Contractor takes to river to beat London traffic

Walsh & Sons, a U.K. construction and recycling company with a fleet of 60 trucks, is planning to beat road congestion by switching to river transportation. Last week, as part of that strategy, Walsh took delivery of the Damen Stan Tug 1205 SWS Essex from Damen Shipyards.

Walsh specializes in civil engineering, demolition, disposal of materials, environmental projects and Thames River dredging projects. Walsh offers services, that includes soil washing, aggregates recycling and waste transfer.

The SWS Essex is the first newbuild tug the company has ever purchased.

As traffic in London has increased, so have the constraints on efficient logistics faced daily by vehicle operators and construction projects alike. For this reason Walsh has been looking at the River Thames to help ease this problem. Thus far, it has transported over 100,000 cu.m of material from the Docklands Light Rail Woolwich Arsenal tunnel extension project via barge to its East Tilbury site.

The Stan Tug 1205 will play an important part in increasing this volume.

March 22, 2012