Climate Action
Utilising rail in Battersea
“With net zero becoming an ever-greater priority, the rail freight network is becoming more important in the UK than ever before and we’re proud to play a significant role in the industry and its future. We’re constantly reviewing how we operate to integrate innovation and ways to accelerate efficiency and decarbonisation, not just from our own operations but across the industry.”
Chris Swan, head of rail at Tarmac
With more than 50 rail connected sites nationwide, Tarmac is one of the country's biggest users of the rail freight network, transporting around nine million tonnes of materials across the UK each year. Increasing the volume of material we move by rail is important in helping us achieve our sustainability goals and we are continually exploring ways to maximise the use of our rail network.
Our Battersea site is in an industrial area of London susceptible to heavy congestion, and so efficient transport of our materials is very important. In 2019, work was completed to change the way the depot is structured and make it more suitable to accept aggregate rail deliveries. This work included the installation of the first Liebherr LH80C ‘Supergrab’ Gantry Materials Handler in the country.
Collaboration and creative thinking enabled the stocking area at the site, one of the busiest in the country, to more than double in size thanks to the ‘Supergrab’s’ design, which suspends the gantry on top of the train being discharged. This means that space normally reserved for grab operations is now utilised for storage.
The increased stocking area has enabled Tarmac to make a significant reduction in the number of HGV movements in the capital as more material can be distributed via the rail network to serve the demands of local infrastructure projects. As a result, only the ‘last mile’ of the journey must now be carried out by trucks, reducing the number of vehicles on the road and our carbon emissions.
The site receives sand and gravel from Greenwich Wharf and limestone from Tunstead on trains that can transport up to 1,650 tonnes. Over the last four years, more than 350 trains have delivered over 500,000 tonnes of material to our Battersea site. This has removed approximately 19,000 trucks off the roads and saved over 158 tonnes of CO2.
