United Transport & Logistics Celebrates Milestone
Russian Railways subsidiary United Transport & Logistics Company has celebrated a milestone with China this week by seeing the dispatch of its 500th container train of 2016 to travel between China and Europe. The 500th container train left Chongqing in south-west China to travel to Duisburg in Germany on 23 July 2016. It consisted of fifty 40ft containers.
The container trains, which are operated by United Transport & Logistics Company, operate on gauge track along the route Dostyk/Altynkol to Brest to Dostyk/Altynkol. The container trains cover a total distance of 5,430km in five and a half days. The container train travels the route “without borders”, because it is covered by a single customs agreement and a public through rate.
The United Transport & Logistics Company began operating integrated freight services in February 2015. Since that time, in excess of 90,000 Twenty-Foot Equivalent Container Units (TEU) have run operations along its network.
Owing to robust growth, around 35 container trains depart every week along United Transport & Logistics Company’s network. Every train travels an average of 990km each day. Over the course of 2015, the United Transport & Logistics Company dispatched 47,000 equivalent container units. By the end of 2016, it is projected that it will dispatch in excess of 85,000 equivalent container units. In the 18 months since the United Transport & Logistics Company has been running freight services, its operations have nearly doubled.
The United Transport & Logistics Company is part of an integration project on the territory of the Eurasian Economic Union. It was set up on a parity basis by Russian Railways, JSC “NC” Kazakhstan Temir Zholy and Belarusian Railways. The primary objective of the project is to fulfill the potential of the Russian Federation, the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Republic of Belarus to transport goods and deliver a stable service to deliver container goods between China and Europe and Europe and China.
