Fastline was created by six railwaymen who undertook a successful management buyout (MBO) of Eastern Track Renewals from British Rail in 1996. In that year they bought Northern Track Renewals from British Rail, and undertook all the studies and examinations that resulted in their acquiring a Harsco Track Renewals Train, the first continuous-process track relaying system in the country. They also examined the possibility of acquiring their own diesel locomotives because of dissatisfaction with the service provided by others for engineering trains. The company was acquired by Jarvis, who later resurrected the Fastline name to create a railway freight operator. It operated a fleet of Class 56 and Class 66 locomotives. The class 56s cost £700,000 each to refurbish. A fourth and a fifth Class 56 (56311 & 56312) were hired in from Hanson Traction Ltd. Fastline's base was at

Doncaster Doncaster (, ) is a city in South Yorkshire, England. Named after the River Don, it is the administrative centre of the larger City of Doncaster. It is the second largest settlement in South Yorkshire after Sheffield. Doncaster is situated in ...

, Yorkshire. It ceased trading when Jarvis plc entered administration and subsequently ceased trading in late March 2010. The company is in administration with N.G. Edwards, N.B. Kahn, P.S. Bowers and I. Brown of Deloitte LLP.

Operations

Container traffic

The company's main operation at first was 4O90, a

container A container is any receptacle or enclosure for holding a product used in storage, packaging, and transportation, including shipping. Things kept inside of a container are protected on several sides by being inside of its structure. The term ...

train to

Thamesport London Thamesport (formerly just "Thamesport") is a small container seaport on the River Medway, serving the North Sea. It is located on the Isle of Grain, in the Medway unitary authority district of the English county of Kent. The area was form ...

on the

Isle of Grain Isle of Grain (Old English ''Greon'', meaning gravel) is a village and the easternmost point of the Hoo Peninsula within the district of Medway in Kent, south-east England. No longer an island and now forming part of the peninsula, the area i ...

, which operated in the afternoon/evening, and returned in the early hours of the next morning, usually operating Class 56 locomotives. Since the end of Fastline's container traffic flows from Doncaster to the Isle of Grain, the class 56s were intended to be used on Fastline's coal flows.

Coal flows

They also ran several coal flows including from Hatfield to

Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station is a coal-fired power station owned and operated by Uniper at Ratcliffe-on-Soar in Nottinghamshire, England. Commissioned in 1968 by the Central Electricity Generating Board, the station has a capacity of 2,000&nb ...

, using Class 66s and a new build of coal

hoppers Hopper or hoppers may refer to: Places *Hopper, Illinois * Hopper, West Virginia * Hopper, a mountain and valley in the Hunza–Nagar District of Pakistan * Hopper (crater), a crater on Mercury People with the name * Hopper (surname) * Grace H ...

. Coal flows run by Fastline included: * Coal from

Daw Mill Daw Mill was a coal mine located near the village of Arley, near Nuneaton, in the English county of Warwickshire. The mine was Britain's biggest coal producer. It closed in 2013 following a major fire. It was the last remaining colliery in the W ...

* Coal from Hatfield Colliery to

* Coal from

Cottam Power Station Cottam power station is a decommissioned coal-fired power station. The site extends over of mainly arable land and is situated at the eastern edge of Nottinghamshire on the west bank of the River Trent at Cottam near Retford. The larger coal ...

* Coal from Immingham to Ironbridge Power Station

Fleet details

Each machine (except number 66434) were for sale by administrators. 66301-305 Taken on by

Direct Rail Services Direct Rail Services (DRS) is a rail freight company in Great Britain. As of 2022, it is one of seven publicly owned railway companies in the United Kingdom, the others being NI Railways (the passenger rail operator in Northern Ireland), LNE ...

, with on-hire 66434 now returned to the

fleet and now branded in Malcolm Rail livery. Rail track tamper - DR73238 - Jarvis Fastline livery - Chester railway station - 2005-10-09

;Locomotive disposals Numbers 56301 and 56302 have been preserved and were moved to Barrow Hill Engine Shed in April 2011.

References

{{British freight operators Rail freight companies in the United Kingdom