MORE than 13,000 lorry journeys on the A9 will be saved each year, according to the company behind a new rail freight service between Grangemouth and Inverness.

Stobart Rail, in partnership with Tesco, are convinced that the six days a week service will make a huge difference.

Scottish Transport Minister Stewart Stevenson was in Inverness yesterday to officially open the service.

He said that the Scottish Government, in its commitment to ease congestion on the A9 trunk road, and reduce damage to the environ- ment, had allocated over £3m of funding to all parties connected with this rail freight service.

This would significantly reduce pressure on the busy A9 route, equivalent to 1.67 million lorry miles a year thereby saving 827,000 litres of fuel per year.

Six days a week, Stobart will collect goods from Tesco's new one million square foot distribution centre at Livingston; deliver them to Grange-mouth rail terminal, operated by WH Malcolm, where they will be loaded on to a train leaving for Inverness at 05.00.

The train will arrive at John G Russell's Inverness rail terminal at 11.01, for onward transfer to various Tesco stores around Inverness, Aviemore, Wick, Dingwall, Elgin, Thurso, Ullapool and Forres. The journey will then be repeated in reverse for southbound traffic to Grangemouth.

Stevenson said projects such as this would help Scotland reach the ambitious target of reducing emissions by 80% by 2050.

"I would like to see more and more Scottish businesses think about their freight priorities. If they do, we will see great environmental benefits and remove even more traffic from our congested roads."

Andrew Tinkler, chief executive of Stobart Group, said: "This new service is consistent with Stobart Group's strategy of providing multimodal transport and logistics solutions. Once again, the group is giving its customers cost savings and reducing harm to the environment."