Dollands Moor Freight Yard is a railway freight yard near Folkestone in Kent, and was purpose built in 1988 for the Channel Tunnel. It is to the west of the

Eurotunnel Folkestone Terminal The Eurotunnel Folkestone Terminal (also known as the Victor Hugo Terminal) is a railway terminal built for the transport of road-going vehicles on specially constructed trains through the Channel Tunnel. The terminal is one of two, with the Euro ...

, and just to the south of the M20 Motorway.

Description

Dollands Moor has eight roads in the yard with an additional five roads which are through lines and run-round loops. All lines are electrified at 25 kV overhead wires and connections to the west of the yard are also dually electrified with a

third rail A third rail, also known as a live rail, electric rail or conductor rail, is a method of providing electric power to a railway locomotive or train, through a semi-continuous rigid conductor placed alongside or between the rails of a railway ...

(750 V). This is to allow access to the South-Eastern Main Line at Saltwood Junction just to the east of Sandling Station. Dollands Moor was operated by

Railfreight Distribution Railfreight Distribution was a sub-sector of British Rail, created by the division in 1987 of British Rail's previous Railfreight sector. It was responsible for non-trainload freight operations, as well as Freightliner and Intermodal services ...

from its opening, then EWS and now

DB Cargo UK DB Cargo UK (formerly DB Schenker Rail UK and English, Welsh & Scottish Railway (EWS)), is a British rail freight company headquartered in Doncaster, England. The company was established in early 1995 as ''North & South Railways'', successful ...

. Other freight operators pass through the yard, but do not stop there. The function of Dollands Moor is for locomotive and crew changes rather than marshalling. Most trains operating from Dollands Moor are of the

Trainload A unit train, also called a block train or a trainload service, is a train in which all cars (wagons) carry the same commodity and are shipped from the same origin to the same destination, without being split up or stored en route. They are disti ...

variety and if any marshalling is required, this was historically undertaken at European Freight Operating Centre in

Wembley Wembley () is a large suburbIn British English, "suburb" often refers to the secondary urban centres of a city. Wembley is not a suburb in the American sense, i.e. a single-family residential area outside of the city itself. in north-west Londo ...

, but with the drawdown of the

Wagonload In rail freight transportation the terms wagonload or wagonload freight refer to trains made of single wagon consignments of freight. In the US and Canada the term carload refers to a single car of any kind, and manifest train refers to trains mad ...

network in the UK they now go to

Didcot Didcot ( ) is a railway town and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county of Oxfordshire and the Historic counties of England, historic county of Berkshire. Didcot is south of Oxford, eas ...

. At the time of writing (October 2015) just one Fridays only working Wagonload train goes through Dollands Moor to Didcot The lines from Dollands Moor and the Channel Tunnel Rail Link are measured in kilometres whereas Network Rail lines are measured in miles and chains.

Migratory activity

Illegal immigrants have been a problem for Dollands Moor; and stowaways have caused increased security and safety incidents.

References

External links

Dollands Moor @ Kent Rail
Rail transport in Kent Rail yards in the United Kingdom Railway freight terminals in the United Kingdom {{England-rail-transport-stub