UK: Alvance British Aluminium has take delivery of 20 powder tank wagons as the latest step in a project to increase the efficiency of the transport of alumina between the port of Blyth in Northumberland and its Fort William smelter at Lochaber.
The Type JPA wagons have been refurbished for the alumina traffic by Mandy Rail and Feldbinder UK, and are being supplied to Alvance by VTG Rail UK under a 10-year lease deal which includes full maintenance.
The four-axle wagons have replaced a fleet of two-axle PCA wagons which were in service since the late 1980s. This will nearly double the payload per trip, enabling the number of journeys operated by GB Railfreight to be reduced from 107 to 76 per year.
A enhanced loading facility is also nearing completion at the Blyth site, and the wagons are to be retrofitted with VTG’s iWagon real-time monitoring technology to support predictive maintenance and fleet management.
Alvance said the transition to the replacement wagons has been carefully planned to maintain uninterrupted alumina supply to its 24/7 smelting operations.
‘This project represents a multimillion-pound investment in future-proofing our logistics, supporting both operational efficiency and a reduction in our carbon footprint’, said Alvance Managing Director Tom Uppington.
