Trenitalia Cargo, part of Italian rail operator FS Group, has jointly launched a rail freight service with Europorte France. The service will provide direct transport links within France using Italian train drivers between Ambérieu and the border town of Modane, covering a distance of 200 km.

This link will be rolled out on the basis of five return freight loads per week, representing a total tonnage of 450,000 tonnes per annum, the equivalent of approximately 30,000 freight lorries. In particular, the service is to target the traffic of grain from silos in France to supply the Italian food processing industry. To this end, new intermodal services are intended to be launched at a later date.

The launch of these new services will enable FS Group’s Trenitalia to maintain a strong presence in France. This is the first time a large railway company will operate services on the French network directly using its own drivers.

(Source: Trenitalia, FS Group)