The start of 2017 sees the launch of a new fast DB Cargo service linking key industrial regions of Belgium and Germany. The shuttle for conventional and intermodal rail transport operations will connect Antwerp with the Ruhr & Rhine/Neckar regions.

Dr Jürgen Wilder, CEO of DB Cargo, believes the new service will enable the firm to accommodate customers in several different European industrial sectors: “With the DBantwerp-rhine-shuttle we’ll be serving the Antwerp–Ruhr–Mannheim corridor. It allows us to connect the major industrial centres of Antwerp and Rhine/Ruhr and Rhine/Neckar, and to provide fast links to DB Cargo’s European network, mainly to southern Germany, Italy, Austria, France, Spain and south-eastern Europe,” he said.

Short transport times

The shuttle will operate daily and offer capacities for both wagon-load and combined transport, which DB Cargo will provide in cooperation with its partners. The special advantages of this product, it says, are short transport times, high quality standards and great flexibility due to the daily departures.

The shuttle also offers – as do all DB Cargo products – the advantage of low-emissions transport operations that are significantly more environmentally friendly than HGVs. Sustainable supply chains are playing an increasingly important role for more and more customers in industry.

Efficient network

Through its shuttle products, DB Cargo is already providing links for customers between Europe’s most important industrial centres. The company says that the DBantwerp-rhine-shuttle ‘fits in perfectly’ with its strategy of developing an efficient network as a basis for a high-performance European rail freight company.