Taiyuan, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) — On the 13th, China Railway Taiyuan Group released information that a train consisting of 8 railway refrigerated containers, loaded with 232 tons of fresh corn kernels, departed from Pingwang Railway Station in Datong, Shanxi, heading to Nanning South Station nearly 3,000 kilometers away. This marks the launch of a new model of railway refrigerated container transport in Shanxi Province, providing a new logistics solution for the transportation of agricultural specialties and other perishable goods.
Shanxi initiates railway refrigerated container transport. Photo provided by China Railway Taiyuan Group.
It is understood that the total amount of corn kernels to be shipped this time is about 500 tons, all of which are fresh corn just harvested from northern Shanxi and central-western Inner Mongolia. They are important raw materials for producing corn ham sausages and have extremely high requirements for transport timeliness and freshness preservation. To meet the customer’s transportation needs, the Datong Railway Logistics Center of China Railway Taiyuan Group and the Beijing Branch of China Railway Special Cargo Logistics Co., Ltd. carefully formulated a transportation plan, deploying for the first time in Shanxi an unattended 40-foot refrigerated container unit to ensure the goods remain fresh throughout the entire journey, achieving “one container to the destination”.
According to Li Zhaokun, Chief Business Clerk of the Taiyuan Operation Department of China Railway Special Cargo’s Beijing Branch, the first batch of refrigerated cargo was transported using an “8+1” method, meaning 8 forty-foot refrigerated containers plus one generator van. This type of refrigerated container has low self-weight, high load capacity, and fast cooling speed. It can precisely control the temperature between -30°C and +30°C, fully meeting the requirement of transporting this batch of goods at -18°C. It also allows for remote monitoring and control, ensuring the safety of the goods, and is suitable for large-volume, long-distance cold and fresh cargo transport both domestically and internationally.
To ensure the timeliness of the refrigerated container transport, Pingwang Station of China Railway Taiyuan Group promptly and accurately grasped the loading and marshalling situation of the refrigerated cars, and strengthened the on-site organization of shunting for pickup and delivery, as well as operational supervision. Zhang Xin, the shunting foreman at Pingwang Station, said, “We adopted an operational model of priority marshalling, priority shunting for /delivery, and priority dispatch to ensure the fast and smooth transportation of the refrigerated containers.” Railway refrigerated container transport offers advantages such as all-weather operation, less susceptibility to road conditions, large unit transport volume, stable timeliness, and low comprehensive logistics costs. It plays a significant role in promoting the shift from road to rail (“road-to-rail”) and the conversion from bulk to containerized transport (“bulk-to-container”), which can further enhance the production and sales competitiveness of perishable goods.
Ma Jun, Deputy Director of the Datong Business Department of the Datong Railway Logistics Center, introduced that the corn transported this time is an important ingredient for making corn ham sausages. “By deploying refrigerated container transport, we fully met the requirements of long transport distance, tight timelines, and high demands for freshness preservation and taste. This also provides new transportation support for more agricultural specialty products to access distant markets in the future.” (End)
