A trans-Asian rail logistics partnership has seen the Hungarian capital Budapest take delivery of the country’s first overland transit container service from China via Mongolia, Russia, Ukraine and Slovakia, packed with consumer goods.

JSC RZD Logistics, the freight arm of Russian Railways, together with Far East Land Bridge (FELB), PJSC TransContainer and ZSSK Cargo make up the alliance, which took a total of 41 40-foot containers filled with clothes, electronics and other consumer goods from Chansha in Hunan province to Budapest intermodal terminal.

Transshipment

Overall transit time was 13 days, including customs clearance and transshipment to a narrow gauge at PJSC’s terminal in Dobra, Slovakia. As well as terminal services, PJSC also provided rolling stock and equipment. FELB, a subsidiary of JSC, had overall responsibility for the service, while JSC moved the shipment across Russia and then ZSSK the last stage.

Alexander Podylov, Sales and Business Development Director of PJSC TransContainer, said: “We believe that clients who need to deliver cargo to central and south Europe will be especially interested in this service. The successful experience of transportation across this route allowed us to reduce the transit time by several days, whereas due to our own capacities in Dobra, customs processing and transshipment to European track gauge are fulfilled in a much shorter time.”

High quality

Vyacheslav Valentik, CEO of JSC RZD Logistics, added: “Today the volume of transit from China to Europe is rapidly growing. These conditions require implementation of new services, which will allow us to distribute these growing amounts between various border points, while keeping the speed and price for the benefit of clients. The joint service that has recently been introduced is expected to solve this problem. We are convinced that it will become popular in China and in Europe, as all participants of the project provided the high quality of all aspects of its implementation.”