United Transport and Logistics Company – Eurasian Rail Alliance (UTLC ERA) has sent the first container train on the Luxembourg – Chengdu route, switching from the narrow to the wide track gauge at Malaszewicze station in Poland. The new route will be used for container trains on a regular basis starting from the second quarter of 2019.
The container train left Luxembourg on April 5 and it is expected to take 10 days to reach Kazakhstan-China border.
The train consists of 41 40-foot shipping containers with wine, textiles and general cargo.
The section of the route running through the EU is operated by Belintertrans and the part of the route running on the 1520 mm gauge is operated by UTLC ERA.
“Sending a train operated by UTLC ERA from Luxembourg to China is very important for us as this is compelling evidence that countries which are relatively small players in the shipping industry are joining traditional ‘heavyweights’ in using our rail transit services. We expect that it will be a route in high demand with good growth dynamics by the second half of the year,” UTLC ERA President, Alexey Grom, said.
In 2018 UTLC ERA introduced six additional routes increasing their total number to 57. The company’s services are used by shippers from 16 new cities in China and the European Union.
The volume of container rail transit on China – Europe – China routes reached 350 thousand TEU in 2018, an increase of 35% compared to the previous year.
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