GERMANY: Hamburg-based leasing and logistics company VTG has created Retrack GmbH & Co KG as a wholly-owned freight operating subsidiary of its VTG Rail Logistics division, by renaming its former Bräunert Verwaltung and Bräunert Eisenbahnverkehr businesses.
Retrack emerged from the EU-backed four-year Reorganisation of Transport Networks By Advanced Rail Concepts project launched in May 2007 which saw operators, shippers and research bodies co-operate in an effort to simplify and improve the reliability of cross-border wagonload freight offerings.
VTG decided to take control of the project in 2014, after several partners withdrew. ‘With our Bräunert railway undertaking, which is approved through a railway operations management licence, we, and the partners that remained, organised the trains and assumed all the entrepreneurial risks associated with the business’, VTG Rail Logistics Managing Director Günther J Ferk explained when the rebranding was announced on November 2.
Retrack has applied for SiBe Part A national safety certification in Germany, which would enable it to apply for Part B international certification. Following an audit by TÜV Rheinland, VTG Rail Logistics is also certified to transport hazardous waste within Germany.
- The Retrack project was described in the September 2010 issue of Railway Gazette International magazine, which subscribers can access in the digital archive.
