Bruce Barnard | Jul 14, 2010 10:18AM EDT
Deutsche Bahn said its recently launched rail container service between Duisburg, Germany, and Moscow has proved a success with shippers.
The weekly “Moscovite” service, which began a month ago, “passed the test run with flying colors,” said Karl-Fried Rausch, member of the Management Board of DB Mobility Logistics, the freight arm of Germany’s state railway company.
“We have seen an increase in customer demand for logistics services on this route,” he said.
“We are the first company to offer a scheduled direct container train from central Germany to the Russian capital.”
The service, which takes seven days to cover roughly 1,375 miles, is operated by Trans Eurasia Logistics, a joint venture founded in 2008 by Deutsche Bahn and Russian Railways which each have a 30 percent share.
The remaining shares are held by Polzug, the Polish railway company, Kombiverkehr, the German multimodal transport group, and TransContainer, Russia’s second largest rail container operator.
The freight transported on the first trains included chemical products and electronics goods.
The Muscovite service features train monitoring along the entire route, container handling at the departure and arrival terminals, pre-carriage and onward carriage service and container provision.
The containers are transferred onto the Russian broad gauge rail track at Brest, on the Polish-Belarusian border.
-- Contact Bruce Barnard at brucebarnard47@hotmail.com.
