The Middle Corridor, a multimodal China-Europe freight route through Central Asia, has garnered international interest as a potential alternative to transporting freight through Russia. Illustratively, the EU has allocated 10 billion euros for its development. The corridor remains too expensive to become a route of preference, explains Roland Verbraak, general manager of BTTMultimodalGroup. BTT, a…
Category: Red Sea
China-EU freight through Russia nearly back at pre-war levels
Rail freight transit through Russia to the EU is nearly back at its pre-war level. As Houthi attacks endanger shipping on the Red Sea, shippers are looking for alternative routes. Consequently, the volume of China-EU freight that travels via Russian rail grew by 44 per cent in 2024. According to Russian media, the volume of…
Russia profits from Red Sea crisis, sees rail freight to Europe grow
Russian Railways (RZD) is benefitting from the ongoing crisis in the Red Sea, according to a number of European logistics companies. As maritime shippers have diverted their routes, logistics companies are getting more and more requests to transit goods through Russia as a quicker and cheaper alternative. Yemen’s Houthi rebels continue to attack ships passing […]
Lineas sets up new route to facilitate COSCO’s disrupted sea services
Lineas has set up a new rail freight connection between Zeebrugge in Belgium and Graz in Austria. The service is launched in collaboration with CSP Zeebrugge, a COSCO Shipping Lines terminal. The purpose is to keep COSCO’s supply chain towards Austria running since traffic that used to be directed there via the Greek port of […]
What is the real strength of Silk Road rail amidst sea shipping disruptions?
Healthy competition is not about celebrating one sector’s business loss and subsequent absorption by another. It is about making the best of a given opportunity and building upon it long-term. In this sense, the Eurasian rail sector active in the Silk Road business has a tremendous opportunity presented in the context of the Red Sea […]
‘Rail is again an effective alternative for Eurasian transport’
All the more companies are identifying the same trend in Eurasian transport. With sea transport currently strained due to the situation in the Red Sea, rail is gradually becoming the preferred mode of transport between China and Europe. This is especially true for customers who want to avoid long transit times. As Martin Koubek, director […]
Red Sea situation ‘a pleasant headache’ for the rail industry
Eurasian rail is currently experiencing a boom, with shippers affected by the situation in the Red Sea and Suez Canal shifting their cargo to trains. “Increased sea freight transit times and the dangers of the war zone cause concerns to shippers who are looking to rail as a viable alternative,” says Igor Tambaca, managing director […]