News

04.06.2020

UTLC ERA ensures reliable railway service between Eastern China and Paris

On Tuesday 4rd June, SNCF Forwardis (a subsidiary of SNCF, the National company of French Railways) and Cosco group launched the train that follows on the broad gauge track the services of UTLC ERA and connects Jiangxi Province in Eastern China with Paris.

The train composed of 41 TEUs has left the Nanchang Station for 11,920-km journey through 7 countries to deliver anti-epidemic goods including 40 million medical masks and is going to reach Paris in 20 days.

The new route Nanchan-Paris provides the possibility for high-speed railway transportation and passes through the territories of Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus. The transshipment will be carried out at the Dostyk/Alashankou (China/Kazakhstan) and Brest/Malashevice (Belarus/Poland) border crossings.

UTLC ERA provides a full range of container transport on the 1520 mm broad gauge track and coordinates the administrative procedures with the railway administrations of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus. It allows to implement a reliable connection between the railways of China and Europe, including operations for transshipment and formation of trains at the boarder crossings, where track gauge changes from 1435 mm to 1520 mm. The freight transport will be provided in China by the Chinese companies COSCO and CRCT, across the territory of „broad gauge“ countries — by the JSC "Russian Railways Logistics" and in Europe — by SNCF Forwardis.

The launch of the new railway route is conditioned by the need to ensure the transportation of the antiepidemic goods in the shortest and predictable time.

The railway as a a reliable link between East and West, provides not only the shorter delivery way, but also reduces CO2 emissions. Besides, the cost of delivery of goods by rail is lower than by air, which has an impact on the final cost sof goods. Thus, the container train capacity allows to deliver the quantity of cargo on one single operation, requiring up to six flights by air, that in ist turn increases the difference in the cost of transportation up to 30 times respectively.

The launch of high-speed container railway traffic between China and Europe is being carried out in accordance with the Memorandum of cooperation, UTLC ERA and SNCF Forwardis have signed some years ago. The participating parties have outlined in the declaration their intention to cooperate more closely in the area of multimodal container transport between China and Europe and to further increase capacities in cargo transport by rail.

Thus UTLC ERA is being responsible for the entire terminal-to-terminal transport service on the 1520 mm rail gauge between Dostyk and Brest, while Forwardis assumes responsibility for the transportation of goods by rail on the territory of the European Union.

The cooperation also provides for the exchange of up-to-date information in the field of logistics of foreign trade freight transportation, attraction of additional freight flows in the Eurasian area using container trains, as well as conducting and developing joint marketing activities.

"This new route and the cooperation among all participating parties make it possible to offer a genuinely customer-oriented services with shorter delivery times.

This reliable service includes the timely provision of rolling stock, transshipment of containers from platforms of one gauge to another. What the customer need is just to declare his order to send a train from point A to point B. Thanks to ist accumulated experience and well-established technologies for seamless connection of railways along the Silk Road, UTLC ERA guarantees the reliability and accuracy in delivery time", - says Alexey Grom, CEO of UTLC ERA.