DHL Global Forwarding is offering a new weekly rail connection for small volumes between Duisburg and Chengdu in China. It is the first eastbound rail service the company launches on the New Silk Road. 

The new DHL Railconnect LCL service addresses customers who are mainly shipping general cargo and want to leverage the reliable and fast transport service via rail. With a lead time of up to 29 days door-to-door between the main economic areas, the rail connection is faster than by sea and at more reasonable costs than via air freight.

Reliability

“With the extension of our service by a weekly DHL LCL rail service ex Europe, we are offering our customers a transport solution for LCL shipments from all over Europe to China. This allows also exporters of smaller volumes a reliable and proper planning of their supply chains. What has long been standard for air, sea and road transport is now also available for rail. We are filling an important gap and continue to expand our product portfolio to suit all shipment sizes with planned departure schedules for West- & Eastbound directions,” states Thomas Kowitzki, Head of China Rail, Multimodal Europe, DHL Global Forwarding.

Mostly shippers from the automotive, manufacturing and engineering and chemical sectors are leveraging the capabilities provided by the New Silk Road to ship everything from spare parts, components, and raw materials up to finished goods. However, with the increasing use of the rail services the demand for less-than-container load (LCL) solutions has also increased. The new DHL LCL service enables reliable supply chain planning while helping to meet ad hoc orders or production needs, the company pointed out.