The first freight train of thirty refrigerated containers, composed entirely of thirty refrigerated containers, was launched during the night of October 29th.
Organised by major international transport operator, Stobart Group, the train carried fruit and vegetables from Valencia in Spain to Dagenham in the UK.
The new service will initially run once a week. Stobart Rail plans to increase the frequency to five trains per week by end-2010.
According to the Rail Freight Group (RFG), operating such trains involves transferring the containers from a Spanish to a standard gauge train at the Franco-Spanish frontier at Port Bou, and continuous monitoring of the environment inside each box.
This new service from Spain is the second temperature-controlled service through the Channel Tunnel. Norfolk Line and Freight Europe have been running regular temperature controlled services from Italy to the UK since July 2009, using four train operators - Crossrail (Italy and Switzerland), SNCF (France), Europorte 2 (Channel Tunnel) and Colas Rail (UK).
RFG chairman Tony Berkeley commented: "These new services demonstrate that rail freight can operate competitively and reliably across long distances."
