Railfreight services 'are on course'

Managers of Telford's £8m railfreight terminal say they will soon be running daily services.

Colette Ranford, spokeswoman for rail terminal operator John G. Russell, said: "We have successfully handled trains since the rail terminal was officially opened in June, and we are pleased to report that we are on track with our operational expectations and envisage a daily service to be running by January 2010."

Planners behind the 26-acre rail freight park in Donnington promised it would deliver more than 400 jobs and provide county businesses with direct access to the UK rail network and Europe via the Channel Tunnel.

However, nearly six months later, several people living near the terminal contacted Shropshirestar.com to ask when they would see trains on the line.

Some feared the terminal was becoming a "white elephant".

But the terminal operator said the site was progressing as planned.

Ms Ranford said: "Whilst we would love to be handling four trains per day, at this stage in the development of the business it would be staggering to achieve that level."

She added: "There is a lot of interest in rail from local businesses and we are sure that when we have the daily service running, local businesses will start to support the rail terminal.

"Unfortunately we are in a sort of 'chicken and egg' situation where the services need to be running before we will get the commitment from the local business community."

She praised Telford & Wrekin Council for supporting the scheme, and said the finished terminal was the right size for the region and would boost jobs and investment in Telford.