Rail Cargo Operator establishing railway corridor to Iran
Together with the shipping company U.N. Ro-Ro and the cargo division of the Turkish state railway TCDD, Rail Cargo Operator (RCO) is making the final preparations to establish a regular intermodal link between Wels and Iran’s capital Tehran. The first departure will be this autumn, operated with a block train for craneable trailers and pallet-wide 45-foot containers. According to RCO Austria’s Managing Directors Max Kindler and Tufan Khalaji there is sufficient demand.
The new Wels-Teheran shuttle will cover the first section of its journey as a block train on the rail from Upper Austria to the port of Trieste. There the shipments continue their journey with the ferry services of the U.N. Ro-Ro shipping company to their destination Mersin, in the south-east of Turkey. Afterwards a team of TCDD forms a new block train for the destination Tehran. This 1.900-kilometer “final stage” is based on a cooperation between TCDD and the Iranian railway company RAI.
The declared objective of the initiators of the intermodal rail service from Wels to Teheran, is to shift a huge amount of goods from road to rail. “There has never been a transport service like this,” say Max Kindler and Tufan Khalaji, and stress on the average transit time of 10 to 12 days. Moreover they invited all potential customers from the sector of hauliers and logistics providers to make use of this service as early as possible, to ensure a successful start.
