From ‘pop-up’ to ‘top-up’
How Cemex’s Warrington rail depot continues to contribute to growing market demands
CEMEX and DB Cargo are celebrating the millionth tonne of aggregates supplied to their Warrington rail depot, since the depot opened in mid-2016.
The location was initially thought of as a temporary site but has now become firmly established as a core rail depot in Cemex’s UK supply chain network to serve the Greater Manchester, Merseyside, and Lancashire areas and supply vital building materials to support with the growth of housing, construction, and infrastructure projects across these regions.
The depot has often been described as a ‘pop-up’ depot due its original installation taking a matter of weeks, using land adjacent to the West Coast Mainline with a ready-made weighbridge and office.
The Warrington depot, which is supplied by rail from Cemex’s Dove Holes Quarry, is an example of how industry can support wider ambitions for the growth of rail freight through connecting potentially challenging sites and locations to the mainline.
Existing market demand across the region provided the catalyst for Cemex and DB Cargo to seek innovative solutions to support the movement and distribution of materials, whilst helping to ease congestion on the UK’s road network by reducing the number of truck journeys that would otherwise have been required.
Each delivery by rail can carry up to 2,000 tonnes of construction materials, compared with an HGV vehicle, which can only carry around 18–30 tonnes per journey. Last year Cemex ran more than 2,000 rail freight trains, the equivalent of taking around 1,500 truck journeys off UK roads.
Mark Grimshaw-Smith, Cemex UK’s rail and sea manager, said: ‘This is a fantastic achievement for everyone involved with this project. The Warrington depot is a great success story in the growth of our rail freight operations at Cemex. It serves an important developing market with essential building materials and is an example of how industry can overcome challenges around space, logistics, and connectivity to the mainline, when installing new freight hubs as part of its existing supply chain network.’
Cemex currently move around 20% of their aggregates in the UK by rail and around 55% of the materials out of Dove Holes are transported by rail, with plans to grow this figure in order to meet future demand for building and construction materials across the UK.
The partnership between Cemex and DB Cargo demonstrates a continued commitment to rail as a safe, effective, and more sustainable mode of transport, with DB Cargo providing a complete end-to-end haulage service for the movement of materials from Dove Holes to the Warrington rail depot, including loading shovel, grab offload, and weighbridge facilities, whilst prioritizing local safety processes in accordance with Cemex’s global rail safety standards.
Mandy Atherton, contract delivery manager for National Terminals at DB Cargo, commented: ‘The rail terminal at Warrington demonstrates how rail transportation is becoming more flexible and innovative in its ability to meet the demands of its customers and end-users. We have been delighted to work with our long-standing customer, Cemex, on this project as it has grown from a temporary pop-up depot into a significant contributor to the region it serves.’
