Europe to Launch New Rail Connection Italy-Hungary-Romania to Facilitate Turkish Cargo Flow to EU

The new rail freight service will connect the Melzo railway junction east of Milan with the BILK terminal in Budapest and the Arad terminal in Curtice. The main advantage of this initiative will be for traffic from Turkey, according to Railfreight. The Curtici terminal will become a hub for Turkish cargo bound for Italy.

The new service will be operated by Hannibal, a multimodal subsidiary of Contship. The plan calls for two weekly trips in the same direction, with a journey time of approximately 48 hours. Eurogate Intermodal will handle the traction in Hungary and Romania, while Oceanogate will operate the Italian route.

A similar initiative was previously launched in May 2023 with the start of a new service between the Melzo railway junction and the port of Trieste. Like the new Italy-Romania-Hungary connection, this service was also aimed at facilitating the flow of Turkish goods to Europe.

As reported by The Gaze, Romania and Ukraine have resumed container shipping on the Black Sea.

This is the first container service on the Black Sea since Russia's full-scale military invasion of Ukraine more than two years ago, and expands the limited service on the Danube River.