Environment-friendly rail traction

One major benefit of rail transport over road transport is that large volumes of goods can be grouped together over long distances. The capacity utilisation of a train can be very high in day-to-day business, yet it uses up less energy per tonne per kilometre and produce lower volumes of pollutants than road transport. However, IGS Intermodal does not stop at this point. IGS rail traction in collaboration with our partners primarily involves the use of electric locomotives of the latest generation, as they have a high level of energy efficiency, among other benefits. Thus, when braking, 15% of the energy that is created is recuperated and fed back into the power grid.

Also, the locomotive provides the driver with information and recommendations on optimising energy consumption. Furthermore, train drivers are given regular training on energy savings, for instance, so that they can switch to letting the train coast along when approaching a downward gradient or a foreseeable stop. When the train makes brief stops, all auxiliary modules that are not needed are switched to energy-saving mode.

The locomotives that are used for IGS Intermodal trains have a higher payload than many conventional types of locomotives. This is particularly important for topographically demanding routes between Germany’s seaports and southern Germany, making it possible to achieve better capacity utilisation in terms of each train’s ratio between length and payload.

High proportion of renewable energy sources in the traction power supply.

Another benefit that makes this mode of transport so environment-friendly is the generation of the traction power. The share of renewable energies in producing traction power in Germany was around 57% in 2018 and therefore clearly above average compared with other public power supplies. (Source: DB AG)

Low noise emissions.

In addition to energy consumption and pollutant emissions, the perceived noise level also plays a major role in assessing environment-friendliness. The locomotives that are used by IGS Intermodal on its routes all have noise-reducing disc brakes. In addition, the electric locomotives also use their traction motors to support braking operations, which reduces both noise emissions and wear and tear. As a result, the locomotives are significantly below the specifications of the European standard TSI Noise ¹).

1.) TSI = Technical Specifications for Interoperability (an interoperability standard for rail traffic within the European Economic Area)