In order to fulfil the transit orders on the Hungarian routes in connection with the export of this year's good domestic harvest and of Ukrainian and Romanian grains to Western Europe, RCH provides 700 of its own and the company group’s 1,500 dedicated grain wagons.
Despite the high prices, there is still a great deal of uncertainty on the international grain market, which affects the logistics handling of the export. 60% of the Hungarian crop goes to Italy. In addition to providing flexible transport services, Hungary’s market-leading rail freight company has also developed optimised rail logistics models in order to forward as much of the export grain as possible on rail.
Already last year, RCH has taken significant measures to increase efficiency in order to improve the quality of the services and the transport conditions. For the traction of grain trains with larger parameters, high-performance Vectron locomotives have been delegated, hence enabling the assembly and transport of 2200 tonne trains, thus reducing the unit costs of the transport. In this year's grain season, it is already possible to convey trains consisting of up to 30 freight wagons and weighing 2500 tonnes, mainly via Gyékényes. Due to the topographic conditions, these trains are pulled by two locomotives. Cost efficiency is also improved by radically reducing the turnaround times of the wagons. For example, an increasing share of transports to Italy is handled without changing the locomotives at the border crossing in Gyékényes. In Croatia the trains are carried by the locomotive drivers of Rail Cargo Carrier - Croatia. In Gyékényes, a dedicated border station coordinator ensures that trains cross the border smoothly, with a special expert providing the relevant information and control support remotely. Weekly detailed plans are drawn up using information from freight forwarders about the time of the loadings and the expected arrival of the empty and loaded wagons.
The increase of the role of rail freight was also promoted by the special situation last year arising as a result of the corona pandemic, hindering road freight traffic, sometimes even making it impossible at certain destinations in Italy, and hence shifting transports to rail. Customers who had positive experiences with rail freight transport at the time have already announced that they will use this modality to transport more and more products to their destinations.
Only 20% of Hungarian grain exports is handled on rail. RCH's share in the rail transport of grain is almost 70%.