New t ward Partnership with Eurogate

We’re delighted to be able to announce a new partnership between t ward and Eurogate, a partnership that will enable us to serve our customers even better.

Teaming up with Eurogate means that t ward will now be able to offer clients a weekly road freight service to selected destinations in Eastern Europe. Please see the schedule for details of where we will be able to serve.

Eurogate is a well-established group of freight forwarding companies which operates across eight European countries. Founded in 1989, the company has an impressive road-freight forwarding background; it started out as a joint venture between the UK forwarder, MS Shipping, and the Hungarian state-owned road-transport company Hungarocamion.

Eurogate specialises in shipments between Western-European, Central-Eastern European countries and the former Soviet Union, and its FTL coverage includes countries in these regions.

• Services to and from the UK:Three departures per week to Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia and Slovakia.
• Two departures per week to Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic and Austria.
• Weekly departures to Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.

OVERLAND GROUPAGE SERVICES

Export Schedule

Destination	Departures	Transit time/day(s)	Close Off Days
Hungary / Budapest	Tuesday/Friday	4	Monday/Thursday
Poland / Warsaw	Tuesday/Friday	4	Monday/Thursday
Czech Rep/ Prague	Friday	4	Thursday
Slovakia/ Bratislava	Friday	4	Thursday
Romania/ Bucharest	Friday	7	Thursday
Bulgaria/ Sofia	Friday	8	Thursday
Slovenia/ Ljubljana	Friday	4	Thursday
Bosnia/ Sarajevo	Friday	8	Thursday
Croatia/ Zagreb	Friday	7	Thursday
Serbia/ Belgrade	Friday	9	Thursday
Latvia/ Riga	Friday	5	Thursday
Lithuania/ Vilnius	Friday	5	Thursday
Estonia/ Tallinn	Friday	5	Thursday
Russia/ Moscow	Friday	7-10	Thursday
Ukraine/ Kiev	Friday	7-10	Thursday
Uzbekistan/ Tashkent	Friday	26 - 30	Thursday
Kazakhstan/ Almaty	Friday	26 - 30	Thursday
Azerbaijan/ Baku	Friday	26 - 30	Thursday
Armenia/ Yerevan	Friday	26 - 30	Thursday
Georgia/ Tbilisi	Friday	26 - 30	Thursday
Turkey/ Istanbul	Friday	10	Thursday
Iran / Tehran	Friday	21	Thursday

Burntisland – Ports we serve

The Port of Burntisland, between Kirkcaldy and North Queensferry, is one of the oldest natural harbours on the Forth, and provides transport and distribution by sea, rail or road all over Scotland. The renewable energy sector along with an upturn in coastal shipping has provided something of a revival for the port, which is also home to Burntisland Fabrications and Briggs Marine.

 In the 21st century Burntisland can enable access for barges of 300ft by 90ft, and the port has been a major Scottish port for centuries, a position which was boosted in 1847 with the Edinburgh and Northern Railway which ran from Burntisland north to Lindores and Cupar. Three years later, the world's first roll-on/roll-off rail ferry service was launched, and was crossing the Firth of Forth from Burntisland to Granton. The service was operational until the Forth Bridge was opened in 1890 when the Forth Bridge opened.

The Burntisland Shipbuilding Company at Burntisland West Dock was founded as an emergency shipyard in 1918, and introduced ‘Burntisland Economy’ steamship in 1929. In the Second World the yard built three Loch class frigates: HMS Loch Killin (K391), HMS Loch Fyne (K429) and HMS Loch Glendhu (K619). The shipyard closed in 1969.

In 2014, Forth Ports Limited and Fife-based Scott Group announced investment into a proposed regeneration of the eastern end of the port. Forth Ports and Scott Group, supported by a Regional Selective Assistance (RSA) grant from Scottish Enterprise, promised to invest around £2.5million in the development of the site, with a view to creating what they called a ‘state-of-the-art pallet manufacturing facility’ – which would include upgrades to the electricity supply, a refurbishment of the existing building and other areas, upgrades to road infrastructure and relocation and installation of new equipment.

For information about Burntisland and other ports we serve at t ward shipping limited, contact us and we’ll be delighted to advise you.

Port Glasgow – Ports we serve

Port Glasgow has a long tradition of shipbuilding and importation of goods from around the world. The port is situated on the West Coast of Scotland around 20 miles from the city of Glasgow. The town was originally named Newark but was renamed in 1775 after becoming the port for Glasgow – the vessels couldn’t make it up the waters of the Clyde.

