• Kombiverkehr KG launches direct train between Lübeck and Verona with connections to northern Europe and Baltic states
  
  
• Services to commence on 1 February 2021
  
  
• Also for trailers four metres high and with up to 28 tons of cargo
  
  
• Trains can already be booked in gateway network now

(Frankfurt/Main, 10 December 2020) Kombiverkehr KG, one of the leading operators of intermodal rail freight transport in Europe, is to enhance the attractiveness of Combined Transport on the important north-south corridor between Scandinavia, Finland, the Baltic states and Italy with an additional block train product. Starting on 1 February 2021, a new direct train will run three times a week in each direction between Lübeck-Skandinavienkai and Verona Quadrante Europa in northern Italy via the Brenner Pass. That means eleven weekly departures are now available in the corridor from Verona to Sweden, with nine weekly departures from Verona to Finland. The new train will leave Verona on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays and from Lübeck in the opposite direction on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. On all other days of service it will also be possible to ship transport units via alternative routes. The Frankfurt-based company already offers daily train departures on this route in the gateway network with comparable running times via Hamburg. In addition to Trelleborg, Malmö and Stockholm, the terminal in Hallsberg can also be reached thanks to a dedicated internal Swedish block train product, while Oslo in Norway is served via Trelleborg. From Lübeck the Finnish ports of Uusikaupunki, Turku, Hanko and Helskini, Liepaja in Latvia and Kleipeda in Lithuania can be reached directly.

"It is particularly the speed of our new product that appeals, and it complements our northern European transport network. Not only does this mean that our customers can book an efficient and wide range of services over all routes – whether the fixed link or via the Baltic Sea ports of Kiel, Lübeck and Rostock – with Kombiverkehr, but the new direct train and coordinated transfer times with the ferry companies at Skandinavienkai in Lübeck also make it possible to cut transit times between Italy and Sweden to less than 48 hours and on Finland services to 72 hours. These are times that are virtually impossible to achieve by trucks on the road," says a confident Peter Dannewitz, Head of Sales at Kombiverkehr KG, of the attractive package for forwarders and logistics companies. "And of course there is also the environmental bonus that companies responsible for transport can chalk up. Just transporting one semitrailer with a cargo weighing 28 metric tons, including the extra 4 tons in intermodal transport, one way on the route from northern Italy to Hallsberg in Sweden, for instance, delivers a saving in carbon dioxide of 2.8 tons, or over 60 per cent. The combination of inherently low-emission rail with electric traction and the latest generation of ferries, some of them with electric drive motors, make the carbon balance of these means of transport very positive.

Bookings for tank containers, swap bodies and trailers with a corner height of up to four metres can be made with Kombiverkehr all the way to the destination port or terminal in Sweden and Norway. That saves considerable administrative time and effort for customers of the intermodal operator. With just one booking and one invoice for complete end-to-end transport, order processing is particularly efficient. By contrast, forwarders who buy in ferry services themselves can only book the rail leg between Verona and Lübeck.




Not only is the transfer of transport units between train and ferry at Lübeck's Skandinavienkai particularly quick, so too is the total journey time between Verona and the Nordic countries as well as Latvia with the new direct train service from Verona – Lübeck v.v., which Kombiverkehr KG is to integrate into its international network on 1 February 2021.

The press photo can be downloaded here.