Full steam ahead: our own traction

01. 06. 2022

RGC offers cross-border traction from a single source, thanks to its modern fleet of traction units. Traction – what actually is it? And how does it benefit our customers? Here are some answers.

The word “traction” originally comes from the Latin “trahere”, meaning “to drag” or “to pull”. In railway parlance, the word refers to the way that trains or carriages are pulled along. Our wagons are heavily laden with our customers’ goods; to get them moving, we need to use traction units – usually locomotives.

Own traction boosts quality

Using own traction means that there’s a single source for traction and operations. This means that we can better guarantee that our transport is of consistently high quality. That is why expanding our own traction and stepping up our transport services to Asia are the cornerstones of our globalisation strategy.

Vectron

And that, in turn, is because having an international production network allows for greater reliability and shorter transport times. Where we can’t offer own traction, we commission reliable third-party companies to provide transport services.

From Austria to Greece

We are now using our own traction in 12 countries: that’s in our home markets of Austria and Hungary, as well as in Italy, Germany, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Greece and, since 2019, in Poland too. Our subsidiaries are responsible for operating trains from Central, Eastern and Southern Europe to Turkey, and even to China (with partners). Click here to learn more about TransNET.

Do you want to delve even deeper into the world of railways and find out what single wagonloads and industrial sidings are?

Click here for more articles in our “Railways simply explained” series.