30 Years of Partnership Between Gebrüder Weiss and Rail Cargo

For three decades, the international transport and logistics company Gebrüder Weiss and the ÖBB Rail Cargo Group have been operating together on the rails. On the occasion of this anniversary, Wolfram Senger-Weiss, Chairman of the Executive Board of Gebrüder Weiss, and Christoph Grasl, Board Member of the ÖBB Rail Cargo Group, celebrated on May 6 with numerous guests at Vienna’s main train station.

(Lauterach/Vienna) The highlight of the event was the ceremonial naming and commissioning of a jointly designed Taurus locomotive named “Europa.” The anniversary locomotive will be used on routes across Central Europe. “Gebrüder Weiss was one of the pioneers of rail freight transport in Austria over 170 years ago,” explained Wolfram Senger-Weiss. “Long before trucks took over the majority of freight transport, rail transport was part of our core business,” he emphasized before the guests. Starting with small transports in 1853 between Lindau and Munich, Gebrüder Weiss has continuously expanded its offerings in the field of rail freight transport over the following 170 years.

An example of this is the subsidiary GW Rail Cargo. The rail forwarding company based in Maria Lanzendorf near Vienna organizes rail transports for international companies on a European scale. Each year, up to 1.5 million tons of goods are transported in around 1,000 full trains to recipients in Central Europe. These include mineral oil, chemicals, gases, agricultural products, and steel.

Orange Combi Cargo: Success Story of the Partnership

A milestone in the partnership with the Rail Cargo Group is the Orange Combi Cargo (OCC), a full train that has been operating daily from Vienna, Wels, Hall in Tyrol, and Bludenz and back for 16 years. It represents a stable, environmentally friendly transport solution within Austria. Primarily, beverages and other food products, drugstore items, and building materials are transported. It replaces around 60 truck trips daily, thus avoiding approximately 9,000 tons of CO₂ emissions annually.

“The Orange Combi Cargo is a prime example of our cooperation. Since 2008, we have shifted over 240,000 truck trips from the road to the rail with the OCC,” summarized Christoph Grasl, Board Member of the ÖBB Rail Cargo Group. “With every ton we transport together with Gebrüder Weiss on the rail, we relieve the environment.”

Photo: © Gebrüder Weiss / Image Caption: Wolfram Senger-Weiss (Gebrüder Weiss, left) and Christoph Grasl (Rail Cargo)