Industry | Rail |
---|---|
Founded | 2 April 1999[1] |
Founder | GB Railways |
Headquarters | , England |
Key people | John Smith (Managing Director) |
Services | Freight operating company |
Owner | Infracapital |
Website | www |
GB Railfreight (GBRf) is a rail freight company in the United Kingdom. As of 2022, it is owned by the global investment company Infracapital, itself a subsidiary of M&G plc, a UK investment group.
GB Railfreight was established in April 1999 as the rail freight operating subsidiary of the train operating company GB Railways. It was granted an operator's licence in June 2000, and started running Intermodal container trains in February 2002; the haulage of other freight traffic commenced later that year. GBRf acquired numerous Class 66 locomotives to haul its trains; another early type would be the Class 20 and Class 73 locomotives. In August 2003, GBRf, via its parent company GB Railways, was acquired by FirstGroup; it was later rebranded as First GBRf. In 2005, it began running services for Royal Mail and Metronet; two years later, First GBRf ran its first coal trains. In 2009, it was granted a passenger license, after which it operated such services under contract to First Great Western.
In June 2010, the company was acquired by Europorte, after which the GB Railfreight branding and livery were promptly reinstated. Following this purchase, it took on Europorte's fleet of Class 92 electric locomotives, as well as buying additional Class 66s and Class 56s amongst other types to expand its inventory as service volume rose. Contracts to haul new-build rolling stock for operators and operate rail traffic at multiple steelworks were awarded during the early 2010s; GBRf also begun operations on hauling the Caledonian Sleeper service in April 2015. During October 2016, the company was bought by EQT AB, and was partly integrated with Hector Rail. In September 2019, GBRf's ownership changed hands again, this time to Infracapitial.