One train per week will run between Wroclaw, in Poland, and Barking, near London, in the UK. The service has been established in response to strong demand from customers in the automotive, retail and food sectors.
The first train will depart Poland on the evening of November 8th arriving into the UK in the early hours of November 11th. It will leave the same day with goods destined for Poland.
The service will be the first regular rail freight service to use the High Speed 1 (HS1) rail route, the only European sized railway in the UK. As a result, the train will be loaded with European sized curtain-sided swap bodies, which provide an internal height of three metres, allowing two standard pallets to be stacked on top of each other and maximizing the amount of product per train.
The services have been introduced utilising DB Schenker Rail's pan European rail freight network, offering customers integrated logistics solutions across the whole of Europe.
Alain Thauvette, Chief Executive of DB Schenker Rail UK, said: "Strong European rail freight trading links are essential for economic development and to encourage modal shift from road to rail. The introduction of this new rail freight service between Poland and the UK will be the first of a number of such trains, which utilise the DB Schenker Rail pan European network. This is an important step for rail freight in Europe, as a new market has been developed and a new trading route opened.
The work to introduce rail freight services onto HS1 has been supported by the European Commission's Marco Polo programme.
