HHLA intermodal company Metrans receives its 40th multi-system locomotive

The HHLA intermodal company Metrans received its 40th multi-system locomotive from Bombardier Transportation in Prague. With it, the fully-owned rail subsidiary of Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG (HHLA) has expanded its pool to a total of 80 locomotives, and it can now react even more quickly and flexibly to changing market requirements.
 
The HHLA subsidiary Metrans is investing further in the enhancement of its product quality. The company doesn’t just rely on its own rail terminals, but also increasingly on its own traction fleet. This means that Metrans locomotives are pulling container trains through Europe. Metrans is thus expanding its opportunities for development and making itself an even more autonomous supplier of intermodal services. The delivery of the 40th Bombardier multi-system locomotive completes a series that began with the order of the first Bombardier locomotive in 2014.
 
The type TRAXX F140MS multi-system locomotives are specially designed for the different supply voltage and train protection systems – 15 kV and 25 kV alternating current and 1.5 kV and 3 kV direct current – in place across Europe, meaning they are suited for transnational European rail transport. Metrans will mainly be using the new locomotives for rail transport between the North Sea ports of Hamburg, Bremerhaven, Rotterdam and Antwerp, and the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary.
 
Metrans is one of the leading train operators in Europe and is the market leader for container transports in seaport-hinterland traffic with Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. The network of HHLA rail subsidiaries comprises 13 inland terminals in five Central and Eastern European countries. In the first six months of 2018 alone, the company carried 13,000 container trains through Europe. Until 2022, HHLA will provide Metrans with € 350 million in investment funds for new terminal facilities, locomotives and for the wagon fleet.