LTG Cargo’s green transportation ambitions chime with EU aims

The Lithuanian cargo transportation company LTG Cargo is a subsidiary of the Lietuvos geležinkeliai group. It is continuing its active diversification of activities towards the West. The company provides freight transportation, logistics and forwarding, cargo loading, locomotive and wagon repair, wagon rental and other related service in Lithuania and abroad.

LTG Cargo has more than 1,900 employees, operates at three terminals in Lithuania, has a turnover of approximately €300 million, has more than 98% rail market share in Lithuania and around 52% market share in the Baltic states. Last year, it transported around 31 million tonnes of freight.

To expand in international markets, LTG Cargo has established subsidiary companies LTG Cargo Polska and LTG Cargo Ukraine, which respectively develop cargo transportation activities in Poland and Ukraine.

LTG Cargo carries out transportation on both 1,435mm and 1,520mm gauge railways. The experience gained from operating two standard railway gauges provides opportunities to develop business

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development projects and offers customers a wide range of routes both in Lithuania and neighbouring countries, and helps clients solutions to reach Western Europe or Asia. The company focuses on quality services, increased efficiency of operations and minimized costs to lead the sector to multimodal transportation.

LTG Cargo transports all types of commodities: metals, timber, mineral products, fertilizers, food and agriculture products, oil, containerized goods, intermodal transportation (semi-trailers and containers). It is also a strong and reliable partner for military cargo, and has the expertise to transport both normal and oversized freight.

The logistic activities of LTG Cargo are carried out by 179 owned mainline and shunting locomotives and more than 6,900 various types of wagons. Additionally, LTG Cargo Polska operate by 27 locomotives, of which 16 locomotives are electric, and 400 different type of wagons.

Green logistics are at the core of LTG Cargo its goals. The European Union aims, by 2030, to reduce road freight over 300km by 30, by shifting to other modes of transportation — for example, rail. LTG Cargo is therefore actively working on intermodal transportation solutions and to offer the clients incentive for this shift, as goods can be transported more sustainably and safely; it also helps solve the challenges raised by labour shortage.

Last year alone, LTG Cargo saved almost 70,000 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide by transporting customers’ intermodal cargo to the West. Moreover, it has already announced a special green calculator for its customers, which helps to estimate CO2 savings by transporting goods by rail.

In the near future, it hopes to add electric locomotives to its train fleet, which will allow freight to be transported without leaving any footprint on nature. Already today, all electric energy needed for LTG Group activities is generated from renewable sources.

This year, the LTG Group received its first assessment of progress in sustainability — the International Union of Railways UIC assessed the efforts of ‘Lithuanian Railways’ in achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals higher than the average of the world’s railway sector organizations (respectively, the result of LTG reaches 57.7%, when the overall average is 42.4%).

By focusing its Western diversification goals to intermodal transportation, LTG Cargo sees other modes of transportation as partners. With sustainability goals in mind, all transportation sectors must find a way to cooperate. Railways are the most sustainable transportation mode, but LTG

Cargo also focuses on working with both sea and road transportation companies, to develop its routes and services.

The company started developing intermodal projects in 2021 and now has two regular connections from Kaunas intermodal terminal to Duisburg, Germany, and with Slawkow and Warsaw in Poland. A route to Germany runs four times a week, and to Poland twice a week.

The Kaunas-Duisburg route is the backbone of LTG Cargo’s international operations, meaning it plans to establish new routes around it. One of the directions that it is looking into for new destinations is Italy. It also sees potential to expand to Great Britain, the Netherlands and to other countries. From another side it sees a lot of potential in renewing the Amber Train route, which would connect Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania for freight transportation by rail.

LTG Cargo is also continuing to provide best possible support to the country and Ukrainian clients. It is already transporting grain, sunflower oil, corn and petroleum between the countries through Poland. Grain is transported by containers through Mostyska2/Medyka, Jagodin/Darohusk and Trakiški/Šeštokai train stations to Klaipeda sea port, and oil is transported from Mockava to Ukraine.

With LTG Cargo Polska, the group has already started to provide freight transportation services between different parts of Poland, not only across it. Last year the Polish company started operating regular weekly trains on the new route Loconi–S ł awków–Gda ń sk, as well as providing cargo transportation services for one of the largest Polish poultry producers Cedrob. It ended the year by starting to transport coal from Klaipeda sea port to Poland. During last year the team of LTG Cargo Polska grew five times — up to 90 employees. In 2022 LTG Cargo Polska succeeded in transporting various freight in 583 trains. By the intermodal transportation effectiveness LTG Cargo Polska is already number 12 of 23 in Poland.