Railways simply explained
05. 10. 2018
Not only raw materials, cars or car parts, wood, steel, agricultural and chemical products travel by train – no, 30-tonne special cranes, 120 metre long rails, entire metro trains, giant steam generators or turbines are also transported by rail from A to B. But what types of shipment are actually suitable for transporting by rail and what types are not?
Our logistics solutions are as diverse as the world and all its industries. With our know-how and the use of innovative transport technologies, we implement forward-thinking and individual logistics solutions to suit all industries. We make sure that all products are safely transported by rail and in an eco-friendly way. We also have solid solutions for transporting special cargo that cannot be approved for road transport due to external dimensions, weight or the nature of the shipment. Our experts make the impossible possible and always have the right logistics and transport solutions for special and individual requirements to hand. What modern transport logistics can achieve can be demonstrated by several practical examples.
As a rule, all heavy loads or items with exceptional dimensions are suitable for transport by rail. This even applies to rail vehicles such as entire tube trains, trams or track-laying machines, which can roll on their own wheels. Even if the coupling systems of the vehicles to be transported are different, this isn’t a problem for us. This is down to the specially developed coupling adapters of our barrier wagons, which make it possible to connect rail vehicles with each other despite them having different couplings. Depending on the type of rail vehicles, the coupling adapter is adjusted to the respective height of the vehicle to be transported.
Special goods require individual logistics solutions due to their dimensions, weight and nature. Our experts always have the right logistics and transport solutions for specific requirements to hand. So even 30-tonne heavy cranes are not a problem for us. Even huge prefabricated house parts, made of solid wood panels with dimensions of almost 14 meters in length and close to three meters in width, can travel by train. Almost an entire house per wagon is transported by rail to Scandinavia. Another practical example shows that steam generators weighing 5.5 tonnes or 11 heavyweight heating boilers can also travel by train. For this complex transport project, which spans several thousand kilometres and six countries to reach China, we mobilised our international logistics know-how. Even entire wind turbines and machines, or parts of them, are all suitable for dispatching by rail. This is also possible for continuously welded rails measuring 120 metres in length, which create quite a spectacle and are in a class of their own. However, before all these special goods begin their journey, the all important loading and securing of the cargo must take place. The experts have to keep a cool head for this. Because loading requires the utmost precision and the highest level of instinct. After all, loading is crucial for ensuring the safety of the entire transport route and for providing a quality service.
Freight rail transport has a clear advantage over the use of heavy goods lorries, not only in terms of being able to carry extremely heavy loads, not having to deal with permits, detours, road closures or any necessary accompaniment but also in terms of sustainability. Every year, we transport around 83 million tonnes of goods by rail within and through Austria. This saves the environment 0.9 million tonnes of CO2 – the equivalent of a continuous queue of lorries, long enough to reach around the world twice. As long as a transport permit by rail is in place, there is almost nothing that we can’t transport; there are very few restrictions.
