BRITISH freight forwarder Davies Turner has announced changes to its fixed-day, weekly rail import service for less-than-container-load cargoes from China.
This follows operational changes in the product.
Since the start of the service two years ago, multi country consolidation containers have been carried by rail from Wuhan across mainland China, Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus and into Warsaw in Poland.
On arrival, consignments bound for UK were trans-shipped to a local bonded warehouse, then trucked via Dover port to Davies Turner’s Dartford hub for customs clearance.
Following a recent restructuring, containers are to go by rail from Wuhan direct to Duisburg in Germany, before being trucked under bond to Rotterdam and transported by ferry to Purfleet, near Dartford for on-carriage by truck to Davies Turner’s distribution centre, where they are to be discharged, customs cleared and delivered.
Head of supply chain for Davies Turner, Tony Cole, said this new more direct method of moving the container from Wuhan to the UK would remove the need to unload the container in Poland, then reload into a trailer.
Mr Cole said this would allow for “a lower rate to the market, and reduce the possibility of delays, as well as strengthening security”.
Davies Turner chairman Philip Stephenson said they were “one of the early adopters of the opportunity to ship via rail from China to the UK”.
“It has proved to be a practical way of offering an alternative with clear advantages over the ocean freight and air cargo options in terms of cost and transit times,” Mr Turner said.
“I believe that the recent restructuring of our services leaves us as the only UK freight forwarder with a truly direct overland LCL and FCL option from Wuhan to the UK, with no trans-shipment of cargo en route.”
