Charterail Information Request

[Geezah1984]

Hi guys,

I am not sure if this is in the correct section or not. I am looking for information about Charterail, a Bi-Modal service run between 1990 and 1992 from Melton Mowbray. I have seen some pictures on flickr (linked below) and I want to know if anyone has any informaiton, such as what did it carry? How were wagons loaded? Which route did it use? etc etc. Also, if anyone has any more pictures, that would be great.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/irishswissernie/6815308198/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/irishswissernie/6961426341/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/irishswissernie/6961425637/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/50619197@N07/5384559811/

Regards

Andrew

 

[High Dyke]

Charterrail was established (1990) to serve potential customers post Speedlink using piggyback wagons from Tiphook. It was set up by Pedigree Petfoods as a bi-modal distribution service. The Transport Director involved was Robin Gisby, now at Network Rail.

I can't be fully certain about workings though at some point there were two trains a day, one to London and the other to Trafford Park. The trailer units were tripped across from the factory, beyond the main road bridge - even though the siding did also extend into the factory, by lorry for loading onto the wagons. The sidings do still exist though partly built upon with the Borough Council offices; you can also see the link into the factory.

The company went into liquidation in 1992, claiming high locomotive haulage rates made the enterprise unsustainable, but also because potential customers were unsure about taking the plunge into intermodal transport at the time. All the more so, as Charter Rail were keen on using Roadrailer units, prototypes of which lay around Toton for some time in the early 1990s. These were rather more sophisticated vehicles than those tried in the 60s (and the subject of an Airfix kit), with full buffing gear and four wheel bogies to carry the trailers. They would therefore have been able to run in formation with other vehicles, unlike the 60s version.

 

[daccer]

The London destination was Cricklewood. The wagons were unloaded inside the old locomotive depot which was taken over for the purpose. Both of the trains were booked for class 47 haulage.

One other slightly disgusting fact about Pedigree at Melton is that they used to receive wagonloads of offal from Europe which came in via the train ferry and then were tripped from Toton to Leciester and onwards to Melton. Even though the wagons were refrigerated they weren't the most popular of traffic!