DB Cargo UK

On 10 July 1996, in accordance with the new branding, the holding company's name was changed to English, Welsh & Scottish Railway Holdings Limited. In October 1996, Loadhaul and Mainline Freight were merged with Transrail Freight, and employees transferred to Transrail Freight, which was then renamed to English, Welsh & Scottish Railway Limited.

One of the first actions of the enlarged company was to seek volunteers for redundancy, as it sought to reduce staff numbers by around 3,000, from 7,600.

On 24 December 1996, EWS was announced as the preferred bidder for the loss-making Railfreight Distribution, for which it received grants and subsidies estimated to amount to £242 million over eight years. including subsidies for the use of the Channel Tunnel. Railfreight Distribution's businesses included international containerised freight, movement of cars and automotive components by rail, and freight services for the Ministry of Defence. The sale, which included 157 locomotives, was concluded on 12 March 1997. At this point, EWS controlled 90% of the rail freight market. Railfreight Distribution was renamed English Welsh & Scottish Railway International on 1 December 1998.

The new company had a vast portfolio, comprising in excess of 900 locomotives, 19,000 freight wagons, and 7,000 employees. Track access charges were renegotiated and, following 1,800 job redundancies, the work force was involved in profit sharing and other incentivised working plans; as a consequence, shipping rates were reduced by over 30%. Many locomotives inherited on foundation were considered unreliable, and expensive to maintain; the company invested heavily in modernisation of its rolling stock; by 2002, £750 million had been invested in this manner, resulting in the delivery of 280 new locomotives and in excess of 2,000 new wagons.

Around this time, the company was represented by a logo that was colloquially known as the "Beasties", consisting of three heads: the lion of England, the dragon of Wales and the stag of Scotland. A larger version of the logo was called the "Big Beasties".

Services included mail, locomotive hire, wagonload traffic (branded 'Enterprise', founded by Transrail Freight), cross channel trains via the Channel Tunnel, trainload freight including oil, aggregates, cement and traffic related to the coal, electricity generation and steel industries, and infrastructure trains for Railtrack. Following privatisation EWS began to compete for Intermodal contracts, while it faced competition from Freightliner in its core markets. In 1999, the company's turnover was £533.7 million, representing an 80% market share in terms of value.

On 1 April 1998, open access operator National Power's rail division was taken over by EWS, along with its six Class 59 locomotives and 106 wagons.

During late January 2001, the Canadian National Railway announced it had agreed to purchase Wisconsin Central. The deal, which included Wisconsin Central's 42.5% stake in EWS, was concluded in October 2001.

During 2003, the Royal Mail terminated its mail train contract with EWS; this traffic was transferred to aircraft and road transport instead. EWS acquired the assets of wagon bogie company Probotec Limited in 2005. It was formed into a new subsidiary, Axiom Rail, that also took over responsibility for some of the depots, and leasing surplus locomotives overseas.

During October 2005, the company launched a new subsidiary, which traded as Euro Cargo Rail, based in the French market. Several Class 66 locomotives were transferred from EWS to Euro Cargo Rail.

In November 2005, EWS acquired the wagon maintenance business Marcroft. Due to the potential of the acquisition to reduce competition in the UK wagon repair market, the acquisition was referred to the Competition Commission by the Office of Fair Trading, which required EWS to sell all or part of the business, excluding Marcroft's works at Stoke on Trent, which were incorporated into Axiom.

By 2006, company turnover was reportedly approaching £1 billion. In 2006, the Office of Rail Regulation fined EWS £4.1 million for engaging in anti-competitive practices in the coal haulage business; at the time, the company held a virtual monopoly on such traffic, and its practices had led to official complaints from both Enron and Freightliner Heavy Haul in the early 2000s.

DB Cargo UK

On 28 June 2007, Deutsche Bahn announced it had agreed to purchase EWS, subject to receiving regulatory approval, in exchange for £309 million. At the time of the acquisition, EWS had a market share of around 70% in the United Kingdom rail freight sector and had around 5,000 employees. After the transaction was approved by the European Commissioner for Competition, the transaction was completed on 13 November 2007.

At the time of the sale, it was announced that EWS would not be rebranded, however, on 1 January 2009, EWS was rebranded as DB Schenker along with Deutsche Bahn's Railion and DB Schenker divisions.

The first locomotive painted in DB Schenker livery was Class 59 59206 at Toton Depot in January 2009, being formally unveiled at the National Railway Museum, York on 21 January 2009.

During 2009, DB Schenker Rail began work to enable Class 92 hauled trains to operate freight services on the High Speed 1 by installing in cab TVM signalling. The project received funding from the European Commission and it was originally anticipated services would begin in early 2010. On 25 March 2011, a modified Class 92 locomotive travelled from Dollands Moor to Singlewell using the TVM430 signalling system for the first time. The first of five planned test trains ran as a loaded container train from Hams Hall, West Midlands to Novara, Italy on 27 May 2011. DB planned to upgrade an additional five Class 92 locomotives to allow them to run on High Speed 1, making a fleet of six.

In July 2011, a trial run of wagons carrying curtain walled swap bodies built to a larger European loading gauge was run from Dollands Moor, Folkestone to east London. From 11 November 2011, a weekly service using European sized swap bodies has run between Barking, London and Wroclaw, Poland using High Speed 1.

On 2 March 2016, DB Schenker was rebranded as DB Cargo UK. On 17 October 2016, new DB Cargo UK CEO Hans-Georg Werner announced plans to cut 893 jobs in a bid to counter 'unprecedented' market changes, these being a combination of factors, including changes in the British Government's energy policy that had resulted in the early closure of coal-fired power stations, hence DB Cargo UK ran 78% fewer coal trains compared to 2015, while UK steel volumes were also dropping as the industry had been impacted by high energy prices; this resulted in DB Cargo UK running 33% fewer steel trains from 2015. However, Werner recognised that "overall UK steel demand remains stable".

