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At a time when the western half of Europe is covered by an increasingly dense network of heavy-duty lines of intermodal transport, with 500 express freight trains a day shipping intermodal truck trailers and swap bodies over rail tracks, Central and Eastern Europe is lagging behind considerably. Under the EU, intermodal transport has gradually ceased to be a marginal affair: some 11,000 trucks or more a day would have been added to the traffic on the motorways of western and southern European countries but for the intermodal lines that began to emerge in these nations as early as the 1970s.

The significance of road-rail-road intermodal transport has at last started to grow in the Czech Republic during recent years.

In 2007, the AWT Group commenced the operation of its own intermodal transport terminal in Ostrava-Paskov. This terminal is operated as an independent facility, meaning that it is not limited to the purposes of the AWT Group; it is open to any reloading customers. As such, the terminal fulfils the role of a public logistics centre in the Moravian-Silesian Region. The terminal is equipped with three modern container handlers, capable of handling containers weighing up to 45 tonnes. Using the spreader, the handler Hyster 45-24 IH can load onto railcars not only containers, but intermodal trailers as well. This technology, operated by AWT, provided the train operator BOHEMIAKOMBI with an opportunity to expand the European network of intermodal lines further east, by extending the Czech-German continental lines from Lovosice to Ostrava.

EWALS Cargo Care CZwas the first road carrier to take advantage of the new opportunity and to begin utilising a daily intermodal road-rail-road service for its customers using the Ostrava – Duisburg transport line. Even though the line to Ostrava has been operational only since February 2011, the AWT terminal Ostrava-Paskov was set to handle its 1,000^th mega trailer for EWALS Cargo Care CZ on Thursday 13 October.

“I appreciate being a part of a project pursued jointly by one of only a few open terminals in the Czech Republic, a leading intermodal transport operator and a world-class customer. I consider it as a telling example of the intermodal transport that will exist in our country in the future,” commented Edin Sose, Chief Commercial Officer of the AWT Group.

It will be primarily drivers familiar with the precarious conditions on hilly highway No. 35 between Mohelnice and Svitavy who will most appreciate the fact that heavy trucks travelling between northern Moravia and eastern Bohemia now have an alternative route via rail. The intermodal road-rail-road service has also been praised by goods exporters who have welcomed the service and support the intermodal line opened this year with their shipping orders.