Direct Rail Services has a new aggregates flow, for its new rolling stock, over a distance that’s not often viable for rail freight. Moving loads within just one county, start to finish, is something of a rarity on the UK network. However, topography and infrastructure have conspired in favour of rail.
The English Lake District is full of, well, lakes. It’s also full of mountains, and those mountains are a useful source of high-quality aggregates. From one highly elevated source to a coastal destination, rail is providing the ideal mode for transferring those building materials to a new project.
Rail ideal for movement
Nuclear Transport Solutions’ rail division, Direct Rail Services (DRS) has begun moving over 46,000 tonnes of aggregate for a project they describe as vital to the safe and secure disposal of nuclear waste. DRS will operate two trains a day, four days a week, to Nuclear Waste Services’ (NWS) Low Level Waste (LLW) Repository site, on the Cumbrian coast at Drigg.
For rolling stock, this marks the first time DRS has used its British-built JNA-Z designated box wagons, with each train delivering over 750 tonnes of material. The project runs for three years. “Rail is the obvious choice for bulk movements like these, said Gottfried Eymer, NTS Rail Managing Director. “This is the first of many movements for our box wagons, and I look forward to seeing them running across the country.”
Indirect route
Direct Rail Services, based out of Carlisle in Cumbria, was formed to transport nuclear materials (the so-called ‘flask trains’) around the UK. It has since grown to be a general rail freight operator, most celebrated for intermodal services for supermarket chain Tesco, While the southern end of the West Coast Main Line may be the busiest mixed-traffic route in Europe, it’s not quite so busy further north. There is still enough spare capacity to entertain additional traffic, including these bulk aggregates workings.
Shap Quarry, currently operated by Heidelberg Materials, is a familiar sight to anyone gazing west as their train crests the Shap Summit. The aggregates working is a relatively short but indirect run of about eighty miles (128km). The Lake District mountains preclude a straight line – and, as the regional name suggests, there are some lakes in the way.
Top secret destination revealed
Under leaden skies, the first train ran on Friday, 31 January – captured in video by Sam Dixon of DRS. The brand new rake of ten JNA-Z designated bogie open wagons, built by WH Davis and leased from VTG, match the striking blue livery of the DRS class 68 diesel locomotive. The ’68 is part of a short run of 34 units, all delivered to DRS between 2014 and 2017. The wagons share a common design, in use across the British network.
The destination is Drigg, a village on the scenic Cumbrian Coastal Line. The operator has leaked that it’s also on the edge of Britain’s super secret nuclear fuel reprocessing plant at Sellafield. Extensive research, by RailFreight.com undercover investigators, revealed that the trains are visible from the platforms of a discrete station on the Cumbrian Coast Line – which is disguised under the codename: “Sellafield”.