During 2017, DB Cargo UK announced an after-tax loss for the financial year of £57 million against a turnover of £325 million.

Maritime Intermodal

In early 2019, DB Cargo signed an agreement with Maritime Transport Ltd to create a new rail freight operation called Maritime Intermodal. From 1 April 2019, Maritime took over the running of DB's freight terminals at Trafford Park (Manchester), Birmingham (Birch Coppice) and Wakefield Europort. Seven British Rail Class 66 locomotives have been repainted in blue Maritime livery and named:

66005 Maritime Intermodal One

66047 Maritime Intermodal Two

66142 Maritime Intermodal Three

66051 Maritime Intermodal Four

66162 Maritime Intermodal Five

66090 Maritime Intermodal Six

66148 Maritime Intermodal Seven

It is expected that up to ten locomotives will receive the blue livery.

During September 2010, twenty Class 60s were offered for disposal by DB Schenker. Many marked for disposal had sustained catastrophic failures or were otherwise in a poor condition. During November 2010, the firm announced that a batch of 20 Class 60s would be overhauled. According to Rail Magazine, rumours that DB Schenker was interested in replacing the Class 60's engines were prevalent around this time. In January 2011, DB Schenker announced that seven units would undergo overhauls, along with an option to overhaul a further fourteen members of the class; this work reportedly extended the fleet's operational life by 15 years. During January 2013, the overhaul programme was described as an "upgrade" that created a new fleet of "Super 60's". The programme involved the complete overhaul, but not total replacement, of the locomotive's engine, as well as the refurbishment of various elements, including the traction motors, bogies, control gear, cabs, and electrical systems.

In 2018, DB Cargo sold ten Class 66 locomotives to GBRf for an undisclosed sum, comprising eight stored and two active locomotives many with significant engine defects. In 2019, it also sold all of its 59/2 fleet to Freightliner following the latter's takeover of the Mendip stone traffic. DB Cargo also sold five Class 60s to private sales/metal recyclers.

In 2023 in response to the UK Energy crisis DB Cargo UK's current managing director Andrea Rossi announced intentions to withdraw all of their Class 90s with the intention to sell or scrap the locomotives with Rossi stating that the running of electric hauled traction was no longer economically viable, the company instead decided that electric hauled traction would be replaced by diesel traction such as the Class 66 locomotive. The company also stated that they will pledge for further research and implementation of alternative EVO based fuels to meet their climate targets. In September 2023 12 Class 90s were offered for sale on DB's website; the locomotives listed were; 90017, 90018, 90022, 90023, 90025, 90027, 90030, 90031, 90032, 90033, 90038 and 90040.

Carriages and wagons

As well as an extensive fleet of freight wagons, DB Schenker Rail operate a small fleet of Mark 2 and Mark 3 carriages, some of the latter form the DB Cargo Company Train.

Depots

DB Cargo's primary maintenance depot is Toton. The electric fleet is maintained at Crewe. With a modern fleet requiring less maintenance, many of the depots EWS inherited have closed. Some of its other facilities including Bristol Barton Hill, Cambridge, Eastleigh and Newcastle were transferred to fellow Deutsche Bahn subsidiary LNWR (now Arriva TrainCare).

During 2001, EWS commenced a contract to service Virgin CrossCountry's Class 220/221 fleets at Bristol Barton Hill, Eastleigh, Newcastle, Old Oak Common and Three Bridges.

Passenger locomotive haulage

Since its inception, EWS had provided locomotives for the Caledonian Sleeper. It inherited the contract from Rail Express Systems to provide Class 37 and 47s north of Edinburgh Waverley. During March 1998, it also began hauling the services south from Edinburgh Waverley and Glasgow Central to London Euston with Class 90s. Class 67s replaced the Class 37s and 47s in the early 2000s. This contract was taken over by GBRf in March 2015.

During April 2003, EWS purchased the Rail Charter Services business from William McAlpine along with its 70 Mark 1 carriages.

By October 2014, EWS Class 67s had started hauling passenger services on behalf of Arriva Trains Wales, Chiltern Railways and First ScotRail. Class 67s are also used as Thunderbird rescue locomotives for London North Eastern Railway. EWS also provides locomotives for the Venice-Simplon Orient Express.

EWS have previously hauled passenger trains for Anglia Railways, Arriva Trains Northern, First Great Western First North Western, National Express East Anglia, Valley Lines, Virgin CrossCountry Virgin West Coast and Wrexham & Shropshire.

Since its inception, EWS has held the contract to operate the Royal Train. Initially, two Class 47s were dedicated to this work; these were replaced in 2004 by a pair of Class 67s.

From September 2016, Virgin Trains East Coast hired class 90 locomotives from DB Cargo for use on services to Leeds, York and Newcastle. Locomotives used have varied as demand required.

Liveries

During April 1996, EWS adopted a maroon and yellow livery. Initial repaints carried EW&S lettering, however, this was simplified to EWS in January 1997. In January 2009, the DB Schenker corporate red livery was adopted. A few locomotives have been repainted in other liveries including Class 90s in GNER, First ScotRail and Direct Rail Services liveries, and Class 67s in Royal Train, Wrexham & Shropshire and unbranded Arriva Trains Wales liveries.

Steam operations

Alongside DB Cargo's regular operations, a number of steam charters are operated in the UK by steam locomotives on DB Cargo's operating licence.