VTG and Hope were awarded the trophy for their joint entry to the Environment category at the 2016 Global Freight Awards, which were held at the Royal Lancaster Hotel on Thursday, 3 November 2016.
Designed to carry more product in fewer trains the JPAs are also lighter, faster and have better braking than their steel predecessors.
They are also significantly quieter thanks to the VTG-specified track friendly LN25 bogies.
The LN25 makes half the noise of older alternatives and as a consequence attracts lower track access charges. It also benefits from needing longer periods of time between services.
The work put in by the two companies to create the wagons has reaped rewards. In the first year the new JPAs achieved their goal of being able to carry more cement in fewer trains thereby reducing their impact on the environment.
In that first year there was a reduction of almost 20 per cent in trains deployed, falling from 768 in 2015 to 627 in 2016.
The wagons are already changing the economics of the movement of cement by rail and are improving Hope’s ability to consistently transport by rail over a million tonnes of cement a year.
Moving this amount of cement ensures Hope keeps over 33,000 truckloads from local roads during the same period – that’s roughly 90 lorries every day of the year.
The tailor-made wagons represent an initial investment of almost £8m by VTG and an annual commitment of around £1m over a period of 11 years by Hope.
Ian Shaw, VTG’s Marketing and Sales Director said: “I am delighted that this ground breaking wagon has been recognised for reducing the environmental impact of new freight wagons. Once again VTG leads the field.”
The award caps a great year of award success for VTG Rail UK.
The Birmingham based company also picked up the top prize in the Support Service Provider category at the Rail Freight Group’s (RFG) annual awards. This was for the co-location of their personnel in key customers’ premises to improve service and performance levels.
The VTG/Hope wagons were highly commended by the RFG in its Environmental Innovation category.
The same wagons were also named runner up in the Freight and Logistics Achievement of the year category in the National Rail Awards.
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Note to editors:
- VTG is one of Europe’s leading wagon hire and rail logistics companies.
- The company has the largest private wagon fleet in Europe. Globally the fleet consists of about 80,000 rail freight cars with a focus on tank cars and state of the art high capacity freight cars and flat cars.