117 jetties were built at Port Glasgow, which projected out from both banks at right angles. Ships of a larger size were now able to sail up river, and began to bypass Port Glasgow.

During the 18th and 19th centuries, Port Glasgow instead became known as the premier port for timber handling (for use in ship building) in Scotland. To this end logs were imported from all over Europe and as far away as North America.  Specially constructed boats with bow opening doors were used to transport the logs, which were then floated out, fastened together and kept in salt water ponds.

The channel built between Port Glasgow and Dumbarton stretches all the way to the centre of Glasgow. The added capacity for larger ships was doubtless  great for industry but it signalled an end to the harbour trade in Port Glasgow, as vessels began to bypass Port Glasgow altogether.

Shipbuilding soon became the main industry for the town, and it still plays a large part in the fabric of the area. You can still see reminders of the old harbours and dockside warehouses around Coronation Park, which was opened in 1937.

At t. ward shipping we are experienced in handling consignments of all sizes and types and we offer our services to a wide range of Scottish and UK ports, including Port of Glasgow.

t ward shipping – classic car import experts!

A classic car we shipped recently

 

If you’re lucky enough to buy a classic car from abroad, you’ll need to know how to get your latest luxury purchase into the country. It’s a good idea to familiarise yourself with the procedures before you take the step of making the purchase, or consult experts like t.ward shipping limited for advice. Importing a classic can be somewhat complicated affair and how it’s done will depend on whether you and the car are in the EU, and also your circumstances.

 

Transportation

If you’re importing for the love of the car and not for business reasons, once you’ve looked into the prices and made the decision to buy, you’ll have to think about how you intend to get the car from where it currently is to where you are. We would, of course, recommend that you have the car shipped across!

 

Duty & VAT

If you’re in the UK and want to import a classic car from mainland Europe, it’s quite simple, tax wise. Because of the EU, it’s not considered an import as such by HMRC, but a movement of goods from one member state top another. This is great news because it means that you don’t have to pay ant import duty, and VAT won’t have to be paid as you’ll already have paid VAT on the purchase of the car in the country the goods are being exported from.

 

The procedure is:

 

• Once you’ve bought the car, make sure it has an MOT – or the local version of an MOT.
• Get it insured in advance - use the car’s VIN number as you won’t have a registration plate yet. Insurance companies will be fine with this.
• In some EU countries you need to apply for temporary plates, which can be expensive.  Check beforehand as it might affect your decision to import the car!
• Get the official declaration of sale signed by you, the seller and a notary
• Get a Certificate of Ownership
• Transport your classic car back to the UK
• Notify HRMC
• Get the car MOT’d in the UK
• Register the car with the DVLA 

 

You’ll have to pay a customs fee and a DVLA registration fee too, around £50 each.The process for importing from outside the EU is trickier. Once you’ve bought the car, you’ll have to;

 

• Get the documentation organised  -  sale agreement and registration documentation
• Ship the vehicle back to the UK
• Complete a C384 form to work out the amount of Customs Duty and VAT liable 

 

As a rough guide expect to shell out 10 per cent in Import Duty for non-EU manufactured cars and 20 per cent for VAT. It’s complicated to work out but there’s a handy calculator here: http://www.dutycalculator.com/ 

 

• Notify HRMC and organise an MOT
• Register the vehicle with DVLA 

 

We love classic cars at t.ward shipping – and we’d love to talk to you about importing your latest purchase. Let our friendly team guide you through the red tape and help you enjoy your lovely classic car stress-free.

Hunterston Port Ships Agency Services

Hunterston is a Scottish deep water terminal which focuses primarily on coal imports. The port has a pretty impressive ten per cent of this market and so it’s the largest in the UK by volume. The port continues to handle increasing amounts of coal, and the total coal tonnage handled has risen from 1.1m in 1996 to 4.9m in 2001.

This bulk terminal deep water port is one of the ports used by t ward shipping, who are pleased to offer their ranges of ship agency services to anyone wishing to use this important port. Hunterston has long been considered to be one of the most important ports in Scotland, if not Western Europe. It’s located on Scotland’s west coast and with a jetty head that extends into 26m of water; the outer berth is capable of discharging the largest cape size vessels.

The inner berth can accommodate vessels of up to 95,000 dwt, ready to be out loaded or transhipped to markets in the UK, Ireland and Europe. Hunterston is of course primarily known and used for shipping coal, and the coal discharging rates at the port are in fact the fastest in the whole of the UK, with up to 50,000 tonnes of coal SHINC.

