BP has introduced a new oil tanker train service from Grangemouth to Fort Willia ...

BP has introduced a new oil tanker train service from Grangemouth to Fort William. The service - managed by rail freight operator EWS, running two trains a week over the next year - will take 11,000 tonnes of fuel from BP’s refinery on the Firth of Forth to an oil distribution depot on the west coast. The transfer from road to rail will save 400 lorry trips across the Scottish Highlands annually, states the company, the equivalent of more than 93,000 lorry transit miles. Additional road-to-rail transfers are planned. Oil trains from Grangemouth to Lairg are to be introduced in November, with services to Dumfries and Kilmarnock following in April 2002. Finally, Grangemouth-manufactured aviation fuel will be despatched by rail to a brand new depot at Aberdeen Airport, due to be completed by the end of 2002. BP’s renewed commitment to rail has been made possible following a £10mn Freight Facilities Grant from the Scottish Executive. The grant covers upgrading of the Grangemouth refinery’s train loading gantries and upgrading at the Fort William, Lairg, Dumfries and Kilmarnock depots plus construction of the new airport depot. Also covered by the grant are improvements to BP’s railcar fleet, including the fitting of self-sealing valve couplings to eliminate the risk of spillage whilst offloading. When all the new services are in place, more than 112,000 t/y of oil products will have transferred from roads to rail, reports BP. This will remove more than 3,000 lorry movements a year from Scotland’s lorry transit roads.