Maiden Run of the "Hamburg-Bodensee-Sprinter"

The container train left the Wolfurt freight station on 4 September on schedule

The 410-metre long "Hamburg-Bodensee-Sprinter" left at 6pm and arrived on the following day at around 5pm in Hamburg. From there, 60 TEU containers with goods from the Lake Constance region were loaded onto vessels at various terminals and will then be shipped around the world.

The container train, which is operated by Gebrüder Weiss and the container operator Intercontainer Austria (ICA), will now be running twice a week along the Wolfurt-Hamburg route. In the medium term, the introduction of a daily service is planned. The discontinuation of feeder transportation to container terminals in Southern Germany and Switzerland can lead to a saving of up to 5,000 truck runs per year.

Benefits for customers
Harald Kostial, Product Manager for Seafreight at GW, sees a clear advantage for businesses shipping goods: "With the ‘Hamburg-Bodensee-Sprinter’, we are offering importers and exporters in the region the sole direct connection to this German sea port." Customers do not just benefit from shorter lead times, but also from a clearly improved service quality.

With its length of 410 metres, the train has a total capacity of 990 tonnes. "On this basis, we can handle over 12,000 container units per annum," explains ICA Managing Director Günter Watzl. "If we increase the frequency, it will be possible to handle up to 30,000 units."

The Gebrüder Weiss organisation
Gebrüder Weiss, headquartered in Lauterach (Vorarlberg, Austria), employs a total of approximately 3,900 people at 134 locations worldwide. In Central and Eastern Europe, GW has subsidiaries in Austria, Switzerland, Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania and the Ukraine. The logistics company generated sales of 789 million Euro in financial year 2005.

Gebrüder Weiss press office
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