The loading of 600 tons of corn in Ukraine to be brought to Spain by train concludes

Sep. 17 () –

The Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda (Mitma) has completed the loading of the 600 tons of corn at the Ukrainian border and is preparing to start the return by train to Spain.

Specifically, the 25 40-foot containers of Renfe Mercancías, loaded with Ukrainian grain, will arrive in Barcelona before the end of the month, through the railway highway, which implies an approximate journey of 2,400 kilometers on the Chelm-Lodz route. – Duisburg-Barcelona Can-Tunis.

The train with the containers adapted to transport grain arrived at the Ukrainian border in the first week of September, but the complicated situation at the Chelm terminal, which is saturated, has forced the loading of the corn on Thursday, September 15, by the afternoon, concluding the process on Friday at noon, as detailed by the Mitma in a statement.

In this regard, he recalled that the conflict situation in Ukraine is causing an imbalance in the usual transport and logistics chains, generating unpredictable congestion situations, which have made the loading of Renfe Mercancías containers very difficult.

This pilot project seeks to analyze the capacity and viability of rail freight transport as a complement to the maritime transport of raw materials, using railway highways within the European Union (EU), more so in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine that led to the temporary closure of the Black Sea ports, blocking grain exports to the rest of Europe by sea.

In this sense, Mitma has highlighted that the initiative has shown that, in the current context, a great coordination effort is required from the different actors that participate in the process, the most complex point being the loading of cereal in the containers with ‘liners’ at the Chelm terminal, which is not specialized in transporting grain.

In the process, maritime containers with large special bags have been used to transport corn to increase grain loading capacity, since there are not enough special railway containers for cereal on the market to compensate for possible limitations in maritime exports, such as those experienced before summer.