“With a transit time of 23 days, the direct trains are more than twice as fast as maritime transport followed by transport to the Chinese hinterland,” says Dr. Karl-Friedrich Rausch, Member of the Management Board of DB Mobility Logistics AG responsible for Transportation and Logistics.

The route reaches China via Poland, Belarus and Russia. Containers have to be transferred by crane to different gauges twice – first to Russian broad gauge at the Polish-Belorussian border and then back to standard gauge at the Russian-Chinese border in Manzhouli.

DB Schenker Logistics, the logistics division of DB, has set up a new logistics center in northern Leipzig to supply BMW plants in Shenyang and Rosslyn, South Africa, with auto parts. Containers are loaded at the logistics center and then transported to the transshipment terminal by truck.

Some 8,000 different components from BMW supplier plants are received, packaged and loaded onto containers according to delivery requirements in the logistics center’s roughly 63,000 square-meter warehouse area. Sheet metal parts are also treated in Leipzig for maritime transport through different climate zones. Once the logistics center is operating at full capacity, around 50 containers will be able to be loaded daily. Schenker Deutschland AG is hiring 600 new employees for the center.

BMW sales in China are growing 29% p.a.