salatowski, CWE
Runner Up: Praveen Amarasinghe, Network Rail
Special Humanitarian Award
DB Cargo and partners.
Photo credit: Rail Freight Group
