L4 Logistics | Transport Shipping and Logistics News

          The container train technology is an absolute advantage of Russian Railways today. These trains can reduce container delivery time along International Euro-Asian routes at least by one third comparing to alternative sea routes. The essence of the technology is the organisation of a special timetable for the train travel along the railway network and the implementation of simplified customs procedures.          Container trains are mainly organised on export and transit routes (those make almost 83% of all container trains). During five months of 2005 1,576 container trains have travelled along Russian railway network transporting 141 thousand 20-foot containers.          The competitiveness of this technology on the world market is further verified by the agreement signed in late June by Russian and Finnish railways on organising the Northern Lights container train on Finland-Moscow-Finland route. A large European terminal Kouvola will be used. There have already been organised three container trains travelling between the countries; during five months of this year they have transported 66 thousand 20-foot containers.          Such agreements and economic figures are real indicators of the competitiveness of Russian container business as a whole on the foreign market. Russian Railways’ subsidiary TransContainer develops this business in cooperation with Russian forwarders, the cooperation being not limited solely to coordinating transport plans. At present, TransContainer together with forwarding agencies develop new schemes of utilising general use platform and container fleet, making new container routes, prepare proposals for regulatory basis of the business, and cooperate at the level of branch organisations. An example of successful cooperation with a private forwarding agency is the organisation in May 2003 of the Baltica-Transit container train 2003 (Kaliningrad-Lithuania-Latvia-Russia-Kazakhstan). During 5 months of 2005 the train has transported 2,233 20-foot containers, which is almost twice as much as during the same period last year.          Another important point was the organisation of a train from Muuga to Moscow this May in the framework of a joint project of Russian and Estonian railways for increasing transit traffic between Europe and Asian-Pacific region. It has been planned to extend this route along Russian territory to Nakhodka station. This requires reaching a final agreement with the Estonian party on the conditions of common usage of Russian rolling stock. (Source: RZD)