Scots will spend 1100m to encourage rail freight
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• More than .£100m is to be spent by the Scottish executive in a bid to encourage a greater use of rail freight in central Scotland.
The pledge comes amid fears that congestion along the M8 corridor and other vital Scottish roads is reaching saturation point.
Scottish Transport Minister Sarah Boyak announced the funding last week when opening The Malcolm Group's new rail-freight terminal at Grangemouth.
The terminal will connect the Grangemouth depot with its new £14m rail-freight facility at Crick, near Rugby.
The terminal is expected to remove 200 loads a week from the roads—equivalent to about 7,000 trucks a year. But the government wants to remove an additional five million truck miles from Scotland's roads.
Currently only 10-11% of the 150 million tonnes of freight moved each year in Scotland goes by rail—the government wants this proportion to increase to 18% over the next 10 years.
Andrew Malcolm, chief executive of The Malcolm Group, says that the Grangemouth terminal is a major step in the company's plans to move freight by rail rather than road.