The UK’s leading independent freight forwarding company, Davies Turner, will add an export LCL cargo service by rail from the UK to China, a year after the launch of a successful import LCL and FCL rail service in the other direction.

The company’s nationwide hub and spoke trunking operations consolidate the consignments destined for China, which are then loaded at their regional distribution centre in Dartford onto one of Turner’s daily trailer services to Hamburg. Once in Hamburg, the consignments are transferred onto the rail service, which passes through Poland, Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan before arriving in Wuhan, China.

Ex-UK transit times to Wuhan range from 26 to 30 days, while Customs clearance and delivery throughout mainland China averages 5 to 7 days, depending on the final point of delivery. Davies Turner believes that a shipment collected from the factory and delivered to the door makes possible a 14 day reduction in transit time, as well as being 50-60% cheaper than air, with larger shipments attracting the biggest savings.

“Our import rail service from China to Europe has proven to be very popular and has become a great success. So we are now pleased to offer an export service through to China from our strategically located hubs at Birmingham, Bristol, Cumbernauld/Glasgow, Dartford, Manchester and Dublin,” said Philip Stephenson, chairman of Davies Turner. “Both our import and export rail services offer fixed weekly departures with proven schedule reliability and we only utilise established rail services which have been running for a minimum of 12 months.”

The operation is offered in conjunction with Davies Turner’s long-standing partners in both China and Germany, which have many years of experience moving freight on these and similar rail services.