The railway company TX Logistik AG (TXL) is currently examining possibilities for a new intermodal connection from Oradea in Romania to Germany to the Rhine-Ruhr area. During a presentation event with around 100 participants in the terminal of Oradea near the Hungarian border, initial talks were held with representatives from freight forwarding and logistics as well as other Romanian business sectors.
“We still see significant growth opportunities for intermodal transport on the West-East axis,” says Berit Börke, Chief Sales Officer (CSO) of TX Logistik. “Especially Romania is a market with potential for new connections to Western Europe.”
Since the spring of 2018, the railway logistics company operates a connection as an open train system with five round trips per week between Cologne and the Romanian Curtici. On the route predominantly megatrailers are transported.
In Oradea, the NiKRASA cargo handling system, which allows non-cranable semi-trailers to be loaded onto the rail by means of a positioning aid and a loading adapter, met with great interest among the participants. “We currently have about 150 NiKRASA adapters in use across various routes throughout Europe,” said Stefano Noseda, Regional Director Italy & Southern Europe Sales, TX Logistics. There are hardly any craneable trailers in Eastern Europe on the road.
In the Intermodal Vest terminal in Oradea, participants could see for themselves how easy it is to use the roadrailLink (r2L) adapter system to put even light commercial vehicles on the rails. The system, which transforms a standard pocket wagon into a car transport wagon, is a load carrier developed by Vegatrans and KässbohrerTransportTechnik, which is constructed with mobile and adjustable ramps and can which be easily loaded into any rail terminal with a reachstacker or a terminal crane.
A complete train with 16 double-pocket wagons can be fitted with 96 vans, 64 trucks or 32 semitrailers – mixed versions are also possible. Berit Börke: “The mixed cargo makes a very flexible design possible. You are not tied to a wagon type, but you can change easily within a train composition. This opens up completely new possibilities for combining train systems.”
