Dachser has coordinated the transport of a 60-tonne autoclave from North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany to Bangalore in southern India.

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Image source: Dachser

The company’s teams in Germany and India worked together to handle the machinery, which measured over 15 m in length and had a diameter of more than 5 m.

After extensive preparation and planning, the autoclave left the plant in Coesfeld near Münster and arrived by flatbed truck in nearby Lüdinghausen. There, it was loaded by a 450-tonne mobile crane onto an inland vessel, which transported the unit by river to Antwerp, Belgium. From there, the cargo traveled as breakbulk on a container ship to Chennai, India – a voyage that took 21 days.

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Image source: Dachser

In Chennai, Dachser India team took control of the shipment. It was responsible for coordinating the 350 km journey from the port to the customer’s site in Bangalore.

Dachser India organised permits with the city administration to reload the cargo onto a low-loader. All 28 tyres of the vehicle were also replaced to allow it to pass through railway underpasses.

In front of the plant itself, concrete separation blocks had to be removed so that the vehicle could turn around and excavation pits in the plant were filled in to allow delivery.

The entire two-week journey in India was supervised by a separate escort vehicle.