The Eurasian railway operator Far East Land Bridge is pioneering new territory this fall by expanding their services to Italy. A new route between Milan and China has recently been established by the company. Also, a new office has been created in Milan for continued excellence in service.
The initial test shipments of containers from Milan to China began earlier this year and have been successfully transported with a transit time of less than 20 days. This establishes a weekly service between China and Milan with options for transport to CIS and STAN countries as well.
FELB’s aim is to develop the railway connection between Asia and Italy, offering a reliable connection to/from Asia (China, S. Korea and Japan). Using their own private container fleet and reliable relationships with Russia and connecting CIS/STAN countries, they can ensure a consistent service for their clients. Furthermore, a project transportation (oversized cargo) option will ensure a wide service portfolio primarily based on railway services.
The new office in Milan is operated by employees fluent in Italian and familiar with the local business and economy. This allows FELB to offer a helpful and specialized service for current clients and build relationships with new ones.
“Our day-to-day ambition is consistently that of meeting Chinese and European companies’ demand for land route transportations with minimal delivery times,” states FELB CEO Mr. Thomas Kargl. His business has made enormous strides in reducing the duration of travel, slashing the transit times on its terminal-to-terminal service between Asia and Europe from an average 26 days in 2010, down to just 14 days since 2014 (with plans to drive that down to a remarkable 10 days in the not-too-distant future).
As part of the Italy connection, FELB is working on a direct railing option to link the Małaszewicze /Brest border and Milan in less than 2 days transit time. Currently FELB uses a rail and truck combination to cover this distance. However, this future option will significantly reduce transit time and benefit FELB’s Italian clients immensely.
An agreement with RZDL/RZD Logistics (a shareholder in the company) allows FELB’s containers to transit over the wide gauge sector (Russia, Belarus and Ukraine) with minimal internal stoppages and custom checks, and no diversions – the complications that made the land bridge route impractical. “In addition, our clients can track their containers along the entire route, as the container location is electronically monitored – that is, via RFID-Monitoring – at 37 points,” informs Thomas Kargl.
