About 30 deciders from import and export oriented companies, forwarding agencies and inland ports followed an invitation from IHK Dessau, Sächsischer Hafen- und Verkehrsverein (SHV) and the city of Dessau-Roßlau to the first day for forwarders on 20.06.2012 at the facilities of IHK Dessau. Themed “Does logistics set constraints for further economic growth? – We present ways for your cargo” transportation scenarios for rail, road and waterway were discussed.

Mr. Dr. Volker Czerny, DB Schenker Rail Deutschland GmbH, introduced the audience to the business activities of DB Schenker Rail. DB Schenker Rail has been developed from a German to an European rail freight operator through recent years. With nine control centres at 39 locations production of freight trains is organized nationwide. Own service centres do make resources available. At region of middle Germany DB Schenker Rail provides more than 330 regular trains on a daily basis, about 25 of them on international routes. This made them leading rail freight operator in this area which is also like a HUB for the European East-West-traffic with border crossings to Polish and Czech rail operators.

The control centre at Halle/Saale connects the market areas in Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony and Thuringia. At the control centre 100 trains starts and ends per day. During the intended modernization of train formation yard Halle-North till the year of 2017 the relevant responsibilities of locations Leipzig-Engelsdorf and Dresden-Friedrichstadt will be shifted to Halle-North. In context with the modernization the obsolete infrastructure will be rebuilt to achieve the requirements for an efficient production of single car transports. A partial bringing into service with 16 sorting sidings is planned for December 2015. Complete service with 36 sorting sidings should be started in April 2017. The new train formation yard in Halle-North can increase efficiency of single car transport at south-west-region of Germany and reduce waiting times of rail equipment at once.

Business manager of Sachsenland Transport & Logistik GmbH Mr. Marko Weiselowski illustrated the advantages of a logistics service provider. Sachsenland assumes responsibility of observing delivery deadlines, treating documents and processing export formalities. Beside they also select partners for transport from a broad pool on the basis of specified criteria.

Sachsenland is specialized on transports from or to Eastern Europe. Their offered service covers freight transport of piece goods, special traffic cargo and containers, customs clearings for import and export, warehousing, cargo handling and consignment of cargo items. Sachsenland is an authorized consignee and consignor and their storage areas are declared as customs warehouses of type “Zolllager Typ D”.

In January  2012 a new logistic centre was opened at port Alberthafen Dresden. On about 3,000 m² conventional goods and heavy cargo items up to 20 tons can be handled by gantry crane. A connection between railway strings and a suitable ramp as well as the possibility of axle-load weighing of trucks are completing the service portfolio of Sachsenland. Beside the branch office in Dresden a representation in Moscow, Russia, and another branch in Duisburg are part of this company. Since the year of 2008 Sachsenland is operator of a roll-on-roll-off berth located at the entrance to the port of Dresden. There it is possible to load goods up to 450 tons straight to an appropriate vessel without the need to use any type of crane.

From the Elbe Promotion Center Mr. Stephan Weikert presented successful concepts of transportation at river Elbe. The Elbe Promotion Center is attended to strengthen commercial inland navigation as a neutral information platform. The online portal www.elbpro.com provides information for shippers, transportation companies and authorities for free. This includes the presentation of common vessel types, inland ports, news about inland shipping, actual fairway conditions as well as successful transports and best-practices-solutions. The concept is not restricted just to the German part of Elbe river but the information range starts from the first lock at Czech Republic to Cuxhaven. Providing a comprehensive set of information should reduce any obstacles from the characteristics of the international waterway Elbe. From that the system waterway will be transparent und calculable for shippers and potential users of inland navigation.

At the Elbe river three different lining service could be established. Since 1998 the Elbe-Container-Line “ECL 2000” – a common project of German and Czech transportation companies and inland ports – runs two times a week between the ports of Riesa, Aken, Magdeburg and Hamburg. If needed a third departure is possible to insert. With three low draught pushing unit in use about 78 TEU (container units) can be loaded at each departure and direction. Pre- and post-carriage from/to the inland ports will be carried by truck. If water levels do not allow waterway transportation connected inland are able to provide substitutional container transports by rail.

Beside container transports demand for bulk cargo transportation has been risen. Because of flood calamity in 2002 circumstances for transport at waterway section Dessau were very poor. As a consequence vessel equipment did migrate to other shipping routes like Rhein or Donau river. In 2007 several inland ports and transport companies launched the lining service “ETS Elbe” (ecological transport system). The service between Magdeburg and upper Elbe till northern Bohemia particularly transported agricultural and silvicultural products, recycling material and mineral nutrients. From the port of Magdeburg ETS Elbe is connected to German seaports, the channel system of Central Germany and the Western European waterways. A total of 52 million tone kilometres (about 245,000 tons of freight) were shifted from road to waterway. As a positive secondary effect new transport routes resulting from ETS transports like national transports of scrap or also until to destinations in France, direct shipments of steel products to the Netherlands as well as transport of grain from Hamburg to Czech Republic.

Since some years existing on-demand transports of heavy and large cargo units were extended to a lining service “EPL Elbe” (Elbe project line) in 2008. This transport service with use of low draught pushing units fits ideal to oversized und heavy cargoes of machine building and in plant construction industry. Lower restrictions regarding cargo dimensions allow transports of goods up to 55 meters length and 7.5 meters height. Because of lower cargo weight in relation to maximum draught of the vessel those transports can be realized also at low water levels. The clear height of vertical clearance beneath bridges at Elbe river permit continuous journeys without special permissions to obtain.

The whole event was moderated by Hafen Hamburg Marketing e.V. represented by Mr. Stefan Kunze. All available presentations are prepared for download exclusively for members of the Elbe Promotion Center.

Contact information:

DB Schenker Rail Deutschland AG
Dr. Volker Czerny
Tel.: +49 (0) 341 / 96 78 – 874
Fax: +49 (0) 341 / 96 78 – 234
volker.czerny@dbschenker.eu

Sachsenland Transport & Logistik GmbH Dresden
Marko Weiselowski
Tel.: +49 (0) 351 / 799 01 – 185
Fax: +49 (0) 351 / 799 01 – 572
weiselowski@sachsenland-gmbh.de

Elbe Promotion Center
Stephan Weikert
Tel.: +49 (0) 351 / 49 82 – 260
Fax: +49 (0) 351 / 49 60 – 817
info@elbpro.com