Cumbria, UK 8th April, 2015. Uk Weather. 'Tesco Train' Tesco Plc is leading a trend among supermarkets to stock food stores using container trains, transforming a rail-freight market once dominated by bulk flows of coal, steel and chemicals. Tesco, Britain’s biggest retailer, is being followed by Marks & Spencer Group Plc and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s Asda in the drive to cut transport costs and improve delivery times by switching more of its logistics chain away from crowded roads.
Tesco Plc is leading a trend among supermarkets to stock stores using container trains, transforming a rail-freight market once dominated by bulk flows of coal, steel and chemicals. Tesco, Britain’s biggest retailer, is being followed by Marks & Spencer Group Plc and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s Asda in the drive to cut transport costs and improve delivery times by switching more of its logistics chain away from crowded roads. Containers became the biggest part of Britain’s 1 billion-pound ($ billion) rail-cargo industry for the first time in 2011 with a 27 percent share, government data shows. Non-food companies including No. 1 home-improvement chain B&Q are also being lured by rail’s improved reliability and flexibility. “Logistics markets are being increasingly impacted by road transport costs and disruption in deliveries,” said Andrew Griffiths, chief at Prologis Inc., which runs Britain’s biggest road-rail interchange at Daventry, central England, serving Tesco and J Sainsbury Plc, among others. “Add in the green agenda and rail becomes more and more attractive.” Containers have become the fastest-growing flow on British tracks, with traffic expanding percent a year since 2003, said Carsten Hinne, logistics director at Deutsche Bahn AG’s DB Schenker Rail Ltd., Britain’s top rail-freight operator. Shops have doubled their use of rail in five years, said John Holwell, development manager at Malcolm Group Plc, which books trains for Tesco, Asda and the Argos household goods arm of Home Retail Group Plc that are run by Direct Rail Services. Road to Rail DRS, which moved into cargo after being set up to carry atomic waste, is the fourth-biggest rail-freight company after Schenker, Freightliner Group Ltd. and the GB Railfreight unit of Channel Tunnel operator Groupe Eurotunnel SA. Rail’s attractiveness to retailers has been enhanced as it competes head-to-head with road transport in terms of service levels,
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