Four months of the year, this terminal does three times the work
A seasonal flow does not fit an annual timetable. We stopped trying to make it.
The cooperative markets grain and pulses from the eastern arable belt for export. Its year is not flat and never has been: October moves 3.2 times what March does.
What we changed
We stopped running one timetable. Corridor 12 is daily from August to November and three times weekly for the rest of the year. The alternative — a flat schedule sized for the average — is a half-empty train for eight months of the year and a queue at the Halgate gate for four.
Equipment
Twenties, not forties. Grain hits the payload limit of a 40ft box at around 40% of its cubic capacity, so the customer had been paying to move fresh air. Fewer, fuller 20ft units carried the same tonnage at a lower cost per tonne.
The performance figure
Corridor 12 runs at 92.4% on time, the lowest on the network. Harvest is weather-bound and arrives in surges against a gate that closes at 22:00. We publish the figure with the others rather than leaving this lane out of the average, because a carrier who only shows you their good lanes is telling you something by omission.