Estonia’s Operail announced in December that its sole shareholder — the government — had decided that it was required to stop transporting goods originating in or being transported to or from Russia and Belarus with effect from January 1 2023. Transit freight and returning empty wagons will still be transported.
On January 8 Canadian supplier Tractive Power Corp announced an order to supply a TP90 industrial shunting locomotive to Richardson International.
The Black Forest intermodal terminal at Horb was formally opened on January 10 by Michael Theurer from Germany’s federal transport ministry and Baden-Württemburg transport minister Winfried Hermann. Necoss is initially operating two container trains each way per week to and from the port of Hamburg.
In December European Loco Pool ordered another 10 Stadler EuroDual locos for use in Germany and Austria, passing the target of 100 locomotives which the leasing company had set for the end of 2023. ‘We are far ahead of our plan in a relatively short time’, said CEO Willem Goosen. ‘We have now ordered 104 modern, innovative six-axle hybrid locomotives. Of these, 85 have already been leased in long-term full-service agreements with more than 30 customers in six different countries.’ ELP plans to have at least 200 locomotives on order by 2028.
Having acquired the automotive transport and logistics specialist Gefco in 2022, Marseille-based shipping group CMA CGM has decided to merge the business into its 3PL subsidiary Ceva Logistics by the end of 2023. A Finished Vehicle Logistics division is to be established within Ceva Logistics under the leadership of former Gefco Executive Vice-President Emmanuel Cheremetinski.
On December 20 a container train set off from Uzbekistan with 46 wagons carrying 91 containers loaded with products from the Almalyk mining and smelting plant destined for Europe via Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Bulgaria.
UK operator Freightliner ran the first commercial freight train into Leyland Enterprise Sidings in more than 20 years on January 9, under a collaboration with Tarmac, Fox Group and Network Rail. The train conveyed more than 1 600 tonnes of stone from Tunstead to Lancashire.
TMH Bryansk has obtained certification enabling series production of its TEM23 four-axle two-engine diesel shunting locomotives for Russian Railways. Features include a modular design, asynchronous traction motors, remote control and more comfortable conditions for the crew.
This month TX Logistik is to launch a five times a week intermodal service between the port of Stockholm Norvik and a terminal 100 km away at Eskilstuna.
Iowa Interstate Railroad has purchased land at Iowa City’s Industrial Campus to develop a rail to road transloading facility. ‘As we have seen with the numerous other transloading sites existing along our network, these facilities provide significant value to our customers and open the door for many other companies to become rail shippers’, said IAIS President & CEO Joe Parsons on January 10.