Prihláste sa na odber noviniek
From the forests of Central Europe to the constructions in Africa. Such is the journey of wood, where the main role is played by a company headquartered in the south of Slovakia, near Lučenec. ZSSK CARGO is playing a vital role in every part of the important logistics chain of PRP Tomášovce.
The quadruple roaring of diesel engines resonates on a single-track railway line, the so-called southern corridor of Slovakia, connecting Zvolen and Košice. Up to four locomotives class 736 pull and push its load of roundwood from Bohemian-Moravian Highlands to the Podpoľanie region, where their journey stops ten kilometres before the town of Lučenec. In Tomášovce station, wagons will be transferred to PRP railway siding, where roundwood will be added to the 710,000 m3 of wood processed here annually.
With a 25-year tradition and over 300 employees, PRP is a rising star of the Slovak wood-processing industry. Its rough sawn timber products such as boards, planks, posts, and beams, or roofing battens can be found mainly on the north African market. You can find them inside the buildings there – from trusses to floorings. All of this would not be possible without a consistent flow of raw materials and the export of secondary, as well as primary products. And on both sides of this chain, you can find ZSSK CARGO. Groups of wagons with roundwood from Slovakia
PRP Tomášovce processes around 4 – 5 trains with wood per week. This covers around 40% of all their timber supplies. Wood on rail is heading to the plant by a company siding leading here from Tomášovce station ZSSK CARGO performs this service. Single wagonloads, groups of wagons, as well as block trains, arrive at this station. Groups of wagons originate in Slovakia. Most loading stations are situated at Horehronie, Kysuce, Orava, Liptov, and Považie regions, with frequent shipments also arriving from the surroundings of Žarnovica. ZSSK CARGO gets these shipments by common trains formation to Zvolen, where local trains deliver the roundwood for processing. This segment is facing fierce competition from trucks, and canceling railway loading spots across Slovakia does not help either. All of that despite the potential of growth. PRP itself aims to increase the share of rail from 40% to 80%. And, in addition, to increase the overall volumes. This year, the company targets processing 800,000 m3 of wood, while in 2024 the plans go as far as 1.2 million m3.
Block trains with roundwood from Czechia
Due to a large bark beetle calamity in Czechia, this market has been offering price-competitive round softwood timber for several years now. Block trains with timber thus head from Czechia to Tomášovce too, mainly from the surroundings of Frýdek-Místek, Olomouc, Jihlava, or Brno. As the calamity moves north, the regions of origin change too. Yet, block trains face the problem of a non-electrified line between Zvolen and Lučenec. Sharp inclines to the Lovinobaňa station must also be conquered by fuel trains shuttling between Stožok and Kapušany pri Prešove. It is a challenge for heavy loads and thus four locomotives on a single train are no exceptions.
Woodchips to Austria
When sawing wood, there are secondary products created – sawdust and woodchips. Although both of these products are not the main objective of the production, they still can be very useful. The heat generated by their combustion is valued for drying sawn timber before deliveries to customers. But there is more sawdust and woodchips produced than needed for this single purpose. This is where ZSSK CARGO locomotives spring into action with intermodal platform wagons with special open-top Innofreight containers on them. They can be easily manipulated by a heavy-weight forklift, and, similarly to sawdust and woodchips from Liptovský Hrádok, also from here loaded trains head south-west, to Austria. The end customers are pulp manufacturers who value this secondary raw material, turning it into pulp to cover the global rising demand for it. Fully loaded trains depart from Tomášovce with at least two diesel locomotives (usually class 746) towards the town of their home depot – Zvolen. Here, they are replaced by an electric locomotive class 240, nicknamed “laminátka”. It will transport the load via Levice, Šurany, and Galanta all the way to the capital, Bratislava. In its Petržalka border station, the train is taken over by Austrian colleagues for the second leg of the journey. In this station, two branches of sawdust and woodchips merge – the one from the Liptov region and the one from the Podpoľanie region.
Finished goods to Africa
At the PRP siding, there are not only timber wagons and intermodal wagons with Innofreight containers. ZSSK CARGO helped PRP to export almost 40 block trains of finished goods, loaded in sliding-walls covered wagons. Sawn timber can be loaded by heavy-duty forklifts directly into these wagons and then head for the Slovenian Port of Koper. Here, the sawn timber is loaded onto ships crossing the Mediterranean to the main export markets of northern Africa. In countries like Algeria, Morocco, or population-growing Egypt, they have no renewable resources in the form of forests. They are fully dependent on imports of sawn and construction timber. And Slovak company PRP Tomášovce is a success story of how this hunger for goods can be satisfied.
