The move is being assisted by a £435,000 grant that will help buy 90 containers to transport goods between terminals at Daventry in the Midlands and Coatbridge in Lanarkshire. The containers can be transferred from trains to lorries.

It comes a year after The Scotsman revealed that Britain's biggest supermarket chain had launched a trial of transferring supplies to its Inverness stores to rail, sharing a service used to supply Safeway stores.

However, Morrisons, which took over Safeway, has scrapped the Highland rail supply service. It said its subsequent sale of several stores in the north made the trains unviable.

Eddie Stobart, a haulage firm, will receive £235,000 from the Department for Transport and £200,000 from the Scottish Executive for the cross-Border project to encourage more freight to be carried by rail.