Customers and projects

More than 80 percent of the emissions generated during timber transport can be saved by transporting it by rail. The Austrian timber industry Maresch GmbH has been driving this green logistics forward together with DB Cargo since 2016 - and is setting itself even more ambitious ambitions for 2022.

Webasto wants to make its service and supply chains efficient and climate-friendly. After test runs, one of the 100 largest suppliers to the automotive industry worldwide is now going into regular operation on the rails and plans to expand further.

The "climate footprint" of an e-car also includes the supply chain and the production of these vehicles. The newly established Automotive Logistics Center in Bremen supports Mercedes-Benz in a major task: bringing the heart of the e-cars - the drive batteries – to the manufacturer in an environmentally friendly way.

Up to 250 wagons loaded with vehicles and sheet scrap leave BMW’s Dingolfing and Regensburg plants each day. It’s made possible by the team at DB Cargo, which the Bavarian carmaker has entrusted with plant shunting services at both locations for many years.

Palm Group is getting ready for the future: not only has the family-owned company invested more than half a billion euros in its Neukochen plant and headquarters just outside Aalen in Baden-Württemberg, but it has also completely overhauled its paper mill.​

Efficient, innovative, sustainable and unobtrusive. These are the guiding principles for DB Cargo Logistics as we plan our new Rail Logistics Centre (RLC) at Arnstadt's former freight station. Weeds currently fill the site, but they are to give way to trains: up to four connections will load and unload at Arnstadt every day by the beginning of 2024.

Rostock is one of the 110 ports in DB Cargo’s network. The Baltic port’s facilities can handle freight of every kind, allowing the city to connect the rail, road and shipping routes that transport wind turbines to Russia, containers from China, paper from Finland and so much more.

Rail transport has traditionally been used to deliver a significant share of new cars. Reducing emissions is a good thing – eliminating them entirely is even better.

Albrecht Reimold, Member of the Management Board for Production and Logistics, explains why Porsche wants to achieve carbon neutrality on its balance sheet by 2030.

We have the flexibility to step in when the BMW Group needs to transport containers by rail at short notice.

Our door-to-door EVplus product has got off to a flying start enabling us to transport consumer goods as flexibly as by lorry - but more sustainably.

From cells to modules and entire battery systems, DB Cargo Logistics uses its high-performing Automotive RailNet to transport these cornerstones of green mobility safely and sustainably.

When DB Cargo Logistics transports batteries and cell modules with made-to-measure rail services, it takes care of everything from planning to execution. In summer 2020, the company's logistics experts started using trains to move batteries, each weighing hundreds of kilos, from Braunschweig to Zwickau, where they are needed at the ID.3 and ID.4 production bases.

In summer 2020, we began offering our customers door-to-door EVplus service from Hamburg to Cologne. Now we're stepping things up with new customers and new routes. Seven new lanes are launching in 2021, several of which have already gone into operation: Hamburg-Mannheim, Hamburg-Berlin, Hamburg-Stuttgart and Bremen-Stuttgart.

Every week, more than a dozen block trains leave the Ford plant in Craiova, Romania, for destinations up to two thousand kilometres away. Located in the Wallachia region of southwestern Romania, Craiova has a rich history and is an important city for European automobile production.

Deutsche Bahn and the Volkswagen Group’s partnership goes back a long way, and their future together looks bright. DB has become one of the most important service providers for the carmaker over the decades.

Flexible, sustainable, reliable and fast – additional connections and stops make DB Cargo Logistics' shuttle products, Trailer Romania Xpress (TRX) and Trailer Med Xpress (TMX), even more attractive for customers from every industry.

Door-to-door deliveries between Hamburg and Cologne are now available with our brand-new single wagonload product. This service will give customers without private sidings access to the rail network.

Reliable trains for cars manufactured by the BMW Group in China: The Bavarian car manufacturer has commissioned DB Cargo Logistics to continue transporting components from Germany to China. Since 2011, DB Cargo Logistics has been transporting parts to Shenyang for BMW.

This past summer, DB Cargo Logistics transported the 500,000 th container for Volkswagen, Škoda and Audi between Europe and Russia. Most of the transports currently start at Wolfsburg station in Germany and Mladá Boleslav in the Czech Republic. From there, they head to the Russian Volkswagen plants in Kaluga and Nizhny Novgorod.

DB Cargo Logistics transports cars from the Northern Range ports of Zeebrugge and Rotterdam to Switzerland for the Emil Frey Group. It offers stable departure times and plenty of wagon capacity – benefits that won over the Swiss customer.

The logistics expert gives EGGER, a provider of wood materials, the highest level of service. DB Cargo Logistics puts its entire network to efficient use for these European transports.

Until now, suppliers of bigname car manufacturers have struggled to create multimodal supply chains. Having recently won the contract to transport purchased parts for Audi, DB Cargo Logistics has successfully seized the opportunities to be had from combining different modes of transport.

Rapid, reliable rail transports unlock international markets. For the past four years, DB Cargo Logistics has used asophisticated round-trip model to provide competitive transports between the sawmill company Holzindustrie Maresch GmbH and ist clients in Germany and northern Europe.

