This week’s round-up of business news from the global rail freight market.
CRRC Dalian has delivered an independently-developed FXN3B battery-diesel shunting locomotive to Jinggu Railway. The supplier said it is the first hybrid shunting locomotive introduced by a non-China Railway operator in Beijing, and the replacement of an older diesel loco provides a replicable model for the green upgrading of the existing railways nationwide.
On April 23 Nurminen Logistics announced that its North Rail subsidiary was initiating change negotiations which could lead to job losses. It said the aim was to reorganise work so that the company’s various functions can be performed as efficiently and profitably as possible, targeting €700 000 in annual savings ‘to ensure the company’s competitiveness and investment ability in a changing market environment’.
Tracklaying has begun on a 6·7 km rail link to the Outer Port of A Coruña which is being built by high speed infrastructure manager ADIF AV with works supervised by Ineco. The freight-only line, which is scheduled to be completed this year along with associated enhancements to the port’s internal rail network, will allow solid and liquid bulk traffic to be transferred from the inner to the outer port, while increasing freight capacity and facilitating the entry of new operators.
United Wagon Co’s Turkmenistan branch has signed an agreement for the Turkmenabat depot to service its wagons and to supply spare parts for maintenance work. There are plans for an official service centre UWC to be opened at the site.
Türasaş is manufacturing 41 Zacens fuel tank wagons for Turkey’s Ministry of Defence.
RM Rail has delivered the first batch of 100 tank wagons from 500 ordered by agricultural holding company Rusagro. They have a capacity of 69 tonnes with an axleload of 23·5 tonnes.
European Loc Pool’s Stadler Eurodual locomotives are now approved for operation in Slovenia and Croatia as well as previously-approved Serbia, enabling use on pan‑European Corridor X linking central Europe with the Balkan region towards Turkey. Stadler said the electro-diesel design is well suited to regions with mixed infrastructure where electrification typically ranges between 40% and 50% of network coverage.
Polish company Laude Smart Intermodal is now transporting containerised freight on the 1 435 mm gauge line into Lithuanian in co-operation with local operator LTG Cargo. ‘Our containers will become increasingly frequent guests on Lithuanian tracks’, said CEO Marcin Witczak. ‘This is an excellent example of cross-border co-operation showing that rail is – and should be – the backbone of the logistics system, where combining road and rail transport allows us to fully leverage the strengths of both modes.’
Azerbaijan’s ADY has launched a service for tracking containers in international traffic, with information on the location of transit, export or import cargo at any stage of transport available in real time. It is currently operational in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, with plans to extend coverage to other countries in the Middle Corridor.