DACHSER keeps moving rail freight via the middle corridor
Despite the Russia-Ukraine conflict, DACHSER keeps connecting China and Europe by its railway services via an alternative route – the middle corridor. Since the end of May 2022, the logistics provider has been organizing a train connection on the Xi’an-Budapest route with at least one departure per week.
Due to the military event in Ukraine, DACHSER had discontinued the rail services it used to offer on two train routes, the north and west corridors, since early March.
“We take into consideration about customers’ concerns from the perspective of transportation security as well as economic sanctions laws and regulations upon the shipment via Russia and Belarus. We hereby promote this service to eliminate such doubts and to maintain customers’ supply chain operations,” said Brian Jiang, Department Head Railway Services China at DACHSER.
In order to respond to customers’ demands, the logistics provider has been offering a rail connection through Central Asia, along the Middle Corridor: starting in China, the train first arrives at Aktau in Kazakhstan, then cross the Caspian Sea to Baku, Azerbaijan, after that the train overgoes Azerbaijan and Georgia. When reaching Batumi, Georgia, the containers will be reloaded and cross the Black Sea by ship to Constanța, Romania, before finally arriving in Budapest, Hungary. From there, the containers are transported by connecting trains to further hinterland terminals such as Krems, Małaszewicze, Duisburg and more destinations. From the originating terminal in China to the destination terminal, the trains normally take 45 to 55 days.
Reliable alternative
“With this route, we can replace the rail connections along the New Silk Road through Russia and Belarus and continue to offer our customers a reliable, environmentally friendly multimodal service,” says Vedat Serbet, Rail Services Manager EMEA at DACHSER. Especially in these challenging times, with companies still struggling with capacity bottlenecks, transport by rail is an additional alternative to sea and air freight.
From Xi’an in China, trains run once a week to Europe. All containers are equipped with smart sensors with LBS (Location-based service) and temperature monitoring on a 24/7 basis from origins to destinations.