Coop: How to run longer and heavier freight trains?

Solna / SE. (coop) Coop Sweden has carried out a unique transport by rail. Together with the train operator TX Logistik and the Swedish Transport Administration, Coop in May carried out a transport with a fully loaded freight train with a length of 838 metres – more than 200 metres longer than normal. The train was loaded with Coop’s food products, which were transported from Malmö to Frövi. The test is part of a national development effort to move more freight from road to rail.

For the first time in many years, an 838-metre-long fully loaded freight train (wagon weight: 2024 tonnes) has been tested on Swedish railways. The train contained 24 wagons with 48 truck trailers, compared to Coop’s normal train with 18 wagons with 36 truck trailers. The run thus represented a 33 percent increase in capacity. The run was a test with the Swedish Transport Administration to investigate what is required for longer trains to be approved for regular freight traffic.

«At Coop, we have been transporting food and other goods by train since 2009. Today, more than 30 percent of our transport is by train in Sweden, but we want to transport even more by rail. An effective way to increase transport would be to get permission to run longer trains, so it was important for us to participate in this test,» says Peter Rosendahl, Transport Manager at Coop Logistik.

Rail transport is an efficient and environmentally friendly way to transport goods. For 13 years now, the Coop train has been running daily between Malmö in Skåne and Bro north of Stockholm, loaded with Coop’s goods. The train transports mean that Coop avoids nearly 17,000 truck transports annually, corresponding to carbon dioxide emissions of 9,600 tonnes or 20 percent of the climate impact Coop measures and reports each year.

«We have a good dialogue with Trafikverket on how we could increase the amount of transport by rail. For us, it would be an efficient way to extend the length of our trains and thus run more freight on the departures we already have. We have high hopes that we will be able to extend our trains in the near future,» says Peter Rosendahl.

The run took place on Sunday 08 May to Monday 09 May. The purpose of the test run was to measure the braking performance with a train length of approximately 835 metres, as a basis for allowing this train length in regular traffic. The cruising speed was 100 kilometers per hour, and braking tests from several different speeds were carried out at selected locations. The train ran from Malmö to Frövi, where the train was split up to run on to the Coop goods terminal in Bro (Photo: Coop Sweden).