Page 28 - Port of Hamburg Magazine 02.24
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PAGE 28 ALL-PURPOSE PORT PORT OF HAMBURG MAGAZINE 2/24
136 wheels for a locomotive
Gruber Logistics transported 25 locomotives from Kassel to New Jersey. Weighing around 200 tonnes per engine, there were quite a few obstacles to overcome until the cargo was loaded at the Port of Hamburg.
BY RALF JOHANNING
Anyone travelling between New Jersey and New York by train may find themselves in a railcar pulled by an engine from Kassel. The 25 “ALP-45DP DualPower” trains built by Alstom have all come a long way. The operation was a mammoth undertaking for Gruber Logistics. This is because the locomotives could not simply be transported to the Port of Hamburg via the German railway network. At 32 tonnes, their axle load
was far too heavy – clearly exceeding the 22.5-tonne limit permissible here. What’s more, the locomotives did not fit on the German tracks. The wheel profile and technical parameters in the US are different.
Consequently, the only possibility for transport was by road. “We began planning the logistics a year before the first transport. It tends to be a
© Gruber Logistics
