In June West Fraser moved to another stage in the process of building a rail facility at their factory at Dalcross (formally Norbord).

Two public consultation sessions took place in June and gave interested parties the chance to look at the plans and discuss them with WF staff.

Our member Colin Alston attended the first session on 6 June. The main points he took away were:

• WF plans to run 2 trains of 14 wagons per day down to Coatbridge, though initially just one
• it will use the Tesco containers until it has its own stock
• possible arrangement for the trains is to travel north in the afternoon, spend around three hours at plant, then head back south overnight
• the train will run directly into the siding as it will have a locomotive at each end
• the main driver for the switch to rail is environmental as the parent company has set standards it needs to reach worldwide by around 2030
• roughly 70% of the plant's production goes into the UK with the rest exported to mainland Europe by sea from Inverness
• initial efforts are to switch the transport of finished products to rail, at a later date incoming timber will arrive by rail
• a WF employee Colin spoke to said that the Georgemas trial had gone well, and noted that WF's Canadian plants only use rail for incoming and outgoing movements
• total project cost is around £10m, £3m of which is needed for the 24-30m high gantry crane

The formal planning application is expected to be lodged later this year once various details have been settled.

A newspaper report in June noted that the proposed development is anticipated to remove the need for around 20,000 HGV journeys per year and support West Fraser's planned expansion of their business in Scotland.

West Fraser's application submission states: "The objective of the proposed development is to provide an alternative means of transporting materials to and from West Fraser's existing site via the use of rail instead of road."

We understand that there are currently no suitable timber wagons available for transport from the planned loading facility at Altnabreac. We are sure that this situation won't be allowed to derail the company's plans.