Special delivery

A FREIGHT train now carries fruit and vegetables from Alicante province directly to London.
The train, which included 15 refrigerated wagons, left on Thursday last week for the first time, arriving four days later in Barking.
The train will link Alicante’s agricultural growers and the UK markets every week, departing from Alicante each Thursday, passing the border at La Junquera in Girona, crossing France to Calais and reaching London via the Eurotunnel.
Despite the pioneering journey, the province’s business and agricultural sectors criticised the central government’s tendency to omit Alicante from rail infrastructure plans.
Owing to delays in linking Alicante province to the Mediterranean Corridor, when the train left Alicante port last week, it had to use dating from the 1950s they complained.