Portsmouth Commercial Port has launched its intermodal service, with trains operating daily from Fratton, Hants, transporting bananas and citrus to Wakefield and Manchester.
Jerry Clarke, pilot and project manager at the port, has worked on the initiative for 11 years to bring it to fruition. He said: “There is the potential to take at least half of all the fruit that comes into Portsmouth by rail. For everything that is destined north of Birmingham, it is competitive. South of that and it is too close.”
The service runs into Trafford Park on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays to Wakefield. It also runs to Scotland. Portsmouth handles 75 per cent of the banana trade into the UK and the entire Moroccan citrus job.
Clarke said: “We are getting more and more people wishing to take freight by rail, such as Tesco, for example. Our intermodal service has come at the right time.”
He forecasts that transporting goods by rail will cut the amount of roadfreight travelling in Portsmouth by an estimated 6,000 units a year within five years.
The development of the Fratton site cost €861,000 (£763,000) and was supported by the South East England Development Agency.
The intermodal service costs £500 per TEU.
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