efficient and reliable CD Cargo

EFFICIEnT anD RELIaBLE

CD Cargo, with its 7000 employees and nationwide operation, is the largest Czech railway freight transport provider and one of the five largest in the European Union. Romana Moares spoke with Mr Michal Roh, the company’s sales director, about its strategy to succeed in the increasingly competitive railway sector.

ČD Cargo was founded as a subsidiary company of České dráhy (Czech Railways) in 2007 by divesting the Czech Railways freight transport, and next year will commemorate 10 successful years of operation in the fully liberalised railway freight transport. However, its tradition goes back much farther, to the days when railway freight transport began in the Czech lands some 175 years ago.

Mr Roh describes some significant milestones in the company’s recent history: “A big event in the last decade was the recession, when we had to accommodate a significant drop in transport volumes by implementing a number of restructuring measures. A historically important year was also 2016 when we extended our fleet with our new inter-operable Siemens Vectron engines.”

Nationwide coverage

CD Cargo employs nearly 7000 people in the Czech Republic and is the largest Czech railway freight transport provider. The company offers shipments of an extensive range of goods, from raw materials to products with high added value, transport of containers, exceptional deliveries, lease of railway wagons, repairs and maintenance and other transport services. The annual volume of cargo transport ranks it among the five largest railway transport providers within the EU member states. The company provides its services to customers in thousands of locations in the Czech Republic, and via its subsidiaries throughout Europe.

“Our core business is railway freight transport, which we offer in the form of two basic products,” explains the sales director. “In the form of complete trains suitable for larger volumes (about 60 per cent of total output), and in the form of individual deliveries, representing an attractive alternative to road transport. In addition, we offer a wide range of complementary services, such as customs services, wagon lease, repairs, security consulting, logistics services, warehousing and others.”

He adds that developing new products and services is an on-going process. “Our latest additions have been a direct train connecting the Czech Republic with the Antwerp port, and a cargo connection to the east via the Małaszewice transhipment point.”

modern fleet

The railway freight transport market is severely competitive, both in terms of inter-modality and individual railway shippers. In the relatively small Czech market, there are about one hundred competitors,

fighting, in particular, for complete train transport. Road transport clearly represents a dominant transport mode in today’s Europe but railway offers many obvious advantages, such as environmentalfriendliness, much lower incident/accident rate and thus a much lower impact on the health of the population. However, gaining a bigger market share is dependent on political decisions and increasing social responsibility.

Investment in technology is also key to keeping abreast with competitors. “As I have already mentioned, in 2016 we bought our first five Siemens Vectron interoperable electric engines which will significantly improve performance on long-distance tracks. Furthermore, we added series 163 engines to out fleet, acquired from our parent company Ceske drahy, and further investments are being considered,” says Mr Roh.

He goes on to point out that about 60 per cent of CD Cargo’s transport services consist of international shipments, i.e. import, export and transit through the Czech Republic. The nature of of the exported goods varies considerably – the largest part is made up of containers, passenger cars, wood and several other commodities. The ratio is similar for imports, which also include raw materials (coal, iron core etc.) and fuels.

market leader

“The strategic vision of ČD Cargo is to maintain its leading market position in freight railway transport in the Czech Republic and the central European region, and at the same time remain an efficient, customeroriented company,” says the sales director. “We have defined several strategic objectives to meet this vision, such as expansion in our export markets, development of intermodal transport, winning new customers, wagon shipment system optimisation and others.” He explains that the company is well on the way to meeting each of these objectives: CD

Cargo has been successful in expanding its services in Poland and has signed a partnership memorandum with TransContainer, increasing its transport to the east.

“It is important to stress that CD Cargo is an efficient and reliable shipper capable of transporting almost any type of goods including hazardous and radioactive substances. An example of such a shipment is the transport of white phosphor from Kazakhstan to Břeclav in the Czech Republic: this alone is evidence of the breadth of our services, which cover all aspects of the shipment including transhipment on the Belarus-Polish border,” says Mr Roh.

At the other end of the spectrum, CD Cargo transports seasonal crops (in 2016 the company will deliver about 200,000 tonnes of sugar beet for a major sugar refinery), mineral water (Mattoni, Korunní, Toma) and sweets (Nestlé). “Railway shipment simply pays off,” concludes Mr Roh. n