Barnard's five-year Dian
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• Suffolk haulier Taylor Barnard has won a five-year/5m contract with Charterail to carry freight from its London railhead throughout the South-East.
Taylor Barnard, based in Mendlesham, has worked with Charterail since British Rail launched the service less than a year ago.
Charterail freight from the North and Midlands will arrive at its Cricklewood railhead, where four Taylor Barnard operations staff and 18 of its drivers are based. Tiphook Piggyback trailers will be transferred from trains to Taylor Barnard artics for despatch.
To service the contract Taylor Barnard has bought 12 Volvo FlOs at a cost of £500,000. It plans to be moving 60 loads a day by next year, with the 38tonne artics running at the 16.5m limit with room for 26 pallets. "It's real state-of-the-art stuff," says Taylor Barnard contracts manager Chris Seymour.
Most of the loads carried are for food and beverage clients, described by Seymour as "major blue-chip grocery companies".
Charterail managing director Robin Gisby says he awarded Taylor Barnard the contract because it is "used to the discipline of dealing with big retailers and it is a professional operation which has not let us down".
O The Freight Transport Association reports a disappointing response to its attempt to set up a clearing house for rail freight (CM 6-12 June).
"We got more offers from people with spare capacity on trains than from people wanting to use them," says the association's distribution co-ordinator David Mitchell.
He blames the lack of interest on ex-Speedlink customers finding other means of transporting their goods. However, Mitchell says the initiative is not a ``dead duck" and the FTA is considering the potential for electronic load matching.