Together with Captrain, the European rail freight division of SNCF, and Vestas, the wind turbine manufacturer, Geodis Wilson recently managed the transportation of 55 metre-long megawatt wind turbine blades by rail. This unique blade-by-rail solution has never been operated in Europe before.
The reduction in transport time, costs and CO2-emissions has been significant.
At this early stage, we have already experienced a transport cost reduction of up to 15%, said Mette Heileskov Bülow, transportation chief specialist at Vestas.
Normally, the company would have used road transport to bring its huge wind turbine blades from a production facility in Lauchhammer, Germanyto the port of Esbjerg in Denmark. The journey would have taken 72 hours, involving nine trucks and 18 safety cars. The train between Lauchhammer and Esbjerg took only 20 hours.
The approach worked so well that SNCF Geodis and Vestas are now designing rail connections between Vestas other production facilities, research centres, warehouses and erection locations throughout Europe.
Geodis Wilson has already managed other breakthrough cargo operations for the wind energy sector, such as the record-breaking air freight shipment of 42 metre-long wind blades from China to Denmark. The new blade-by-rail concept was implemented together with STSI, the specialised oversize rail-cargo unit of Geodis Wilson, as well as Captrain and the respective rail track owners in Denmark and Germany.
