At the beginning of January 2019, three trainees from the KUBE & KUBENZ branch in Bergheim, accompanied by a dispatchers, made a trip to Cologne, where they were able to take a look behind the scenes of the terminal operation Köln Eifeltor, one of the largest container stations in Europe. Every day, four crane runways tranship up to 1,200 TEU between trucks and trains at the terminal.

A local representative of Kombiverkehr AG guided the visitors through the area of the freight station and showed them the daily processes involved in handling the containers. At the same time, he addressed some of the most common challenges that can arise when interacting with truck drivers, which can delay handling at the terminal. For the trainees of the dangerous goods logistics forwarder, this was important information, not only for their own training, but also for their understanding of future cooperation with terminals, dispatchers and customers.

The trainees were particularly impressed by the crane runways, which easily move 20- and 40-foot containers weighing several tons from train to truck or vice versa. They were also able to take a close look at a new type of wagon, called lowered pocket wagon. This makes it possible to carry semi-trailers with a corner height of up to four metres, which otherwise can only be transported on routes with correspondingly extended tunnel heights. The pocket wagons are used in particular on routes to Italy, where there are several lower tunnels. "The tour of the terminal was an impressive opportunity to follow the multimodal journey of the goods transported by our forwarding company and to see the daily work from a different perspective," said Janik Murkowski, trainee at KUBE & KUBENZ.

At the end of the tour, the visitors watched as a finished train with two KUBE & KUBENZ containers was brought to the forecourt station, from where it will continue its journey. KUBE & KUBENZ regularly undertakes excursions such as this one as part of its training as a forwarding and logistics services specialist.