Porsche is expanding its sustainable transportnetwork for its finished vehicles. The carmaker has opted to use DB Cargo blocktrains to move cars from Kornwestheim to the port at Bremerhaven. DB Cargo has long handled the railtransport of new vehicles from two Porsche plants: Leipzig to Emden/Bremerhaven, and Kornwestheim to Emden.

Conference call at DB Cargo Logistics Frieder Lange and Yingnan Yao, account managers for finished vehicles, are talking to their counterparts in China. Colleagues in Polandand and Russia are also in on the call. The discussions are conducted in English, but sometimes Lange and his colleagues switch to German, a language many DB Group employees are familiar with. When matters become complex, Russian and Polish interpreters step in.

This week saw DB Cargo Logistics and its customer binderholz dispatch their first load of cross-laminated timber on its journey from Burgbernheim in northwest Bavaria to Sweden. Previously, binderholz sent its products by road, but it has now switched to green rail services: with the support of DB Cargo Logistics, the company spent a number of months working to reopen a disused private siding located on its production premises.

The Kuppenheim plant near Rastatt in southwest Germany has one of the world’s most modern car body presses. At the plant, premium automaker Mercedes-Benz manufactures pressed parts out of various types of steel and aluminium, which are then used for various purposes, including the production of compact vehicles. The logistics processes for these parts need to meet highly stringent quality requirements governing their storage, transshipment and transport.

Audi is the pioneer of climate-friendly logistics in Germany. Back in 2010, the carmaker collaborated with the Volkswagen Group’s logistics organisation to become Germany’s first company to switch to rail transport with green electricity — initially to transport finished vehicles, then also to transport materials starting in 2017.

Travelling across Germany by rail – electric, environmentally friendly and just in time. This is the solution that car manufacturer Opel chose for portions of its supplier transport. The new route is used to transport vehicle components for Opel, a subsidiary of the French Groupe PSA, and its new Grandland X SUV, which is available as a plug-in hybrid.

Before new export vehicle owners get to enjoy driving on the streets, the cars themselves often have to go on a journey first: the path overseas leads first to the freight train and then on board a ship.

Hardly anything is as fleeting as fashion. Changing trends, relentless price pressure and complex supply chains force distributors and brands to constantly check and renew their product lines. The latest trend to hit the fashion industry is sustainability.

Social shifts towards greater individualism represent a considerable challenge for the automotive industry. Flexibility is essential if the sector wants to meet customers’ demands. Similarly, a service provider such as DB Cargo Logistics has to keep evolving so it can keep up. With its new models and highly flexible, integrated solutions, the rail freight operator is laying the foundation for a successful future.

Every day, 2.5 billion people around the globe use Unilever’s products. The Dutch-British corporation markets over 400 different brands, making it one of the most important brand manufacturers in the world. At least one Unilever product can be found in 70% of German homes, thanks to smooth-running supply chains. To make sure everything arrives just in time, logistics experts such as DB Cargo start their work long before an actual delivery is scheduled to take place.

Packaging for every product, packaging becomes the product: this is the maxim behind DB Cargo’s work for Metsä Board. Starting at the port of Lübeck, the rail freight operator transports is customers’ goods across Europe and as far as Turkey.

DB Cargo Logistics has been transporting vehicle parts to Shenyang for years. Now, the agreement to supply the Chinese plant has been extended until 2022. DB Cargo's component transports supply two automotive plants in Shenyang in the Chinese province of Liaoning. These primarily produce sport utility vehicles (SUVs), which the Chinese market can't get enough of.

Wood is one of the most sustainable raw materials available, so it makes sense to use the most environmentally friendly form of transport to move it. The timber ports created by DB Cargo Logistics are just one of the ways the company makes this possible. The latest such facility recently entered service.o

Audi has started series production of its e-tron in Brussels. DB Cargo’s carbon-free transports for components and vehicles guarantee sustainability. The e-tron is Audi’s first step towards the future of e-mobility. In September 2018, the carmaker launched series production of its first fully electric car.

DB Cargo Logistics offers the automotive sector tailored, door-to-door concepts that connect battery factories with car plants. Carmakers are bringing out a growing number of battery-powered vehicles. The power source of these e-vehicles is a battery that weighs several hundred kilos. Having a reliable supply of these components is vital for the auto companies.

Europeans like to be prepared for anything that comes their way. They are increasingly buying large size sport utility vehicles (SUVs). This trend also has consequences for logistics providers in the automotive industry, who need to adapt their means of transport to the new vehicles. DB Cargo has now developed a wagon that can transport heavy cars.

Traditionally, DB Cargo Logistics has used two types of wagons to transport timber: open box wagons and stanchion wagons. With the customer PMG Holzhandels GmbH on the scene, there is now another option for supplying paper and pulp customers: the TiRex20 rack system.

The future of wood as a building material is looking bright. That particularly applies when the wood is transported by environmentally friendly rail, as evidenced by the collaboration between DB Cargo Logistics and binderholz. he aspiration of this Austrian company is clear and cuts right to the chase: bringing people, nature and technology into harmony with one another. They have been striving to do exactly this for more than 60 years.