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Freight Train Event

Peking-Express reaches Hamburg

Prelude of a Mega Project: With great fuss, a test container train from Peking arrived at Hamburg (Germany) today. A symbolic act for the German Railways because until 2010, the DB plans to establish rail cargo service between Europe and Asia in large style.


Hamburg - After a 15 days non-stop journey, the Peking-Hamburg container express arrived at the Hanseatic City. The 700 meter long test train reached the freight station Süderelbe after travelling some 10,000 kilometers during the last two weeks. In the harbours of Hamburg, fireworks are welcoming the train, onlookers are craning their necks and the press is pushing and shoving: DB´s CEO Hartmut Mehdorn is welcoming the train in a most effective way.

"This is a product of the future", says Mehdorn. With this project, the DB wanted to prove that freight transport by rail between Europe and Asia would be an economic option. According to Mehdorn, the DB is planning a regular freight connection with Asia using one train per day each direction.


http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,1076817,00.jpg

According to the DB, transport by rail is two times faster than by ship, needing 34 days at the time being. With regards to cost, transport by rail is said to be half way between transport by air and sea. Although, the China container train carried just 89 containers, a modern container carrier holds up to 10,000 of them.

Mehdorn plans to carry fast freight for which transport by air would be too expensive, e.g. action ware from the fashion business or electronic components. In addition, the project aims for freight from Western or Northeastern China, for which transport by sea would be too elaborate, with the export harbours being located mainly on China´s South coast.

The Peking-Hamburg container express needed five days less than planned for its journey through China, Mongolia, Russia, Belarus, and Poland to Germany. For regular service, the DB is planning travel times of only 10 days, although transport by rail isn´t that easy: containers have to be reloaded two times because of changing gauge. In addition, locomotives and personnel have to be exchanged as well all the time.

ssu/AP/dpa

transl.: mb; German version: http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1518,530767,00.html

[edit: link refit]

regards
Michael

michael blunck wrote:*snip* After a 15 days non-stop journey *snip*

*snip* containers have to be reloaded two times because of changing gauge *snip*

Hows that non-stop?!


I mean its very impressive that it was done this way, but why say non-stop when it clearly isn't!

Ploes wrote:why say non-stop when it clearly isn't!

Good question, but I was only translating that badly-written article. (Hence I wouldn´t have mentioned Mehdorn in such a way. )

OTOH, I don´t know how re-gauging was done in this case: the Spanish RENFE is practicising re-gauging for their Talgos on-the-fly (though very slow).

But honestly, I doubt that in the case of Russia.

regards
Michael

Quite an achievement...
The passenger trains that change gauges have the bogies removed and replaced with the appropriate gauge bogies. I'm guessing that this would take too long on wagons and that transferring containers on to other wagons along side would be easier since containers don't mind being turfed off a train as much as passengers do...

Is the chinese gauge the "standard" 4'8.5" (1,435 mm) so then they they'd have to change to Russian Gauge and back to Standard? Wasteful... Just regauge the TSR...

michael blunck wrote:

Ploes wrote:why say non-stop when it clearly isn't!

Good question, but I was only translating that badly-written article.

I wasn't accusing you of anything

Just if that really is what the artical says, its such a lie!!

Ameecher wrote:Is the chinese gauge the "standard" 4'8.5" (1,435 mm) so then they they'd have to change to Russian Gauge and back to Standard? Wasteful... Just regauge the TSR...

With Chinas market being the way it is, this is the time to do it!
You would think it would be China trying to run trains to Europe. Not the other way around.

Maybe the Germans don't see "Made In China" the same way A LOT of brits do!

Ameecher wrote:The passenger trains that change gauges have the bogies removed and replaced with the appropriate gauge bogies. I'm guessing that this would take too long on wagons and that transferring containers on to other wagons along side would be easier since containers don't mind being turfed off a train as much as passengers do...

Is the chinese gauge the "standard" 4'8.5" (1,435 mm) so then they they'd have to change to Russian Gauge and back to Standard? Wasteful... Just regauge the TSR...

Yes, you´re right. There´s no re-gauging with container trains, only the containers being exchanged. That´s the trick. (The original article missed that fact and it seems I was translating w/o thinking, doh!)

And yes, China has SG, Mongolia and Russia have 1520mm gauge.

Ploes wrote:You would think it would be China trying to run trains to Europe. Not the other way around.

Maybe the Germans don't see "Made In China" the same way A LOT of brits do!

Well, yes. The DB seems to be preferably acting abroad since a couple of time.

With regards to importing Chinese goods, I don´t think there are much reservations, because Germany exports lots of higher-valued goods to China as well.

regards
Michael

Methinks the non-stop applies to that the containers aren't being held-up at a huge container terminal/yard waiting to be transported. The containers just go from point A (China/Europe) to point B (Europe/China) by train with a little time loss as possible and without changing the contents of the consist.

I could be wrong though...

Oh dear God... What an inspiration for a large OTTD map.

Still, the implications of this tentative first step could be huge. How long before Inter-continental freight trains are thundering throughout all of Europe, and eventually it could lead to better inter-continental passenger services, as gauges and locomotives become more standardised.

