This week a third route has been confirmed for iPort Rail – a new service to Teesport by PD Ports with GB Railfreight for its customer Containerships, who is in turn providing a service for Ikea.

The service carries 56 boxes per day in two trips, outward journey from iPort Rail – Darlington – Teesport and returning from Teesport – Yarm – iPort Rail. Following a four-week trial in the spring, the route has now been confirmed.

The new service will remove 120 daily road movements from the UK road network – each a journey of 90 miles each way for a single HGV.

Steve Freeman, Managing Director of iPort Rail said: “This is the third commercial service we have launched in under a year, underscoring both the huge success iPort Rail has seen already and the growing demand for our services.

“With this new Teesport route in addition to Southampton and Felixstowe, and new partnership with PD Ports, we are excited about the possibilities this brings to our customers and businesses across the North of England and Midlands.”

IKEA Transport & Logistics Services has high expectations of the supply chain’s performance. “To us delivery accuracy is of key importance,” said Elisabeth Munck af Rosenschöld, Head of Sustainability, IKEA Transport & Logistics Services.

“At the same time, we have a very ambitious decarbonising agenda and actively seek to reduce our environmental impact wherever possible. To shift from trucks to trains is one way of reducing the number of shipments and fuel used per shipment.”

iPort Rail already operates daily services every weekday to Southampton from late last year and, more recently, to Felixstowe. The news of the new service comes at the end of a successful week for the team at Multimodal 2019, where Steve Freeman and Commercial Director David Cross delivered a talk at the Rail Freight Group Summer Meeting about the challenges and opportunities of inland ports.