New rail connection between Romania and Sweden

The two companies have announced plans to link their multimodal transport networks from 1 January 2017, this will hope to lower emissions output in both countries.

Until now, shippers wanting to transport shipments between the two regions have had little choice but to use road haulage, running the risk of road congestion, delays and unpredictable delivery times”, said Frank Gielen, rail development manager at Samskip Van Dieren Multimodal.

He added: “The rail connection offers shippers a more reliable alternative, as well as achieving substantially lower emissions per unit load.”

It effectively joins two existing, fully operational routes to form the first unified rail connection between the East European nation and Scandinavia, taking advantage of Samskip’s state-of-the-art railway hub in Germany.

The multimodal freight service will offer competitive transit times compared to road, allowing shippers to transport cargo from Curtici to Stockholm in four to five working days.

Initially the Duisburg – Curtici shuttle has a scheduled four round trips per week but both partners believe that the new route will stimulate an increased flow of goods between the two regions.

Shippers will benefit from a seamless terminal-to-terminal service, with a single Samskip point of contact dealing with the entire transit across the rail network via the Duisburg hub.

Max Kindler, business unit manager at the Rail Cargo Group Intermodal, said: “Rail Cargo Group is delighted to enter into this broad cooperation with Samskip Van Dieren, as the two companies will be the first to offer an end-to-end connection between Turkey and Scandinavia, combining Rail Cargo Group connections between Turkey and Romania, and Romania and Germany, with Samskip’s network from Duisburg to various destinations in Scandinavia.”

He concluded: “The new offer to the market comes in high frequency, in very competitive transit times and at attractive price levels.”