THE MYSTERY of construction work and clearance going on at Hackney railway sidings near Newton Abbot Racecourse can now be solved. 

It’s so that a new freight service can begin, taking trees from across the South West by rail to sawmills in the north.

Euroforest, the UK’s largest timber harvester, will be running the freight service which will take the traffic off the country’s roads. 

The company has previously transported timber from the huge Teigngrace plantation to a processing mill at Chirk in North Wales, and following trials a new service is now on the books.

Newton Abbot has been selected as the South West centre of the latest operation, which will see timber transported by rail to Abergavenny. From there, the logs will be taken by road to Pontrilas Sawmill near the border town of Hereford. 

Several trials of moving timber by rail have been undertaken recently, and the success of those trials has prompted interest in rcarrying timber traffic by rail.

The trains will initially carry around 400 tonnes of timber in each load, but the capacity exists to double that to 800 tonnes.

Euroforest’s Douglas King said: ‘Using rail creates additional resources for mobilising timber and reduces the number of timber lorries on the roads.

‘Approximately 400 tonnes of locally grown timber is transported in one journey, a greener alternative to using roads in the long-distance movement of timber.

‘Timber by road is very costly despite the apparent ease of single handling from forest to sawmill. 

‘Investing in rail lets us try a different model, and while we are still assessing flows between Devon and South Wales, there is promise.’

As a rail freight growth area, the South West is looking like an unexpected source. 

The region is already well known for mineral traffic from numerous quarries in Devon and Cornwall, but the possibility of timber traffic using those resources as well could be good news for the sector.