Profits return for firm behind Telford rail freight terminal

DB Cargo made a pre-tax profit of nine million in 2017, compared with a loss of £66 million in 2016.

Revenue fell from £325 million to £312 million, operating loss – which excludes exceptional items – fell from £60 million to £38 million, and the final profit after tax swung from a loss of £57 million to a £12 million profit in a single year.

In 2016 DB Cargo announced that it was entering redundancy consultations over 893 jobs throughout the UK, blaming "unprecedented challenges" in the rail freight sector.

The coal and steel industries provided particular difficulties for the company, the firm's newly-published accounts results show.

In a statement accompanying the accounts, DB Cargo said: "Competitive pressure in the UK rail freight market remains strong and the industry continues to face challenges.

"The company has seen significant decline in its traditional markets of coal and steel over the past few years, which combined with other markets resulted in the company announcing a major restructuring programme in October 2016.

"The focus of 2017 has been the implementation of the restructuring programme to enable the company to re-shape the business. Realignment of the cost base and focusing on more efficient ways of working now places the company in a stronger position in what is a highly competitive and rapidly changing market.

"On July 2 2017 the company moved to its new operating model, however there were challenges in the full implementation of the restructuring programme and as a result the company has not seen the full benefits of the restructuring programme in 2017.

"Operational performance in the year has been strong with the company achieving freight performance measure (being the number of trains arriving within 15 minutes of plan) of 82.1 per cent and train service reliability of 95.7 per cent."

The company also warned over the impact of Brexit on its overall performance.

"Anticipated growth markets have experienced increased uncertainty, driven by various factors including constraints on the network, economic slowdown and the result of the Brexit vote. This uncertainty has led to delayed, or in some cases cancelled investment decisions relating to major construction and infrastructure projects.

"In order to help our business evolve with the changes our industry faces, we are investing further to develop our interfaces with our customers and integration of our operational systems," the firm added.

The firm took over the running of Telford's £7.75 million rail freight terminal at Donnington in 2013, and it was hoped the move would give the town an economic boost.

The company has not revealed how many movements it is making from the site each day.