rail freight predecessor loadhaul mainline freight rail express systems railfreight distribution transrail freight founded 1995 headquarters doncaster england area served united kingdom key people edward burkhardt chairman & ceo 1995 1999 1 keith heller ceo co chairman 2004 2010 2 3 alain thauvette ceo 4 services bulk freight and intermodal logistics owner deutsche bahn parent db schenker subsidiaries euro cargo rail axiom rail website www.uk.dbcargo.com db cargo uk formerly db schenker rail uk and english welsh & scottish railway is a british rail freight company headquartered in doncaster england . the company was founded in 1995 as north & south railways acquiring five of the six freight companies sold during the privatisation of british rail note 1 becoming the uk market leader in rail freight transportation . in november 2007 ews was sold to deutsche bahn and in january 2009 rebranded as db schenker . in march 2016 it was rebranded as db cargo uk . contents 1 history 1.1 background 1.2 english welsh & scottish railway 1.3 db cargo uk 2 services and rolling stock 2.1 rolling stock 2.2 depots 2.3 locomotive haulage for passenger services 2.3.1 liveries 3 steam operations 4 see also 5 notes 6 references 6.1 sources 6.2 further reading 7 external links history edit background edit in 1988 british rail s br freight operations were split into two divisions railfreight distribution rfd and trainload freight tlf . 5 rfd took over br s freightliner and speedlink services and general wagonload and trainload services excluding bulk coal petroleum aggregates and metals . 6 br s bulk trainload services were handled by the trainload freight division . 7 8 in 1991 the rail express systems brand was created to handle mail and postal services . 9 after the passing of the railways act 1993 five rail freight companies were formed from rfd and tlf . 5 10 on 1 april 1994 tlf was split into three separate geographical businesses trainload north east trainload west and trainload south east with each initially given existing contracts based on the geographic origin of the trainflow plus some contract trainload services previously handled by rfd . 11 12 which were later renamed loadhaul mainline freight and transrail freight . 12 13 14 the remainder of rfd was split into two companies freightliner container operations between ports with the residual rfd company operating freight trains through the channel tunnel . 5 the mail and parcels business were sold as rail express systems and red star parcels . 10 these companies were subsequently put up for sale by competitive tender . 15 english welsh & scottish railway edit ews liveried class 66 and coal wagons near tupton derbyshire in may 2011 ews liveried class 92 at crewe works in june 2003 to bid for the ex br businesses being offered for sale north and south railways limited was formed . 16 it was owned by a consortium headed by wisconsin central 5 17 with additional financing provided by berkshire partners goldman sachs and fay richwhite . 18 on 9 december 1995 north and south railways purchased rail express systems for 24 million . 19 20 with this came the contract for the royal mail train service including the travelling post office trains and the contract to haul the royal train . 21 a fleet of 164 locomotives and 677 postal vans were included along with depots at bristol barton hill cambridge crewe and london euston . 22 then on 24 february 1996 british rail s three trainload freight companies loadhaul mainline freight and transrail freight were acquired for 225 million . 19 20 the sale included 914 locomotives and 19 310 wagons . 23 all four companies were subsequently merged into north and south railways 24 nullifying the government s effort to create multiple competitive rail freight firms through the privatisation ; 25 the decision to allow the creation of a rail freight company with a dominant market position was justified by the additional competition faced from other transport modes . 17 26 at the time rail had a 6 % share of the freight market . 27 initially the four companies continued to trade under their existing names . on 25 april 1996 the ews brand was unveiled . 28 29 on 10 july 1996 the holding company s name was changed to english welsh & scottish railway holdings limited . 16 in october 1996 loadhaul and mainline freight were merged with transrail freight and employees transferred to transrail freight which was then renamed to english welsh & scottish railway limited . 30 31 one of the first actions of the enlarged company was to seek volunteers for redundancy as it sought to reduce staff numbers by around 3 000 from 7 600 . 32 on 24 december 1996 ews was announced as the preferred bidder for the loss making railfreight distribution 33 34 for which it received grants and subsidies estimated to amount to 242 million over eight years . 35 including subsidies for the use of the channel tunnel . 36 railfreight distribution s businesses included international containerised freight movement of cars and automotive components by rail and freight services for the ministry of defence . the sale included 157 locomotives . 34 it was concluded on 12 march 1997 . 37 at this point ews controlled 90 % of the rail freight market . 38 railfreight distribution was renamed english welsh & scottish railway international on 1 december 1998 . 24 33 the new company had over 900 locomotives 19 000 freight wagons and 7 000 employees . track access charges were renegotiated and after 1 800 job redundancies the workers involved in profit sharing and other incentivised working plans ; as a result shipping rates were reduced by over 30 % . 