There is a dedicated twin head automated rail loading station at Hunterston which offers its users environmentally friendly and cost effective transportation for their imported product. The site also has a lower rail vehicle loading area where haulage has easy access to the national motorway networked.

The History of Hunterston

The original Hunterston Ore Terminal was one of the finest deep water ore/coal terminals in the world when it was built in the 1970s. It was built between 1974 and 1979 to supply the then British Steel Corporation's Scottish works, and was important enough to have a direct rail link to the Ravenscraig Steelworks in Motherwell which was around 40 miles away.

Even though t ward shipping is based right over on the east coast of Scotland, we still look after a vessel based in Hunterston. We even have a dedicated agent who stays locally in a hotel when needed to make sure that we provide a complete 24 hour agency service.

For all of advice on ships agency, Hunterston or any other ports, give us a call and we’ll be delighted to discuss your needs.

T Ward Review of 2015

Well, we’ve come to the end of another year, and it’s time to look back over all we’ve achieved in 2015. We’re happy to report that things are looking good for t ward shipping; our forwarding work is certainly in demand as we’re up 25 per cent compared to 2014 and  an amazing 50 per cent compared to 2013!

We’ve certainly been busy, and had the pleasure of working with some interesting companies and organisations. In January we worked with Stretch Tent Scotland, assisting them with a shipment of specialist tents from Cape Town, and using our expertise to help them avoid large fees for importing. We’ve admired the products imported by Dumfries based firm Second Nature, who we helped to bring beautiful rugs from exotic countries like India and Morocco. They were very excited as they
watched their shipments sailing all the way across to Scotland.

We’ve worked with The Turing Trust a couple of times in 2015 and hope to continue working with them, as they are such a worthy cause. The charity, which supplies IT and other equipment to disadvantaged communities in countries like Ghana, has asked us to help them transport shipments of containers full of items donated by kind Scottish people, and we’ve been happy to get involved.

Other interesting charity projects we have worked with in 2015 include Edinburgh Direct Aid- a charity involved with sending supplies to Syrian refugees and the International Fire and Rescue Charity who supply equipment to Paraguay, Mexico and Bosnia (among many other places).

We were also pleased to work with award-winning chocolatiers The Chocolate Tree when they needed to import special confectionery making machinery from Italy.

So, t ward goes from strength to strength, helping businesses with their shipping needs, and while the business is expanding, we also have news of a more personal delivery;  the Hamilton family are due for a new arrival in mid-January with their second baby due on 13th.

Merry Christmas to all our customers, old and new, and we wish you a happy, healthy and successful
2016.

The versatility of railway sleepers

It’s the time of year when people start to think about protecting their land and gardens against the ravages of the winter weather, and here at t.ward shipping we have just the thing to help; second hand railway sleepers.

Railway sleepers make a really good and highly economical building material with the benefit of being environmentally friendly too. Some farmers use them to make tracks across fields in the winter, as they can be really useful for preventing hoof damage to stone farm tracks as the herds are moved.

Other uses for sleepers include event entrance areas in grassy fields, retaining walls, flooring in barns, or to build foot bridges over ditches.

How to build a retaining wall from upright railway sleepers.

If you want to make use of our railway sleepers in your own garden, one very popular way of making the most of them is to build a retaining wall. You can use them horizontally or vertically but the advantage of using them vertically is that you can be more creative; you can make the wall taller in some places and you can create a curved wall rather than being restricted to straight lines.

All you need to do is dig your trench and then lower the sleepers in side by side. The depth of the trench depends on the height of the wall, and the pressure of the earth or material inside. As a ballpark, aim for a third in the ground, and two thirds out, so for example if the wall was a metre high, the railway sleepers should be in about 0.3m.

Once they are all in place you can backfill with a dry concrete mix around the railway sleepers until the wall is rigid.

Using a dry cement mix gives you the opportunity to remove and re-position the railway sleepers without getting sloppy wet concrete everywhere, and especially in winter when the ground’s wet, the concrete will set without having to add water.

For a classy look you can lengths of wood, metal strips or wire to the back of the wall, which also strengthens the sleeper wall.

If you’re planning some winter garden work, and would like to find out more about our selection of railway sleepers, contact one of our helpful team for advice. We have just taken delivery of 350 sleepers so we can help with large or small projects alike.