Extremely unlikely.  How many other supermarkets are served by rail?  Goods from ports to DC’s, yes.  To the actual store?  No.

 
Article here from 'The Grocer' on Tesco's use of rail within the UK, mind.

Mark

https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/supply-chain/is-tesco-on-the-right-track-with-its-supply-chain-trains/665706.article

 
Yes, I really hope that part of the supply chain for supermarkets continues to grow.

It’s a good advert for the brand as well.  Nothing shouts ‘We are in business’ like a whole branded train racing through your station.

 

Only unlikely whilst diesel fuel remains as cheap as it is at present. Cheap oil is not going to last forever.

 

The article is dated March 2022, a mere blink on a eye in railway time but I wonder how things have moved since then.  Is it me or am I seeing more freight trains around these days?

 

Here we are - 11 a.m. Monday morning and real time train shows 55 paths through Melksham today, of which 18 are our "local" passenger train. Many paths are "Q" - runs as required but so far 5 of them have run.  Most of the 37 extras are class 6 trains, though just about everything from 0 to 7 is repreesented.  One of the trains that ran turned up half an hour early.  There IS freight around.  Perhaps a danger of going off topic here.

My undertanding is that 40 years ago you would have seen just a handful of trains a week going through.

 
The south does have more freight than for a very long time.  It has an abundance of container and aggregate traffic which has been growing strongly.

Less so in the north east though for example, where coal used to rule.

Indeed if you go back 40 years, the old MGR coal traffic to/from Didcot, laden trains running as Class 7’s, would stand no chance of being accommodated on the line north towards Birmingham with the extra passenger and other freight services that now run.

 

More passenger trains by a heck of a lot. Many fewer places to tuck freight out of the way to let faster trains pass - a general reduction in the ability to handle trains that run a different speeds on the same tracks.

The chickens resulting from all those "rationalisations" of the 1970s and beyond are coming and will continue to come home to roost

 
Thinking of supermarket traffic again, and Tescos in particular, Scotland's a long haul to remote destinations. Tt's reasonable to wonder if they'd ever be looking at the same for Devon and Cornwall.

But... the west country road system is rather more robust, and the rail network perhaps more glass-backed.

Perhaps if the line to Exeter via Honiton were given more resilience and capacity, the line via Melksham redoubled to become an echo of Perth to Dundee, and the potential new route via Okehampton bore fruit... Plymouth would then in terms of rail links resemble Inverness and the onward line into Cornwall a far north line equivalent though rather strenghened as far more double track - and the railway into the west country would then provide the sort of resilient route that the supermarket supply industry needs.

But perhaps Tesco itself, in the west country, does not have so much of the customer base to support a rail-based delivery.

Mark, talking out of his hat.

 

Which is why the London rubbish trains through Reading are more discreetly "branded".

 

Obviously a strategic decision for Tesco - the nearest DC looks to be Bristol which is currently serving the South West?

The further away from ports and main hubs you go the more attractive a rail based service as far as a DC becomes, but it’s not, currently at least, much of a factor in making those sorts of decisions.

 

Some years ago the possibility of a supermarkets’ ( not just Tesco)  container train from I think Avonmouth to serve Devon and Cornwall with possible rail terminals, including at Plymouth and Truro, was looked into with considerable effort by all concerned.

But the figures just did not stack up in favour of rail and the lack of an alternative rail route between Exeter and Plymouth also played a significant part in the decision against rail transport.

 

One that does spring to mind is Morrison. Its DC stands next to what is left of the Willow Man, sandwiched between the M5 and the A38 just south of the Kings Sedgemoor Drain, with the railway running practically through the site. It is quite a big place, with bays available for 60+ lorries to load and unload simultaneously. About a third of those (my guesstimate) could be replaced by a daily train bringing goods in. A siding there could quickly become one of two new freight lines locally if the battery factory development at the Gravity site, formerly ordnance works at Puriton, comes to fruition. There has even been talk of reinstating the line to passenger standards, to allow workers to travel by rail from Highbridge and Burnham or Weston Super Mare - if Tata makes a firm commitment to build the proposed gigafactory.

 
More on Tesco's operation: a change of distribution company in 2023. Seven daily services to destinations that include Wentloog.

Mark

https://www.maritimetransport.com/news-media/2023/11/27/maritime-transport-secures-major-contract-to-manage-tesco-s-rail-operations

 

Indeed so, as seen yesterday:

 
Railadvent have published an article here about the forthcoming construction of what will be London's biggest freight hub in Bow and how it might be a forerunner of others nationally.




https://www.railadvent.co.uk/2024/05/londons-biggest-freight-interchange-masterplan-revealed.html?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0U3k0DDNQv5l0bRk1FJYI9WqvmwhxuylWJy7oDGpMxIxXOGw6iB5mLCC0_aem_AbZi1Rm5nC8lnJScIPAHE1yceFBT4XJS5MXAapVwff-mfZZwV1-x9Tyms0mIAW_QO0fKww3XQjXbjQykAXL87FUV

 

In one of those odd coincidences life sometimes throws your way, yesterday I managed to catch sight of the Inverness to Mossend ‘Tesco’ train laying over at the magnificent, if slightly tired, station at Perth.

As I passed over it on one of the footbridges, two ladies came the other way, with one exclaiming “Look at that. It’s a train for Tesco’s!”

 

I'm surprised it wasn't "a train for Willie Low's" - it's only been thirty years since Tesco took them over.