Rail Cargo Group boosts its intermodal service toTurkey

Bombardier pioneer locomotive on its first trip across across the Rumanian Carpathian Mountains in own traction; this means a significantly reduced transport time for Rail Cargo Group

Bombardier Transportation, global market leader in rail technology, and Rail Cargo Group, ÖBB’s freight division, have successfully completed a 4000-kilometer test run of a Bombardier Traxx AC Last Mile locomotive, pulling a cargo train of the Rail Cargo Group across Southeastern Europe. The test run saw a Bombardier Traxx AC Last Mile locomotive pull a RCG freight train from Sopron, on the Austrian-Hungarian border through Romania and Bulgaria to Istanbul, Turkey (Tekirdag) and back.

The trip followed a long distance intermodal route built by Rail Cargo Group to transport various goods between the German Ruhr area to the city of Tekirdag at the Black Sea in Turkey. Currently this route has four departures per week with seven per week beginning in January 2015.

The journey was a first for both Bombardier Traxx AC Last Mile-Lok and the RCG train, but also an unprecedented achievement for this particular train configuration. On the test run, the single locomotive pulled the 534-meter long, 1200-tonnes freight train across Romania’s Carpathian Mountains. This rugged terrain typically requires the train to have two locomotives.

Earlier in the test run, an electrical failure along a 20-kilometer section of track provided another challenge. Here, the locomotive demonstrated its superior performance by crossing this non-electrified stretch using its Last Mile feature – avoiding a five-hour delay. The innovative Last Mile feature, a combination of an auxiliary diesel engine and battery, enables the locomotive to operate at full power for up to eight hours. The locomotive’s ability to run on non-electrified route sections for extended periods eliminates the need for additional shunting locomotives in container terminals, ports or side tracks to factories. Furthermore, while in Last Mile mode, the locomotive is still capable of pulling equally heavy loads just as when under catenary wire power.

Commenting on the interplay between the train and the Traxx AC Last Mile locomotive, Georg Kasperkovitz, Member of the Board of Rail Cargo Group, said, “Competitive rail freight traffic requires innovative solutions for customers and cost-efficient, reliable and steady production. To best meet these demands, Rail Cargo Group promotes and invests in new, modern technologies. Hence it has been a great concern to us to also test the new locomotive of Bombardier. The endurance test also included some very difficult conditions.”

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Quelle: LogEastics
Portal: www.logistik-express.com