APL’s India rail service exceeding company expectations

APL’s India rail service exceeding company expectations    APL IndiaLinx, a container rail freight service recently launched in India by global transportation and logistics group Singapore-based Neptune Orient Lines (parent company of APL and APL Logistics) and Hindustan Infrastructure Projects & Engineering, has exceeded expectations in the first weeks of operating in the Mumbai/New Delhi freight corridor, the companies said Monday.
   The service, which launched May 31, has carried nearly 1,500 TEUs for India's fast-growing import and export sectors.
   'The trains are full for every journey and the service is proving a great success with importers and exporters and, increasingly, with third-party transportation providers,' said Kenneth Glenn, APL president for South Asia, in Mumbai. 'But this is just the beginning. A second train will be in operation by July 20 and we will begin moving refrigerated cargoes from the end of this month.'
   Designed to offer shippers a one-stop shop for coordinating inland and ocean moves out of New Delhi through India's busiest container port near Mumbai, the service runs between an inland container deport (ICD) in Loni (near Delhi) and Mumbai's Jawaharlal Nehru Port's Nhava Sheva terminal.
   A statement released by the two companies involved in the joint venture said that IndiaLinx is actively seeking land for more inland container depots and has ordered more rolling stock.
   'By the year's end, we plan to boost our railway capacity to nine rakes, which will enable us to make 11 round trips per week between various ICDs in North India and the ports,' Glenn said.
   Meanwhile, the Economic Times reported Tuesday that APL is considering a bid to build the fourth container terminal at Jawaharlal Nehru Port.
   'APL is considering (forming) a consortium with other companies to submit the technical and financial bid,' the report said.