First Container Train from China Reaches the Port of Rostock

On April 7, 2020, the first train with 49 containers loaded with industrial and medical goods arrived from Xi’an in the central Chinese province of Shaanxi at the overseas port of Rostock via the rail and sea route of the New Silk Road.

(Rostock) The rail product organized by DB CARGO EURASIA, with loads from the logistics service provider DB Schenker, utilized the route from China through Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, and Lithuania to the Russian port of Kaliningrad. There, the container ship “Dornbusch” from the shipping company Mann Lines took over the cargo to Rostock.

At the General Cargo Terminal of the handling company Euroports Germany at Pier II, the containers were mostly loaded directly onto a full train bound for Duisburg. Additional containers will be distributed via the KV Terminal Rostock Trimodal to Verona and by ferry via Trelleborg to Sweden.

To ensure the smooth operation of the transport, close cooperation between the companies DB Cargo Eurasia, Mann Lines, DB Schenker, DB Cargo Russia, XI’AN ITL, and UTLC was essential.

The crucial difference from conventional solely land-based transport routes on the Silk Road lies in the use of a short-sea container liner service between Kaliningrad and Rostock. The targeted regular transit time for this container traffic between China and the respective European destination is twelve days.

“Compared to rail traffic over the Polish-Belarusian infrastructure with bottlenecks due to construction work and border controls, the ‘short-sea alternative’ Kaliningrad-Rostock offers a shorter transit time as well as high reliability. Both are key arguments for customers to use the combined land-sea route as an alternative transport option, especially since they have perfect redistribution opportunities in Rostock,” says Dr. Gernot Tesch, Managing Director of the port operator ROSTOCK PORT.

With its dense intermodal network of more than 30 weekly train connections, particularly to Italy, the Rhine-Ruhr area, the Czech Republic, and Romania, as well as the tightly scheduled ferry and RoRo connections to Denmark, Sweden, and Finland with up to 20 departures per day, the overseas port of Rostock is an ideal transport hub for collecting and distributing containers in Europe.

“The key to success lies in utilizing existing land and sea transport connections from Rostock to Northern and Central Europe. However, the new transport offering also provides room for the establishment of entirely new Europe-wide logistics chains, for example, to Russia, Kazakhstan, or the Baltic States,” says Dr. Gernot Tesch.

The container traffic of the shipping company Mann Lines between Kaliningrad and Rostock is carried out weekly; the next scheduled arrival in Rostock is on April 14. The goal is to increase the frequency to six departures per week.

“Now our long-standing efforts to connect Mecklenburg-Vorpommern to the New Silk Road – the predominantly terrestrial trade route from China through Asia and Russia to Europe – are also becoming visible in Rostock,” said Mecklenburg-Vorpommern’s Minister of Infrastructure Christian Pegel.

Photo: Rostock Port/Nordlicht

www.rostock-port.de