Policy change Northern Routes

Despite of the unchanged situation in Ukraine we decided to re-open the Northern route for more verticals than only food, medicine and humanitarian goods. 

When Russia invaded Ukraine, we decided to focus only on our Southern routes to deliver cargo from Asia to Europe and cancel all Northern rail routes to avoid Russia. Our reason was that we did not want to sponsor Russian Railways, a company which is 100% owned by the Russia government and approximately 15-20% of the total Rail costs are transferred to this government organization

This policy was for all verticals except food, medicine, and humanitarian goods. We decided to re-open the Northern route for companies who have no other option to overcome their logistics challenges. For companies who do have another options, our focus will stay towards our Southern routes.

We made this decision for several reasons. Companies in Europe (and all over the world) are facing diverse supply chain issues because of the current situation. These issues have a negative impact on production, tradelines, companies, jobs and humans. Some customers have no other option than to take the Northern route. We see that customers who used Railfreight solutions in the past are sometimes now forced to choose Air freight instead to compensate the transit times. This has a negative impact on global C02 reduction. Air freight emissions are 27 times higher than with Rail freight. It’s part of our company mission to support customers to reduce C02 emissions within their supply chain. So to see this negative CO2 emission development based on our own policy; is hard for our company to cope with. Our world and economy is depending on effective logistics supply chains, something we learned especially in the last two years. Societies, food production and companies depend heavily on effective supply chains and trade. This is the system we have built, hoping that economy and trading would influence other governments and countries to respect human rights. It’s our job to provide the best solutions for people and environment.  

So what are the changes in our policy within Rail Bridge Cargo? Our first choice and offer to our customers will stay the Southern routes. It’s our goal to support and convince customers to choose this route, due to the Ukraine invasion of Russia and our ethical motivation as a company. Our company is therefore investing in the extension and expending of these new routes. We focus, with the help of our rail experts, on finding new opportunities on the Southern routes. This is our main goal now and fortunately we see a lot of possibilities. We are glad to announce that we just launched our third Southern route and we’re expecting to open another one within three weeks. Also, we are pleased to see that the Southern routes are developing. For example; in September a new terminal will be launched and because of that transit times will decrease, and more ferries will be operational. Because of these developments and the reduced transit times , the Southern route will become more and more interesting for our customers. In the meantime, the Northern route will be an alternative choice for our customers if the Southern route is not an option and if there is no other option for them to choose from.

If you have any questions regarding our decision, about the developments and possibilities of the Southern route or what we can do for your company, please feel free to contact us at any time. We would be happy to inform you.