Really makes you realise how big the world is though. 15 days travel, almost non-stop, compared with the 6-hour London - Penzance trip that we Brits think is so long!

Thanks Michael for the translation!

stupidestfool wrote:Really makes you realise how big the world is though. 15 days travel, almost non-stop, compared with the 6-hour London - Penzance trip that we Brits think is so long!

Don't know about you but Penzance to London is just slow

At least this is justifiably slow. It's a bloody long way and it's had to go North through Mongolia and then across Russia at no more than 60mph (I believe that is the maximum speed for trains on the Transiberian). And then it'll have been sidelined for passenger trains. But as you say, makes you realise just how HUGE the world really is.

True London-Penzance isn't exactly the epitome of a high speed line!

Ameecher wrote:But as you say, makes you realise just how HUGE the world really is.

Indeed, TTDLX does not do the size of the world justice methinks

Great idea, although a train cannot carry as much as a container ship. Just have to hope that the Russians stay friendly - things are not looking too good in that area at the moment.

Kevo00 wrote:Great idea, although a train cannot carry as much as a container ship. Just have to hope that the Russians stay friendly - things are not looking too good in that area at the moment.

For us, don't forgot we can't even run a regular train* between the mainland and the UK. I suspect the Germans are getting on better with the Russians than us.

As for the container ship arguement, it would take a VERY long time for a container ship to get from China to Europe. It'd require a very long trip via the Sea of Japan, Indian Ocean, Suez Canal, Mediterranean, North Sea and into Germany. That'd take a heck of a lot longer than a daily train (even if each train did take 16 days!) I agree though, volumes would be less probably. Another note on that is that container ships take a very long time to unload (Ships are docked at Felixstowe for a fortnight to unload and load).

*There are only 2 daily freight trains through the channel tunnel.

Relations between Germany and Russia are not as good as they could be as far as I know - ask the Germans how they feel about where their gas supplies come from!

As for container ships - you make it sound as if it is Christopher Colombus stuff for a ship to sail from China to Europe. Well I got news for you - everything you are probably wearing now and a lot of the other stuff you use day to day has er come from China to Europe on a ship. Container ships are constantly circling the globe.

According to Maersk's timetable it takes just inside a month to sail from Yanitan in China to Aarhus in Denmark, and if that is not soon enough for shippers they can get the goods off at Rotterdam after about twenty five days. Volumes absolutely are less by rail (ships can carry thousands of containers at a time), and add the fact that ships pay no track access charges (again this relies on the goodwill of Russia) and only port charges, which are especially low in China where there are fewer port capacity issues.

As for the thing about unloading, I've no idea where that myth comes from, because if you read that timetable no ship stays in port for more than two days, and at most ports of call only one. And infact if you look back at the Maersk timetable, their page for Felixstoe confirms that!

So pretty much the best thing for the train is that it saves ten days and requires no modal change - but it makes no difference if your cargo is non-perishable, so for most shippers sea probably remains the best option.

I stand well and truly corrected then.

Reading up what took 2 weeks to unload was the world's largest cargo ship which was fullen laden and was completely emptied at felixstowe. It took a fortnight to unload and reload (the main issue appeared to be the lack of cranes and places to store the containers).

Some people in my country propably will get terrorized with this. Chinese people are found everywhere selling their cheapo goods and stores are full of their stuff, while many factories in Europe are closing and people remain unemployed. Ah, and yesterday I bought a pair of boots for 8 Euros only (Sales - original price was 19.90). Certainly you can't transport such items from China by train and sell them so cheap. Shipping companies, like Maersk, will continue to thrive.

regards
athanasios

And they copy everything in state-owned companies. Even ski lifts: Click me.

I'm not a patent freak, but they even put the name Doppelmayr on the fake lifts, and customers call the Austrian company to complain.

Kevo00 wrote:Relations between Germany and Russia are not as good as they could be as far as I know - ask the Germans how they feel about where their gas supplies come from!

Maybe

But they still cant be as bad as the UK - Russia goings on at the moment!

Kevo00 wrote:Relations between Germany and Russia are not as good as they could be as far as I know - ask the Germans how they feel about where their gas supplies come from!

Well, I wouldn´t say relations are bad and especially for the railway companies (DB and Russian Railways), relations seem to be quite normal because there have been and there will be a couple of joint projects in the future.

athanasios wrote:Certainly you can't transport such items from China by train and sell them so cheap. Shipping companies, like Maersk, will continue to thrive.

Yes, true. BTW, that was already mentioned in the original article. Shipping cost from China to Europe by a 10,000 container carrier are almost negligible.

OTOH, that´s the interesting point, which I don´t see ATM: where exactly is the market niche the DB is trying to take advantage of?

regards
Michael

michael blunck wrote: OTOH, that´s the interesting point, which I don´t see ATM: where exactly is the market niche the DB is trying to take advantage of?

Maybe orders by small companies or even private package stuff. Some guy from another forum I use, ordered about 20-30 CPU Adapters. Air Mail is quite expensive for that, and waiting for a bit more than a week would be ok.

I think this connection will become faster in future, and then it would be interesting.