39 many locomotives inherited on foundation were considered unreliable and expensive to maintain ; 40 the company invested heavily in modernisation of its rolling stock ; by 2002 750 million had been invested 41 including 280 new locomotives and over 2 000 new wagons . 42 note 2 services included mail locomotive hire wagonload traffic branded enterprise founded by transrail freight cross channel trains via the channel tunnel trainload freight including oil aggregates cement and traffic related to the coal electricity generation and steel industries and infrastructure trains for railtrack . 43 following privatisation ews began to compete for intermodal contracts note 3 while it faced competition from freightliner in its core markets . 44 45 turnover in 1999 was 533.7 million an 80 % market share by value . 46 on 1 april 1998 open access operator national power s rail division was taken over with six class 59 locomotives and 106 wagons . 47 42 in january 2001 the canadian national railway announced it had agreed to purchase wisconsin central . 48 the deal which included wisconsin central s 42.5 % stake in ews was concluded in october 2001 . 30 49 the contract with royal mail was lost in 2003 to road transport . 50 51 ews acquired the assets of wagon bogie company probotec limited in 2005 52 53 note 4 it was formed into a new subsidiary axiom rail that also took over responsibility for some of the depots and leasing surplus locomotives overseas . 57 in october 2005 a subsidiary in france trading as euro cargo rail commenced operating . 58 59 60 several class 66 locomotives were transferred . in november 2005 ews acquired wagon maintenance business marcroft . 38 as a result of the potential of the acquisition to reduce competition in the uk wagon repair market the acquisition was referred to the competition commission by the office of fair trading who required ews to sell all or part of the business excluding marcroft s works at stoke on trent . 61 that was incorporated into the axiom business . by 2006 turnover was approaching 1 billion . 62 in 2006 the office of rail regulation fined the company 4.1 million for anti competitive practices in the coal haulage business in which it had held a near monopoly following complaints by enron and freightliner heavy haul in 2001 and 2002 . 63 64 note 5 db cargo uk edit db schenker liveried 59206 at the national railway museum york in january 2009 on 28 june 2007 deutsche bahn announced it had agreed to purchase ews subject to receiving regulatory approval . 66 67 for 309 million 68 at the time ews had a market share of around 70 % in the united kingdom and around 5 000 employees . 69 after the transaction was approved by the european commissioner for competition 70 71 the sale was completed on 13 november 2007 . 72 at the time of the sale it was announced that ews would not be rebranded 73 but on 1 january 2009 ews was rebranded as db schenker along with deutsche bahn s railion and db schenker divisions . 74 75 the first locomotive painted in db schenker livery was class 59 59206 at toton depot in january 2009 76 being formally unveiled at the national railway museum york on 21 january 2009 . 77 78 note 6 class 90 90018 the pride of bellshill in db schenker colours on a freight working in october 2016 in 2009 db schenker rail began work to enable class 92 hauled trains to operate freight services on the high speed 1 by installing in cab tvm signalling . the project received funding from the european commission and it was originally anticipated services would begin in early 2010 . 80 on 25 march 2011 for the first time a modified class 92 locomotive travelled from dollands moor to singlewell using the tvm430 signalling system . 81 the first of five planned test trains ran as a loaded container train from hams hall west midlands to novara italy on 27 may 2011 . 82 83 84 db planned to upgrade an additional five class 92 locomotives to allow them to run on high speed 1 making a fleet of six . 85 86 87 in july 2011 a trial run of wagons carrying curtain walled swap bodies built to a larger european loading gauge was run from dollands moor folkestone to east london . 88 from 11 november 2011 a weekly service using european sized swap bodies has run between barking london and wroclaw poland using high speed 1 . 89 90 on 2 march 2016 db schenker was rebranded as db cargo uk . 91 services and rolling stock edit rolling stock edit 37411 at carlisle station on an arriva trains northern service in august 2004 ews inherited a fleet of 1 231 locomotives from its british rail acquisitions . 22 23 34 in may 1996 an order for 250 class 66s and 30 class 67s was placed . 92 these replaced all of the 20 31 33 37 47 56 58 73 and 86 class locomotives . 93 through improved utilisation they also replaced many of the newer 60 and 90 class locomotives . several of these redundant locomotives saw further use on infrastructure trains in europe with class 37s operated in france 40 italy 2 and spain 14 94 95 96 class 56s in france 30 97 and class 58s in france 26 the netherlands 3 and spain 8 . 97 98 ews gained the attention of the rail regulator for scrapping serviceable locomotives rather than making them available for sale to potential competitors . 99 as well as an extensive fleet of freight wagons db schenker rail operate a small fleet of mark 2 and mark 3 carriages . some of the former are on lease to first scotrail for use on fife circle services 100 while the latter form the db schenker company train . 101 102 103 depots edit db schenker s primary maintenance depot is toton . 104 the electric fleet is maintained at crewe . with a modern fleet requiring less maintenance many