With China’s Golden Week holiday in full swing, the ongoing issues affecting ocean freight container imports into the UK from the Far East is making Davies Turner’s direct Express China Rail overland service even more attractive.

Tony Cole, head of supply chain services at the UK’s leading independent freight and logistics company said: “UK importers are facing a tsunami of container shipping issues at present.”

He noted that scheduled disruption; ongoing delays in vessel discharge and loading, which is leading to ships ‘cutting and running’ or diverting; prolonged turnaround times on the quay; shortages of dock labour and container haulage, as well as import containers missing planned connections to rail, has resulted in a surge of interest for Davies Turner's direct express LCL & FCL rail service from China to the UK.

No disruptions in rail 

“Unlike the ocean freight alternative, there are no disruptions affecting the overland rail service, which typically saves clients up to 22 days and which currently could save more. And with Golden Week shut down now upon us, rail could help to keep our clients’ supply chains running,” Cole said.

He said that in the ocean freight environment, additional delays are also being encountered by companies that use third party port warehouses to unpack their consol containers, which is a costly addition in time.

The Davies Turner executive noted that with the company, unpacking and customs clearance of consol (LCL) containers takes place at its own depots in Birmingham, Bristol, Dartford, Glasgow and Manchester, ensuring that it has a facility local to its UK customer base to enable fast and competitive delivery their door.

Since it launched the dedicated weekly fixed-day rail consol import service from China to the UK in November 2018 Davies Turner has seen it go from strength to strength and bookings have increased continually.

The weekly intermodal service leaves the Wuhan rail hub and heads to Duisburg in Germany, from where containers are then trucked under bond to the port of Rotterdam and transported by ferry to Purfleet in East London.