Rail Cargo Group continues to expand into the Far East
The Rail Cargo Group (RCG) – Freight Transport Division of ÖBB – is consistently pursuing its strategy of internationalization. With the first train connection from Taiyuan (Shanxi province in China) to Lugo (Ravenna province in Italy), another chapter was opened as part of the expansion campaign.
On behalf of China Railway Container Transportation Corp. Ltd. (CRCT) – a subsidiary of the Chinese Railways – Rail Cargo Operator handled the approximately 10,400-kilometer transport of a total of 41 containers by rail, transporting goods from the automotive industry amongst others. After the container train had started in China, the route led to Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland, the Czech Republic and Austria and ended at the terminal in Lugo, Italy. Subsequently, RCO organized the truck delivery to the various plant sites in close cooperation with the Lugo terminal.
In addition to the premiere of the transport from China to Italy, a train currently runs from Changsha (China) to Budapest (Hungary) every week, whereby the trains traveling from Dobra (Slovakia) to Budapest run with RCG’s own traction stock. In the future, the route via Kaliningrad will also play an important role for traffic between China and Europe. The RCG currently operates five trains a week between Kaliningrad and Slovakia and the RCG will use Kaliningrad as a HUB for the China and CIS traffic.
With the growing supply of railway logistics services to the Far East and Central Asia, the Rail Cargo Group underpins the strategy of internationalization across European borders. Two trains per month are currently traveling from Slovakia to Kazakhstan. In addition, from 2018, a train will be established from Germany to Iran – the first test train for that route will start in autumn 2017.