Fujitsu Siemens first block train customer for trans-Asia rail line

Fujitsu Siemens first block train customer for trans-Asia rail line Fujitsu Siemens on Friday sent 50 containers full of high-end IT products from Xiangting, in central China, to Germany by rail, said DB Schenker, one of three primary railways responsible for a transcontinental freight line linking Asia to Europe.
   The train is due to arrive in Hamburg on Oct. 6, completing the more than 6,000-mile journey in 17 days. The shipment includes monitors and computer chassis.
   'Shipping IT products by rail is more flexible and around one-third faster than by ocean freight,' said Heribert G'ggerle, senior vice president supply operations at Fujitsu Siemens Computers. 'And compared with air freight, we save around one quarter of the costs with a 95 percent reduction in CO2 emissions. This shows that rail is the best choice — both economically and ecologically.'
   The shipment is an example of what DB Schenker and its partners, the Russian Railways RZD and the Chinese Railways, hope will blossom into a full-fledged alternative to ocean and air for European companies sourcing out of China, and for European companies hoping to distribute to growing Asian consumption markets.
   With growing connections from China to Southeast China, there are opportunities to tap into those markets as well.
   'Fujitsu Siemens is the first company to decide in favor of this method of shipment, since the trans-Eurasian Landbridge offers the forward-looking combination of speed and environmental friendliness,' DB Schenker said in a statement.
   'We intend to continually develop our concept of company trains, because this is a future-compatible supplement for our customers to ocean and air freight,' said Hartmut Albers, managing director of Trans Eurasia Logistics at DB Schenker. 'At the same time, this train marks our entry into regular scheduled operations on this key transit corridor. We are planning to introduce the Trans-Eurasia Express in the next month. This will be a weekly service between China and Germany with trains departing from both countries.'
   The train will travel through China and Mongolia, crossing the border to Russia near Irkutsk. It then will continue along the Trans-Siberian Railway via Novosibirsk, Omsk, and Ekaterinburg to Moscow. From there it will travel through Belarus and Poland on its way to Germany.
   In Hamburg, the 50 containers will be forwarded in two directions. The monitors will continue by train to Fujitsu Siemens' European distribution center in Worms, while the chassis will be taken directly to the assembly plant in Augsburg, where PCs and servers are produced, DB Schenker said.