Customer endorsements for rail freight 2006

Customer quotes at a European rail freight seminar 23rd February 2006

Attributable to RFG

Alistair Monague of Maersk commended the UK industry for achieving 98 per cent on-time arrival at destination rail terminal. He noted that rail was cheaper than road to many terminals and demonstrated customer satisfaction. Maersk has trebled its rail volumes in three years and with the volume increases the unit cost paid by Maersk has dropped by four per cent.

Extract from Rail Business Intelligence 9th March on same speech from Mr Monague of Maersk

Maersk stated that road hauliers raised their rates by 15 per cent over the same 3 year period…. But reliability is even more important for the shipping line. Out of 80,000 jobs (a box round trip in the UK) delays attributable to rail in 2005 were 882 wheras road delays amounted to 3336. “With road we have three, four or five times more problems, that is why we do it by rail,” Montague explained.

Attributable to RFG

Jim Clark MD of Malcolm Logistics Services spoke about his company’s business on road and rail transport and logistics at the conference. Malcolm trains have risen from four trains a week in 2001 to 46 trains a week in Spring 2005, now comprising 11 Anglo-Scottish trains a week in each direction, eight-hour overnight transit and 24 weekly Scottish internal trains. Malcolm Group plans to increase the number of weekly trains to 85.