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Freightliner
– improving productivity, efficiency and reducing cost and emissions.”
As our conversation focuses primarily on Freightliner’ s 60th anniversary, we’ re keen to hear about the celebrations in place to mark such an impressive milestone.“ We’ ve painted several locomotives with celebratory liveries that pay homage to our history,” Michael says.“ We also had a competition where staff submitted ideas of a name for a celebratory locomotive and we held a gathering at our depot in Crewe to announce the winner- one of our drivers, who named the locomotive‘ The Spirit of 65’ to reflect the year we were established.”
Speaking with Michael gives us a clear indication of Freightliner’ s priorities – service, innovation, and sustainability. With expertise spanning six decades, the company is a leading force in the UK’ s rail freight network and continues to advocate for further improvement, whether in terms of sustainability or accessibility.
Commenting on these issues, Michael explains:“ Rail freight operators rely on what I’ d call regulatory support, especially when we consider that our competition, road haulage, is less regulated. Of course, road hauliers must have licenses, but their access to the road network is generally more flexible whereas rail is a regulated, pay-as-you-go charged service, as we pay track access charges at a variable rate per ton and per mile. We have been subject to real terms and inflationary annual increases in access charges, while road hauliers have benefited from a 14 year + freeze in fuel duty. The UK Government have supported us in recent years and, recognizing the environmental and economic benefits of moving freight by rail, have an ambitious rail freight growth target – at least 75 percent growth in volumes moved by rail by 2050. We’ ve done some great work with Network Rail and the Department for Transport around discounted access to drive this. We have recently
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