Maritime Transport will run new East Midlands rail freight terminal

The announcement comes hard on the heels of the news of the strategic tie-up between Maritime and DB Cargo.

Maritime will also base its rail HQ at East Midlands Gateway, occupying a purpose-built 20,000 ft2 office building.

East Midlands Gateway is a key piece of UK infrastructure and has planning consent for 6M ft2 of logistics space. The rail freight terminal will be operational from Autumn 2019.

The 22.5 acre rail terminal will be capable of handling up 16 full length (775m) freight trains daily and will provide one-time storage capacity for over 5,000 TEU, equivalent to 55,000 pallets of cargo. The new rail HQ office should be ready by summer 2020.

A purpose built 20,000 sq ft office will become the Rail Headquarters under the “Maritime Intermodal” division and will house operations staff, state-of-the-art training facilities and parking for a fleet of up to 100 trucks. Completion of the rail freight terminal is expected in late 2019 and the office element in Summer 2020.

This is the first rail freight interchange in the East Midlands and will connect to the Castle Donnington freight line, providing direct access to the UK’s network of rail freight terminals and all major UK Ports.

Andrew Pilsworth, SEGRO Business Unit Director National Logistics, said: “We are thrilled to have signed Maritime Transport as the rail freight operator at SEGRO Logistics Park East Midlands Gateway and to be the home for their Rail HQ operations.

“Strategic rail freight interchanges are recognised by the government as being nationally important, both economically and environmentally. The demand we are witnessing for the efficient movement of goods - driven by customer demand and technology - shows no sign of abating and SLP-EMG is a key piece of infrastructure in meeting this need.”

Simon Smart, CEO, Maritime Transport, said: “This is a very exciting deal for us and we’re looking forward to launching SLP-EMG site as our flagship rail depot. Our intention is to use our logistics expertise within the intermodal sector to attract a significant number of new rail services to the terminal by offering a cost effective, highly reliable and environmentally efficient intermodal product.”

The site is located in the near centre of England with Nottingham 13 miles to the northeast, Leicester 20 miles to the south and Derby 14 miles to the northwest.