Freightliner Group

Freightliner Group Limited

Company type	Private
Industry	Rail freight transport
Predecessor	British Rail
Founded	1995; 29 years ago (1995)
Headquarters	London , England
Area served	Europe Australia Middle East
Key people	Tim Shoveller (CEO G&W UK/Europe) [1]
Services	Bulk freight, Intermodal freight transport and logistics
Revenue	US$785 million[2]
Number of employees	2,500+[3]
Parent	Genesee & Wyoming (95%) Management (5%)
Divisions	Intermodal, Heavy Haul, Maintenance
Subsidiaries	European Rail Shuttle
Website	www.freightliner.co.uk

Freightliner Group is a rail freight and logistics company headquartered in the United Kingdom. It is presently a majority owned subsidiary of the American holding company Genesee & Wyoming.

It was originally created after the Transport Act 1968 as Freightliner Ltd, a British government-owned company . From its onset, Freightliner was focused on the haulage of international traffic, thus came to centre its activities around Britain's sea ports, often building new multimodal freight depots adjacent to such locations to better capture this business. During the late 1970s, it was reorganised under British Rail, and became a part of its Railfreight Distribution subsidiary during the late 1980s. Work to expand the loading gauge on routes such as the East Coast Main Line were undertaken, allowing trains hauling larger containers to be routes, were conducted around this time. Numerous domestic depots previously operated by Freightliner were closed during the 1990s in preparation for the Privatisation of British Rail that same decade.

As a consequence of the privatisation initiative, the business unit was reorganised as Freightliner Limited; on 25 May 1996, it was privatised and bought out through a management buyout, supported by 3i and Electra Private Equity, in exchange for £5.39 million. Freightliner quickly set about modernising and expanding its locomotive fleet, ordering both Class 57 (rebuilt Class 47) and new-build Class 66 locomotives to fulfil this role. During 1999, it established the Heavy Haul business; five years later, the Logico service was also launched. By 2014, Freightliner Limited had become the largest intermodal freight transport operator in the United Kingdom,^[4] as well as the second largest freight operating company in the country by revenue, behind DB Cargo UK.^[5] It had also expanded its operations into various other countries, including Australia, the Netherlands and Poland. In 2008, Freightliner Group was purchased by Railinvest Holding Company, a subsidiary of Arcapita Bank of Bahrain. In 2015, Freightliner was acquired by the American company Genesee & Wyoming.