Salt on rails: Donau Chemie looks to the future with innovative equipment

Transporting large quantities of salt from A to B poses very special challenges: salt sticks to the wagon during loading and unloading and its corrosive properties put a strain on the wagon material, both on the inside and on the outer surfaces. As a result, salt wagons age quickly and have to be repaired or replaced more often than other wagons. To counteract this and increase the longevity of the equipment, RCG, in collaboration with innovative equipment companies and Donau Chemie, has designed a robust TALNS wagon, which is one of the most modern wagons in Europe. Companies such as Donau Chemie benefit from this and are thus driving the shift from road to rail even faster.

Unloading at the touch of a button

The first brand-new TALNS wagons were handed over directly at the Donau Chemie plant in Brückl (Carinthia) in the spring and are already in use. They are extremely robust to cope with the raw material salt and also offer many other advantages: for example, unloading is semi-automatic at the touch of a button using pneumatics, which significantly reduces the workload and strain on employees and also makes a significant contribution to increasing work safety.

Specifically, RCG transports the entire salt requirement, which was previously mainly transported by road, from Koper in Slovenia and Ebensee in Upper Austria to the Donau Chemie plant in Brückl. This contributes to a considerable reduction in CO₂ emissions. This exemplary supply concept represents an important step towards a "modal shift" - i.e. the transfer of freight transport from road to rail.

This video is available on YouTube with English and German subtitles.
 

Major player in the chemical industry

The Donau Chemie Group, a family business and leading company in the chemical industry, is active in twelve countries worldwide. The group focuses on the development and production of industrial chemicals, which are used in many industrial processes and applications, as well as the distribution of chemicals in Central and Eastern Europe. In the field of environmental technology, the Donau Chemie Group produces activated carbon as well as precipitants and flocculants for the treatment of water. For over ten years, Donau Chemie has relied on RCG's logistics expertise for the reliable supply of its production sites - and in the spring, salt transport was significantly expanded with the new wagons.

Cooperation with a role model function

The long-standing cooperation between Donau Chemie and the Rail Cargo Group impressively demonstrates that economic efficiency and sustainability can harmonise perfectly in logistics. The key to this lies in a customised transport solution with state-of-the-art equipment. Thanks to the innovative TALNS wagon technology, the switch to rail transport made economic sense for both sides despite the erosive properties of salt and is a step towards CO2-reduced logistics solutions that sustainably reduce the burden on the environment. Because their success shows that they are on the right track, Donau Chemie and RCG have extended their co-operation for a further ten years.

25.11.2024